


One-Man Army

by Captain_Pandamore



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Steve Rogers, BAMF Tony Stark, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Canon-Typical Violence, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic Avengers, Fluff, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Holy Musical Batm(angst; It's Angsty Now), Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mild Sexual Content, Panic Attacks, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Romance, Sick Tony Stark, Sickfic, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Suicidal Thoughts, Team as Family, Therapy, Time Travel, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2020-05-28 13:54:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 52
Words: 512,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19395511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Pandamore/pseuds/Captain_Pandamore
Summary: Takes place immediately after the Chitauri attack in Avengers 1.Steve is running himself into the ground.  Tony notices.Then Steve gets knocked down hard.  And Tony intervenes.





	1. INCEPTION

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and welcome to the beginning of a new and exciting chapter in my fic writing adventures!
> 
> Bold of me to open with a multichapter, I know. Really, this was going to be a one-shot. As it is, I'm not sure if it'll be two or three chapters, but I want to keep this project pretty contained as my first foray into the Avengers fandom. I have a much more ambitious multichapter in the works, and I'd like to avoid having two WIPs until I'm more settled.
> 
> I've been writing fanfiction for almost a decade now, but rarely have I been as excited to present an inaugural fic as I am this one. I hope you enjoy! I'll see you soon in part two.
> 
> Yours sincerely,  
> Captain Panda

Rogers loved to _fight_.

It wasn’t a workplace obligation; it was a fucking hobby. He was a wrecking ball, a hurricane in human form who could annihilate anything set in his path. (And not the cheap crush-smash-pound _annihilate_ , either: he wrecked them like a cosmic collision, immovable force meets mortal object.)

S.H.I.E.L.D. learned his dirty little secret quickly and sent him into the war zone as often as they could. Rogers wasn’t technically skilled—technical, in the original iteration of the word; it was laughable to think of Captain America as _unskilled_ —but he was a nuke in the pocket of whatever organization could keep him on a string. S.H.I.E.L.D. threw Rogers into battles like he threw his own shield, a boomerang arrangement that allowed ample freedom of movement.

That freedom was necessary for optimal results. In battle, Rogers was unpredictable, bulletproof. He didn’t throw blind punches; he dismantled his opponents with great intent. To be on the receiving end of that rage was horrifying, no matter how controlled. Rogers’ hit-to-kill ratio was high—he didn’t cut the thread if he could avoid it—but no one on the opposing team treated him as anything other than lethal.

You didn’t tranq or stun Captain America. You killed him, or you lost.

. o .

Of the members comprising the newly-formed Avengers Initiative, Tony had pegged Rogers as the most likely to go rogue. Banner was a pacifist, Romanoff’s skillset meant fighting hand-to-hand was either suboptimal or a sign the mission was about to go south, and Barton liked to keep his distance to take his shots. Thor liked to joust, but even he didn’t _lust_ for battle like Rogers did; he seemed perfectly content to let the world settle its own affairs.

(Maybe that was the kind of nonchalance you could afford if you had the power to truly shake the world. Not merely change it: _rock_ it, like a tidal wave, sweeping away anyone who got in his path.) 

Flicking through declassified S.H.I.E.L.D. footage of Cap in action, Tony could only conclude that Rogers made the _world_ his battlefield. Whether he was at home reducing a punching bag to its lowest common denominator or on the field backing his opponents into a corner they couldn’t hope to escape, he fought relentlessly.

At first, Tony had pegged his obsessive behavior as training, a broken compulsion to give his very best to S.H.I.E.L.D. But Rogers didn’t fight until he was tired, didn’t stop when others would have quit: he fought until he was on the verge of total physical collapse. It wasn’t just his job: it was his _identity_. Tony couldn’t imagine him slowing down, and Rogers didn’t give him any opportunities to see it. 

Their shawarma meet-up was the last time that Tony saw Rogers even look _tired_ for weeks after the Chitauri attack. To be fair, Tony hadn’t had much contact with him after the emergency crews had taken over; he couldn’t claim to be anything more than a casual acquaintance. At least they hadn’t parted as enemies. (Or so Tony liked to think—if only because the thought made it harder to sleep at night.)

Still: there was no rest for the wicked, and Iron Man remained a coveted asset in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s declassified wish list. (Declassified, but only in parentheses: Tony had yet to meet a security system he couldn’t hack.) Fury clearly wanted him back in the game, and while the Director had had the decency not to press the issue in the open following the Battle of New York, Tony had read between the lines. He knew that S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted a full-time Avengers _team_ at their beck and call. They were already halfway there with Barton, Romanoff, and Rogers. They seemed willing to cut their losses with the Good Doctor Jekyll and the ever-elusive Norse God, but they hadn’t ruled out Tony Stark as a potential prize. He could be their Swiss Army knife, and they _wanted_ him.

 _It’s good to want things_ , he thought uncharitably, taking a long gulp of his drink to burn the ugly taste from his mouth, looking out at the dark city, idly wondering what kind of view Rogers had. 

At least Cap had kept the hounds away from Tony’s doorstep. No S.H.I.E.L.D. lackeys had turned up in any ill-gotten attempts to woo him of late. It was only _fair_ that they leave him alone. After all, Thor was off-world, Banner was absent-without-leave, and Barton and Romanoff had slipped back into their S.H.I.E.L.D. roles without so much as a thanks-for-all-the-fish. Tony had served his country, had _saved_ New York City, and he owed them nothing more. He had given them more than they’d ever given him. They’d rejected him for irredeemable character flaws. 

He wasn’t about to sign a blank check of forgiveness. Let them _want_.

Besides, they had their token savior. Rogers even dressed the part, trussed up in red-white-and-blue. He marched to the tune of Fury’s fife, declarations of independence be damned. He was theirs to the bone, carved out of the same cloth as every other agent that walked through those doors. They could be greedy, licking their chops for more, but at least they had _him_. Loyal. Quiet. And emphatically theirs.

But they were fools. Because no matter outward appearances, Rogers was a wolf in man’s clothing, and he would never be leashed. Tony had spent a lifetime analyzing people: he knew when to lean in and when to cut loose, and Rogers was not the kind of person he tied his ship to. He was a bull who could and would break any yoke strung across his neck. He was not the kind of soldier who could be owned by anyone, not even S.H.I.E.L.D. If they had been any wiser and less greedy on that infamous Arctic expedition all those days ago, they would’ve left him in the ice. He was a time bomb, a trust test for an organization that thrived on the absolute opposite.

They had no handle on him. If he broke loose, they’d have a hell of a mess on their hands.

Luckily for them, he was uptight enough that Tony couldn’t imagine him entertaining a real coup. He took orders because it let him be where he wanted to be: right in the middle of blood, metal, and fire.

Tony wanted nothing to do with it. He’d had enough blood, metal, and fire for a lifetime.

Keeping a respectful distance from the action, Tony watched S.H.I.E.L.D. do what it did best from afar: move-and-shake its world. 

With Romanoff and Barton on the lineup, they hadn’t exactly been _idle_ , but with Rogers around, they’d grown decidedly _bolder_. A job that would have been suicidal for a group of five agents was suddenly the rational province of a super-soldier. S.H.I.E.L.D.’s wish list became a hit list.

He was their one-man army. He had a zero mission-failure rate.

But Tony knew that even the best streaks broke. The whole dynamic was, at best, unstable. S.H.I.E.L.D. had to see the inevitability of catastrophe, but that wasn’t the _point_. They didn’t care about the finish line; they only wanted to get the most out of Captain America before he clocked out for good. If they got ninety days or ninety years, then so be it—they’d take it all, and not a single day less. 

Compelled for reasons indiscernible, Tony had spent a handful of sleepless nights looking over Rogers’ file, and the bitter truth was hard to avoid. 

Not only did S.H.I.E.L.D. _know_ how dangerous the arrangement was; they weren’t even doing a passing job _pretending_ differently. It was clear that he wouldn’t be around in six months. Not one mission was scheduled for the nine-month benchmark. 

The morbid silence at the year-mark was damning. The day Rogers took a three-month holiday was the day Tony Stark ate his own words.

When—not if, but _when_ —Steve Rogers died in the line of duty, they would simply return to business as usual. 

And if Rogers wasn’t so blind to the sinister context that his noble missions were set in, he would have walked away while he still could.

Of course he wouldn’t, Tony thought in disgust. It was Rogers’ entire personality: _soldier_. He wasn’t a combatant because there was a war. The war only fed a hunger, an animal _need_ for action. It didn’t matter if the whole arrangement was morbid. They were, all of them, adults, making their own decisions. Tony remained his own boss, and that was all he wanted out of life: freedom of movement. 

Rogers could kill himself for the greater good. Tony could live with that.

He could, he insisted, even if he stared too long at that black eye that Cap shouldn’t have had, Rogers’ vitriol sharp enough that Tony realized being smart with him would only give him a matching one. It was ridiculous to worry: the bruise had been gone the next time they’d seen each other. Tony entertained, not lightly, that Rogers was probably such a stubborn fuck that he would _refuse_ to die. There was absolutely nothing to worry about. Even entertaining the impossible, Tony knew that he could live with Rogers’ death because _they weren’t friends_. Work-proximity associates could surely express concern over one another’s well-being. 

If Tony happened to notice that Rogers seemed more tired every time he saw him, at least he could comfort himself that it was only a general sense of compassion that fueled such thoughts. It wasn’t a personal feeling. It was a general observation, like the fact that it was going to rain that afternoon. Nothing more.

No matter what, Tony resolved, he wasn’t going to attend Rogers’ funeral. It was Rogers’ prerogative to get himself killed before his thirtieth birthday. They would all get used to a new, new normal. Tony was at total peace with the idea, as blatantly demonstrated by the way he halted in the doorway to the conference room and stared at the empty chair where Rogers always sat before about-facing without a word. 

Rogers’ death was a hypothetical. It could not _actually_ happen. 

His visceral absence could not be treated as reality, as _permanent_.

The mere notion that he could die was laughable, and worrying about him was a fool’s errand. People couldn’t be changed, and Rogers, Rogers loved to fight. He _lived_ to fight. It was his way of expressing emotion, of venting rage and need and something more yearning. There was a masochism to it, but no enjoyment—only a yearning for something that wasn’t the same. For a feeling of being alive.

Tony wondered how well he slept at night. Then he shuddered at the thought that Rogers _didn’t_.

Once, while sitting opposite him in the conference room some days after the Chitauri attack—yet years, it seemed, since Rogers began campaigning on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s suicidal behalf—Rogers gave him a long silent look, an odd look that dared him to say something. That it was crazy, that it was dangerous, that it was _wrong_. But there was something dangerous in the air, something wrong in the answer. Valuing his unbroken nose and the art of keeping it out of other people’s personal business, Tony held his gaze and kept his silence. Admitting the non-answer as an answer in itself, Rogers let the silence fade into conversational small talk, and the moment lapsed mercifully into obscurity.

It would have, Tony reflected, rubbing his brow, if his memory wasn’t so good.

Maybe they could have been friends, had some _real_ rapport, if he could have bantered with the man. But Rogers refused to banter, refused to play along, be part of a _team_. He was always _on_ , always in _uniform_. It was exasperating, revolting, even. No one could work all the time, but Rogers was trying to.

 _Digging your own grave_ , Tony thought, reaching for the bottle again.

It was the life Rogers wanted. Who was Tony to stop him?

Toasting to the stubborn bastard’s health, Tony let the alcohol sizzle over him.

. o .

Rogers was moving rather stiffly this morning, Tony noticed, as Old Reliable himself sidled over to his seat at the otherwise-empty conference table.

Leaning his shoulder against the opposite wall, Tony debated justifying his own presence before deciding he didn’t care what Rogers thought. He had no reason to be there, but he’d made a point of stopping by, in an ongoing and insofar futile effort to catch him with his proverbial pants down. Rogers never indulged him, prim and proper as always. There was nothing humoring in his dark-eyed expression today. Tony could read the room; he knew it would be better to turn tail while he still could. 

He held his ground. 

Conversationally, he opened, “Do you live here?”

Rogers looked up at him with wolf eyes. His line of sight was moody, unreadable. Coolly, he cut through the small talk: “What’re you doing here, Stark?”

Ignoring the silent petition for solitude oozing from his side of the table, Tony replied in willful cheerfulness, “Well, since you asked so _nicely_ , I’m here to ask why you’re throwing yourself into suicide missions.”

Rogers narrowed his eyes, conveying a strong air of deflection, of shuttering-off. His voice wasn’t much deeper, but Tony heard the verbal safety switch off the gun as he rumbled in blatant dismissal, “Director Fury wants to talk to you.”

Bluntly, Tony headed off: “That’s nice.” He wasn’t there to indulge Fury. In the same devil-may-care tone, he breezed onward. “I came to see _you_ , actually. Rumors of the whole living legend thing aren’t really enough for me.” Boldly, he took a seat at the table, albeit a respectful ten feet away. Rogers didn’t move an inch, but Tony could see his proverbial hackles rising. “So. How’s the family?”

This time Rogers ignored him completely, returning his attention to the folder in front of him. Old-fashioned as he was, it was on paper.

Switching tactics, Tony lowered his voice and pointed out in a quieter tone, “You know, you can ignore me all you want, but you can be damn well sure no one here is gonna shed a tear if you drop dead."

“Good.” He didn’t even look at Tony; so predetermined was the answer.

Tony blinked. Sat back in his chair. Measured his next words. “So that’s it, then.”

Rogers looked up at him coolly. “What do you want, Stark?”

Refusing to be deterred, Tony pressed on, “That’s the point, isn’t it? You _want_ to disappear.”

Rogers narrowed his eyes. Exasperation and fury bunched in his shoulders, a dangerous combination in a dangerous man. With a twangy snap to his voice, he retorted, “Stark, if the war ground to a halt every time a soldier dropped dead, we’d never win.”

“The war,” Tony repeated, testing the words. “You know we _won_ that, right?”

Rogers’ eyes darkened, visibly shuttering off. Abruptly, he turned the folder around and sent it flying across the table. It landed perfectly in front of Tony. Guy had reflexes like no one’s business, Tony thought quietly, looking down at the papers obligingly. He saw a man he didn’t recognize in the foreground and a name he very much did in the upper right corner. _Hydra_. “Did we?” Rogers challenged coldly.

To that, Tony had nothing meaningful to say.

. o .

Captain America’s kill count was low, but it wasn’t zero.

Tony had J.A.R.V.I.S. keep an eye on it, as he did everything Cap-related. He kept track of the green number that ticked upward like it was his own pulse. He wasn’t afraid of Rogers, but he was very aware of him, even when they weren’t on the same continent. 

Tony was content trying to live a relatively normal life, but Rogers was on the verge of going supernovic. Tony knew it was only a matter of time before the inevitable collapse, but he still didn’t _want_ it to happen, didn’t even want to watch. Mostly, he didn’t want Rogers to crash and burn, period.

No one at S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to lose sleep when it happened. It was like Rogers said: in their eyes, they were at _war_. Casualties were currency, money to be spent. Captain America was an impressive asset, but to them he was one weapon. They threw him like a grenade, ready to accept the loss. Yet to their delight and constant hubris, he kept coming back for more. Restless. _Hungry_.

Tony almost couldn’t watch, but he found himself staring at the glowing green number—7—wondering when Rogers would take it too far.

. o . 

Appallingly, no one told Tony when it told happened.

For four beautiful days, no one seemed to want him at S.H.I.E.L.D. That was fine by him. He enjoyed his weekend, unwinding for what felt like the first time since the Chitauri attack. But by Tuesday morning, his good fortune broke: Fury called.

Tony couldn’t say he was _surprised_ that Fury wanted him to stop by, but he _was_ disappointed. With a patience bred from a rare good night’s sleep, he petitioned the man jauntily, claiming everything from prior engagements to ill health. Twirling an invisible phone cord around his finger, he lounged upside-down in a chair and imagined steam venting out of Fury’s ears. It made him smile. Fury didn’t back down, so Tony conceded to stop by around noon.

Then he proceeded to lollygag for several hours, enjoying lunch with Pepper, sketching a handful of Iron Man suits, even uncorking a nice Merlot before J.A.R.V.I.S. reminded, “Sir, the appointment with Director Fury?”

Long gone, Tony thought, as he checked his watch. Pleased by his own tardiness, he suited up and zipped off to S.H.I.E.L.D., landing outside the chrome-colored gates in minutes.

At first, nothing tipped him off. The lobby was pristine, elevators depopulated, hallways subdued. Nearly at the conference room, Tony couldn’t help but think that the whole exercise was excessive. Couldn’t they go a full week without speaking? he mourned. Of course, he may have been planning a social visit to check in on Old Reliable anyway, but that was different. This was _Fury_. And Fury needed to understand that he wasn’t interested, no matter how cool Fury’s super-secret boy band was (and oh how Romanoff had pinned him down for that one, with an icy gaze that _had_ _killed_ lesser men).

Prepared to make the same arguments he had made before, he rolled his suitcase into the room, took in its occupants, and announced, “If it isn’t my two favorite people.”

Fury sat at the head of the table, looking up from a tablet with all the expectation of a monk interrupted during a nine-hour meditation. Rogers lounged almost insolently three seats to his right, none of the stiff-backed shoulders Tony expected, slouched like he wasn’t expecting Tony to actually _show_. 

Well, Tony thought, puffing out his own chest, let it never be said that the big man didn’t _show_.

With what seemed less economy of movement than expected, Rogers straightened. He didn’t grimace, but he moved slowly and stiffly, and Tony felt sobriety wash over him, an uneasiness deep in his subconscious. Coldness seemed to seep into the room. _Something is not right here_.

Tempted though he was to slide on his suit and get a better read on him, Tony stuffed down the urge. Rogers was fine. Rogers was _fine_ , he repeated, ignoring the itch that demanded that he pay attention.

Taking a seat at the opposing head of the table, he glanced between stiff-backed Rogers and somewhat less stiff-backed Fury, seated incongruously on Rogers’ left-hand. “Fury.” A beat. “Rogers.”

“Stark,” Rogers echoed coolly. He spared a dispassionate glance for Fury, who stood up without a word. It was unusual, borderline unsettling, Tony thought, to see him visibly annoyed at the Director. To his credit, Fury didn’t flinch under the cold scrutiny. 

“I’ll let you two talk,” the Director rumbled. 

Rogers didn’t snarl, but his eyes tensed around the corners, an argument in the firm lines of his jaw. Uncharacteristically, he didn’t stand or acknowledge the Director’s departure in any way.

As soon as Fury was gone, Tony asked bluntly, “What happened?”

Rogers didn’t budge. “How was your weekend?” he redirected coolly.

For once, Tony ignored the easy way out. “I asked you a question.”

He caught a flash of teeth, an abortive little snarl that never fully manifested. It was barely there, but the raw animosity in Rogers’ expression was still enough to trigger the response embedded in Tony’s reptilian brain that was reserved for big cats lurking in the underbrush. Unease congealed in Tony’s stomach. 

Deceptively calm, Rogers quipped slowly, “I don’t take orders from you.”

Rightly, Tony pointed out, “That wasn’t an order.” No one could out-semantic the _king_.

Rogers looked away. Abruptly, he seemed supremely tired of the whole thing, the angry lines around his eyes melting into tense lines, tired lines. “We gonna do this all day, Stark?”

“Depends.” Daring to be nonchalant, Tony folded his arms on top of the table. “Fury doesn’t do social calls, so I’m here for a reason.” Nodding at Rogers, he added calmly, “You’re the reason.”

Rogers didn’t look at him. “He didn’t say anything?”

Tony shook his head, holding his silence. His curiosity was a burning thing, but he didn’t want to press too hard, to risk losing a chance when he saw it. The picture of non-threatening, he put his chin on his arms, waiting patiently for more.

Rogers spared him a glance. For a moment, he still seemed angry, ready to lash out. Then the wave passed over him: his shoulders dropped, and the urge to fight evaporated. Tony had never seen him approach defeat before, and the sight disarmed him more than he thought it would, seeing the indomitable super-soldier pinch-faced and weary. 

He looked paler than normal, too, Tony noticed belatedly. On the verge of a quiet collapse, the kind of collapse that Tony had feared. It had never seemed quite so real before, never seemed possible until it was right in front of him. 

Maybe Rogers wasn’t _happy_ with Fury, but he at least kept up the insuperable soldier act with him. With Tony, he didn’t take orders, but he’d conceded one thing. 

_At ease, soldier_.

Itching with the energy in the room, torn between fleeing and advancing, Tony dared to say, “You know, I’ve always preferred awkward conversations over food.”

Rogers didn’t respond. He was too worn, too beaten. The sight was so unsettling that Tony was tempted to push him, to get back to ground that was familiar. Rogers had hung up the shield, but he could have his guard back up in an instant, Tony knew. 

If he pushed, Rogers would push back.

Abruptly, he didn’t want that. So he let it go. 

He breezed on, “Wanna blow this Popsicle stand?”

To his surprise, Rogers nodded.

Tony waited, but Rogers didn’t move. He hung in space with all his strings cut, his fighting spirit abruptly on hold. Uneasy, Tony prompted, “Cap?”

That got him moving. Reassuringly, Rogers smoothed back his chair and planted a hand on the table. He pushed himself to his feet. 

A less observant man might have missed the metal belt curled around his waist. 

It was silver like the suit. Blended in nicely, even, hugging close. Tony almost saw it as an aesthetic change, but there were metal arms on it, curved low on his flanks, bracing him in a way that seemed intentional. Far more disarmingly, Cap wasn’t standing up quite straight, the lines on his face more apparent, more drawn.

Cautiously, Tony stepped towards him. Rogers glared, a wordless _back off_ , but he didn’t say anything as Tony risked his face’s current configuration to approach. More curious than afraid, he reached out, a hand hovering over Cap’s hip. 

The intricate metalwork reminded him of a mesh net, a brace. He thought about touching it, but he stepped back instead, lowering his hand without a word. He felt suddenly small, like he’d missed something important.

Cap took one step forward. 

It was damning. 

He didn’t stumble or fall, but he moved with the kind of faltering normalcy Tony had come to associate with everyone other than Captain America. 

Captain America crossed the floor in great, smooth strides. He fought like a dancer. He had the physical dexterity to pull off maneuvers that would have left athletes ten years his junior breathing hard, struggling to mimic. Until he’d seen Cap in action, Tony had never thought _figure skater_ and _soldier_ could fit in the same breath. Cap was living proof.

He didn’t move easily now, though his steps were still measured. Belatedly catching up, Tony alighted beside him. He felt tempted to reach out and steady him, but he crushed down the impulse. Cap didn’t need to be steadied. 

It was wrong, Tony thought, to see him like this. He understood Rogers’ fury at the Director, all at once, his anguish at being seen so low. For a moment, Tony wished he _had_ chosen the easy way out, too, if only to grant him a graceful fall. But now he couldn’t. And he didn’t want to.

He fell into step behind Rogers. Plans to drag Cap off to a nameless hole-in-the-wall for a beer evaporated; too long, too exacting a journey for a man, Tony realized, who could barely walk. The journey to the elevators seemed daunting, but Cap said nothing and walked like he could do it forever, one methodical step at a time.

When they were in the elevator, though, things shifted. Cap leaned a hand against the railing, bracing his weight on it. There was a lot more tension in his expression, harder jaw, flatter gaze. He watched the numbers in the upper left corner very, very intently. Tony stood as far from him as possible, arms folded across his chest. He watched the numbers, too, dutifully ignoring him, the handle of the suit-case nearly burning a hole into his hand with the urge to put on its prize and zip out like nothing had happened.

He’d flown in, but Cap didn’t have a car, and he couldn’t . . . he couldn’t _leave_ him. Not when Fury had. He’d come too far, seen too much. He had to stick it out.

Cap had a bike, he knew, but Tony wasn’t about to ask him to drive home on it, wherever _home_ was. He also wasn’t about to fly home and pick up in one of his own cruisers—leaving him seemed dangerous, even for a brief time.

Leaving him seemed _crue_ _l_.

The elevator dinged and leveled. They stepped out into the lobby. Strong and steady, the pair of them, alone in the quiet.

 _Do you live here?_ Tony had asked snidely, passing through, but it seemed suddenly, sickeningly, like this _was_ Cap’s home. Maybe he had a crawlspace somewhere, a lease in name, but this was where he resided, where he spent his days.

His own self-imposed prison.

Fortunately for Tony’s passenger dilemma, S.H.I.E.L.D. had vehicles to spare underground. It was nothing for him to sign one out, take it for a spin. They didn’t talk as Tony hopped behind the wheel nimbly and Cap eased into the passenger’s seat, moving with great care. Tony had the distinct impression he was hurting, hurting _badly_ , so he flipped on the ignition and focused on talking his way past reality, refusing to acknowledge the wrongness of it all.

He was doing a reasonable job of ignoring everything, driving along and chatting to himself automatically. Before he’d fully committed to the idea in more than subconscious spirit, he was pulling into the parking garage underneath Stark Tower. Rogers said nothing, didn’t move an inch until Tony was already standing outside.

Alone in the semi-darkness of the parking lot, Tony watched him with open curiosity as Rogers finally followed suit. He moved slowly, with great economy of movement. Rogers’ stance hadn’t changed: he righted himself with tenderness but no hesitation. His steps were still precise, military, his posture as strong and swaggering as always. 

He was Captain fucking America, Tony berated himself, as he unconsciously waited for Rogers to crumple. 

He didn’t crumple. He didn’t stumble. He never would, not so long as he drew breath.

Tony still resented the steps between the car and the elevator, each one like an ice pick chipping away at Cap’s limping resolve. Hovering at his side, Tony waited in the wings and tried not to crowd him, afraid to scare him off. He was surprised at how much he wanted to keep this tentative peace between them, to keep him from disappearing for good. 

Filing that thought away for future contemplation, he punched in the balcony level unthinkingly. Rogers clamped both hands on the railing behind him, expression unreadable, exhaling deeply, silently, chest deflating like he could breathe again. 

The sun was setting and the city view was spectacular, but neither Rogers, slightly bowed, nor Tony, openly ogling him, paid it any attention as they rose. They breathed, silent, waiting, anxious.

When they arrived, they stepped out into the main room. Ambient yellow lighting automatically illuminated the space, which felt huge, suddenly, empty in a way it rarely did. Tony felt unexpectedly embarrassed by its expansiveness as he stood with Captain America at his side, waiting for his reaction, a reaction that was not coming. He wanted to justify it, but there was nothing to say, so he kept his silence, rocking on his feet.

Cap stood by, patient, silent. Waiting.

Breaking the ice, Tony waved a hand and said, “Make yourself at home.” 

He scurried over to the kitchen area without waiting for a response, needing a drink. Grabbing a bottle of his favorite cognac, he took a shameless swig from the bottle to rally his courage, then snatched a plastic-wrapped hunk of brie and turned back to face reality.

Cap had settled at the table, looking as unruffled as Tony had ever seen him, still in his raggedy old uniform, deep blue and sad-looking in the medium-warmth of the yellow lighting. 

Ambling over, Tony sat down across from him and set the cheese on the table, slightly closer to himself. It was fair: Rogers had a longer reach. 

Wordlessly, Tony took another drag directly from the bottle. Even though he hadn’t been raised in a barn, fetching glasses seemed like they would formalize the affair. He dared not do so, afraid to make any part of it seem real, _permanent_. To solidify that it meant nothing, he extended the bottle as it was to Cap, open and a quarter-empty.

He thought Cap might refuse, on principle, but to his surprise, Cap took it and drank exactly as much as Tony had. There was something infuriating about the exactness, but his expression didn’t betray him, blank as ever.

Breaking off a piece of cheese to distract himself, Tony chewed for a long moment and broke the ice: “Lumbar, right?”

Rogers frowned. "What?" 

Taking out a pair of dark sunglasses, Tony flicked them on and set them in place before looking right at him. They weren’t X-ray vision, far too simple for such complexities, but they helped highlight anomalies, using different shades of red, orange, and yellow to indicate disruptions, potential injuries. It wasn’t a full diagnostic, but it still offered a colorful visual of underlying trauma, even better than a direct visual.

The suit was better, but the view Tony saw was instructive. Angry red seared a line across Rogers’ lower back, blazing as hot as the scan would go, white in places. The brace kept things in order, the displacements fairly minimal, but it was clear that he was in a hell of a lot of pain, and barely hiding it.

The glasses told him other things, too, things Tony hadn’t noticed on the first pass. Rogers’ left palm was highlighted orange; Tony surmised it, too, had been broken recently and scarcely healed. 

But his back was fiery, furious. It hurt to _look_ at.

Tony lowered the glasses with clammy hands, stunned.

Rogers’ expression hadn’t changed, the picture of calm.

The words spilled out of Tony him without meaning to: “What’d they do to you, bud?” 

It was the same quiet tone that he would use with Rhodey whenever the latter was being dismissive of his own well-being, a rare quality in the most practical man he knew. But even Rhodey reached his limits sometimes and needed someone to check in on him, someone to take him by the shoulders and slow him down. Tony spoke not with cruelty, nor with blame nor anger, but simple sincerity.

Rogers watched him without blinking for a very long moment, measuring him, judging something unspoken in him, before he curled his right hand around the bottle again. He brought it to his lips, drank deeply, and waited for Tony to rebuke him as he set it down, looking at him with somber, heavy eyes. When Tony didn’t, he shut them for a moment. His fingers trembled against the bottle.

Silently, he tucked them out of sight.

Rogers didn’t give an inch.

 _He’s not Rhodey_ , a reasonable voice reminded Tony, quiet and impervious to the pain twisting in his chest, the awareness that nothing he did could undo what had been done. It was the same voice that had to remind him on a semi-regular basis that Captain America might be his teammate, but he wasn’t his friend, wasn’t anything more to him than a collaborator on the best days. 

Steve Rogers was an enigma wrapped in a war, frozen in ice, and Tony . . . couldn’t _read_ him.

Tony refused to budge. He briefly considered calling Rhodey—Rhodey would know what to say; Rhodey was reason incarnate _—_ but then, unexpectedly, Rogers cleared his throat.

He spoke softly. “It wasn’t their fault.”

Tony still flinched. 

He hadn’t expected the admission to hurt, but the way Rogers threw blame to the floor, refusing to point at those who had failed him so spectacularly was almost more than he could bear. Looking at a man who had been kicked so many times he could barely stand say, _It was not them_ , was nearly beyond him. He had to look. He had to see. He did not even know what could have broken Captain America so badly; surely, no mere blow would suffice.

“Things went sideways,” Rogers continued cryptically, answering him, in the same soft tone, like he didn’t quite want it to make it out into the world, be known. “I made it out. That’s all that matters.”

And that was when Tony had it. “You _broke_ your _back_ ,” he said, enunciating the words very clearly because it didn’t seem like Cap realized they were talking about the same collateral.

Cap stared at him mutely, his expression perfectly blank. Tony felt sick. He pressed him. “Were you just gonna walk it off?”

A flicker of irritation passed across Rogers’ eyes before he reached for and, again with trembling fingers, finished off the bottle, like he needed it to keep his temper in check. He set the empty bottle aside, then looked at Tony in mute question: _We done here?_ Like he could avoid the truth if Tony would let him go.

Tony couldn’t. Wordlessly, he got up and brought back an entire goddamn case, setting it down hard enough to make a point, a hard _thump_ that made Rogers’ eyes shutter over, crystallizing into something unreadable. “I can do this all night,” he declared sharply. 

He wanted to punch Rogers, suddenly, do anything, _anything_ to get more than that flat, guarded stare.

Stiffly, Rogers husked, “That’s my line.”

Tony made a disgusted sound before fumbling a bottle free for himself and drinking deeply. Rogers didn’t reach for it or the rest of the case. He waited.

The warmth of the brandy helped calm Tony down. He let his shoulders relax, trying to project calm so he would _feel_ calm. “I’m not above bribery,” he said at last, settling the bottle down between them pointedly.

Rogers looked at it. When he reached for it, Tony pinned his hand with his gaze. Rogers retracted his hand wordlessly before sitting up straighter, daring Tony to come after him. There was a glint of steel in his eyes, but he kept his mouth shut, refusing to cave. There was a price to be paid, and he wasn’t ready to cough up, not yet.

That was fine. Tony could be patient, too.

“If it were me,” Tony began, playing the dirtiest angle he could think of, “what would you do, Cap? _Just walk it off, Tony?_ ”

Rogers sighed. “Of course not.” He swiped the bottle before Tony could react, but he didn’t drink from it. He cradled it in his right hand, rolling it. His left, out of sight, had been broken recently and was still tender. Tony hated that knowledge. “It doesn’t concern you,” Rogers rumbled, looking down.

“You know, purely from a business standpoint, you’re _dead_ _wrong_ , Rogers.” Tony waited until Rogers looked up at him, surprise masked by blankness, before continuing sternly, “If S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn’t use you, they’d use me. I need you. You’re my shield.” Tony wanted to retract the statement as soon as the words were out of his mouth, but he couldn’t. He bulled on. “But frankly, I’m not looking at this from a business perspective.”

Rogers uncapped the bottle and took a defiant sip, refusing to bite, to parley. He set it down. Tony was on it in an instant, snatching it from his grip. Fight flared in Rogers’ eyes, but he let it go. Stepped back from it, leaning back in his chair, folding both arms across his chest, a glassy expression passing over his face. Curling inward.

Abruptly, the whole exercise felt cruel, like poking a wounded animal. 

Tony couldn’t quit. Because there couldn’t be a next time—there _wouldn’t be_ a next time. He wasn’t going to attend Steve Rogers’ funeral. “You’re done with these solo missions.”

Under normal circumstances, Rogers would have risen to the fight immediately, leaning into Tony’s space and telling Tony that he was welcome to _try_ to stop him, but he was too slow, lingering in his rigid, hunched posture. Tony pressed his advantage, pressed it _hard_. “No, I don’t wanna hear it,” he snapped. Rogers glowered at him, too polite to cut him off completely, nostrils flaring as he listened. “You’re done. I don’t care if you’re the Captain of the goddamn universe, you’re _done_ , Rogers.”

Rogers was silent for so long that Tony had the impression he would wait forever, outlast if not outmatch Tony.

At last, Rogers rasped, “Business, huh?”

Caught off-guard, Tony blinked once, twice, then cocked his head. He frowned, unsure, and Rogers . . . Rogers _smiled_ a little, a small, rueful smile. It was strange: Tony couldn’t remember _ever_ seeing Rogers smile, except once, after falling from the sky. He remembered lying on the concrete looking up at a man streaked heel to brow in soot, smiling brilliantly at the sky, like he’d gotten everything he’d ever wanted.

Steve Rogers was a man quick to anger, hard and fast in his resolve, but there was a person underneath the armor, too, and his smile . . .

It broke Tony’s heart.

Tony was suddenly angry, bitterly angry, at the people who had made him smile in a way that _hurt_. He was angry at the people who had taken the paragon of virtue and dragged him into a new millennium, telling him how to survive in the twenty-first century until he couldn’t anymore. No soldier should have to fight a _war_ alone, but Rogers seemed quite happy to. S.H.I.E.L.D., for its part, was happy to stand out of his way.

Enough was too much. Tony planted his feet.

Rogers didn’t fight him. 

He just _smiled_. It was small and sad and pained, but it was real. Tony swallowed hard. 

“I’m tired of watching people use you,” he admitted quietly. He hated that smile, for more than one reason. Without even trying, it was emotional leverage, irresistible; it made him want to say stupid things, dangerous things. _You’re important. To me. To the world. We need you_. He kept his remarks to the bare minimum, refusing to give too much. “It gives me a bad vibe, Rogers.”

“I can take care of myself.”

There it was. The challenge, thrown at Tony’s feet. Rogers wasn’t smiling anymore, his expression perfectly neutral. Tony hesitated.

Then he reached for the gauntlet. “I have Rhodey,” he declared. “Pepper. The Avengers—you know them?” He hadn’t meant for it to sound so bitter, but hearing Rogers defy the world to kill him was too much. “J.A.R.V.I.S., Coul—” He shut his mouth. It was too late.

Rogers’ brow furrowed, waiting for him to go on, but Tony couldn’t speak. He had to get over it, to keep going, but for a brief moment, the words were like a vice around his throat. There wasn’t enough air in the room. He forced himself to go on. “I _have_ people, Rogers. I’m not alone; I couldn’t do this alone. I need them.” _They need me_. It was comforting, the give and take of it all. He could see in the flatness of Rogers’ gaze that he wasn’t listening. 

No: he was _trying_ not to listen. He was listening, all right. Tony firmed his voice, refusing to let him run from it. “You’ve gotta let someone help you. I don’t care who, but this whole lone wolf thing? It’s gonna kill you. Period.”

“Are you volunteering?”

Coldness seeped down Tony’s spine at the thought. He’d stared at the numbers, the reports, the rare security footage of Cap in action. Occasionally he’d wanted to stop the mission because it had seemed too dangerous, even though it was already over. Never once had he wanted to be there. Never once. 

Rogers sensed his hesitation, shifting in his chair, sitting more loosely. Like he was trying to be casual, nonplussed. His words weren’t. “I had people, Tony,” he said in the same tone he used for everything: calm. Quiet. “Bucky, Peggy, Dr. Erskine, Colonel Phillips.” He didn’t blink. “Howard Stark.” The name was poison to Tony, a knife in his chest, but Rogers didn’t stop there. “Dum Dum, Morita, Jones, Falsworth, Dernier.” He took the bottle from Tony’s limp hand, drained it, and finished softly, “I’m not doing it again, Tony.”

It was so final. 

Staring at him, Tony realized, all at once, just how adamantly the man out of time didn’t _want_ to be there.

Rogers twitched, anxious, seeming to realize he’d said too much but stranded, like Tony, at the impasse. There were no retractions. 

Tony said two words that never came easily anywhere else: “I’m sorry.”

Rogers spoke like he hadn’t, like he wasn’t there. Like he couldn’t bear to lie, to hold his silence about it. “I thought I was home. When I woke up. Thought it was 1945, and they’d found me." He paused, briefly, looked right at Tony, but he didn’t see him. He husked on, "I knew the plane had gone down. Payload was neutralized. I _knew_ I’d done it right. But then I woke up, and I wasn’t supposed to wake up.” He reached for another bottle, drank deeply, finishing it in long strokes. His appetite, whetted, would have impressed Tony if he hadn’t known that Rogers couldn’t get drunk. His voice was clear, clean-cut, as he asked, “You wanna know what the cruelest part was, Tony?

“I thought I was home. For eight seconds, I thought I’d been given a second chance at it.” He held Tony’s gaze, numb with unspeakable grief, then crushed the bottle with effortless force in his gloved palm. “I didn’t ask to be woken up,” he went on heatedly, agitated, dropping the tiny shards onto the table with a shaking hand, scattering them gently. “I didn’t _ask_ for this.”

The admission was raw, painfully hard to swallow. Tony could barely breathe, never mind speak, but Rogers watched him with open, desperate supplication. Like he needed Tony to give him the answer.

Tony couldn’t. He wasn’t sure the answer existed.

“How would you feel if you woke up in sixty-seven years?” Rogers asked, filling the silence for him, desperation morphing to despair, despair sliding seamlessly to cold, unyielding apathy. A flicker of silence preceded an even colder smile before Rogers announced, “2079, Tony. They tell you the new millennium is coming. Tell you they drilled to the center of the Earth. They might even have flying cars. They don’t _know_ you; you don’t _know_ them. And nobody can help you make sense of it all.

“Pepper is gone. Rhodey, too. J.A.R.V.I.S.? You think anything you make can last, Tony? Nothing lasts.” Slowly, methodically, he shifted the pulverized glass into a pile. He didn’t look at Tony. Tony wasn’t there to him: he was speaking to an empty room. Tony was there to sit there and take it. “I want you to imagine it. It’s all gone. Your home, your family, your life.”

A rare hint of an accent, _faym-lee_ , made something in Tony’s throat tighten. Rogers rattled on, “Your country isn’t the same. Everyone you know is dead. The war’s over and nobody remembers it, been sixty years and nobody _remembers_ it. What do you do, Tony? You want to go home. You do. You miss it: the food, the sounds, the dreams people had, the empty and fullness of it all.”

Tony was suddenly glad that he hadn’t ordered in. Taking another piece of brie, he watched in wonder as Rogers _talked_ to him. 

Searingly, Rogers growled, “I want you to imagine that. And then I want you to imagine some punk kid comes along and tells you you need to quit bein’ reckless and settle down, make some friends, _get a life_.” The ire in his tone was scorching. He stared at Tony with hatred in his eyes, but Tony knew, oddly enough, that it wasn’t directed at him. He still felt the weight of it; he couldn’t look away. “Maybe I don’t _want_ to settle down,” Rogers grunted. “Maybe I wanted to stay down.”

Tony’s heart was pounding. He took a sip of the cognac that had found its way into his hand to steady himself. It helped. Rogers all but panted with fury, spitting, “You’re _Howard’s kid,_ Tony. I’m still trying to get my head wrapped around the new President. You people went to _space,_ and _nobody told me_.” It was irrational fury, that they hadn’t told him everything immediately, that they hadn’t known what he would even want to know immediately. Tony knew that Rogers knew that, but the awareness didn’t make it sting any less. 

Exhaling, suddenly exhausted, Rogers leaned forward and spoke quietly. “Why’d we fight the war, Tony? To protect the future. We fought for you. Couldn’t fight for ourselves. No, we fought for the people we’d left behind. We didn’t fight for our own future; we might not have one.” The fire dimmed in his eyes. Defeat, a tone Tony had never heard from Captain America, entered Rogers’ voice. “A war is a suicide run. Some of us were lucky. A lot of us weren’t. But it didn’t matter. Wasn’t about us. It was about _you_.”

The silence was long, but Tony allowed it to settle. When he was sure Rogers had nothing left, only cooling embers of anger, he spoke, choosing his words carefully. “I’m Howard’s kid,” he agreed, wanting to start with that, _agreement_. Rogers looked at him, sudden apology entering his expression, some of those mean lines softening. He looked shell-shocked, like he’d hit Tony, but they were on opposite ends of the small table; he hadn’t lifted a hand. The shock of the words, of the _truth_ , didn’t lessen. “There’s a new President,” Tony added. “We went to space.” He spoke calmly, levelly. “We did a lot of stuff because you gave us a chance to.”

Rogers shook his head, realizing the implication behind his own words, but Tony persisted. “I read about you, Rogers. I know what you did. _Everyone_ knows what you did, and if they didn’t, they figured it out once we found you.” Rogers’ jaw stiffened, some of the softness, the apology, vanishing, but he didn’t speak. Tony proceeded cautiously. “You met our impossible demands and gave us everything, and we found more to take. I’d be pretty pissed, too.”

Rogers said nothing, but he stared at Tony like he was trying to see him. Tony softened his tone. He didn’t want to hurt him. It surprised him how simple and sincere the desire was. _I don’t want to hurt you_. “Rogers. . . .” 

He paused. Hesitated. Reset. Firmly, like it had never crossed his mind to say otherwise, he added, “Steve, you don’t owe the world everything. I know we can’t all jump out of windows or stop moving cars with our bare hands, but we’re pretty clever. We look after each other. We occasionally get things done. And we’re all shouldering our own blame. Not every tragedy rests on you.”

He reached across the table and laid a hand gently on Steve’s left wrist, careful to avoid the meat of Steve’s hand. Steve was trembling, so finely Tony couldn’t see it, but he could feel it. He didn’t say anything about it. He held on very, very carefully. “Okay? It’s not your fault. We messed up. We did things wrong and people got hurt. Now we’re trying to do better.” Steve’s hand twitched, but he didn’t move it from Tony’s grip.

“I know it was burned into you that you didn’t matter,” Tony continued, heart hammering in his throat, “but that’s not how this works. You’re not a soldier we pull out of a locker and throw in the ring until you drop. You are a _human_ - _person_. With _human_ needs. And that includes the right to slow down, to say no, and to _tell your team_ when you aren’t doing well.” He didn’t dare squeeze Steve’s hand, but he gently tightened his grip, implying it. “We’re your backup, all right? All times. Not just when Fury calls.” 

Anger rose inside Tony, then, and he knew he was going to have to have a long talk with Fury about the sheer indecency of it all, but that was a distant thing. Steve was immediate. He focused on Steve, who was watching him, again with that faintly glassy, faraway expression. Gently, he nudged Steve’s wrist with his thumb to call his attention back. Steve’s eyes focused, locked in on Tony, as Tony finished, “Okay? Fury’s our boss, not our dad. You can tell him to go fuck himself.”

Steve arched an eyebrow, quietly, gently amused. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

Tony sighed, letting him go so he could reach for the bottle. He only took a small sip, not wanting to get drunk. He could already feel the warm buzz in his belly warning him to pace himself better, but it was better than responding too sharply. “Now I know why he likes you so much,” he grumbled.

He thought Steve would reply with a repartee. But Steve just said, “You’re a good man, Tony.”

He hated what those words did to him: the sheer, overwhelming validation burned, rendering him speechless. Captain America really was something else, he thought, averting his gaze so he didn’t say something stupid. Steve Rogers commanded a level of honest authority that no one could contest. If he said you were good, you were good. It was that simple.

Tony nodded, then swallowed. “I want you to stay here,” he said at last, abruptly committing to the plan as if it had been the plan all along. “No more living at the office. You can pick your own floor and everything. We never have to see each other. Come and go as you please; I’ll get you in the system. You can use the gym.”

Steve stared at him. His eyes were soft, disarmingly so. Afraid to stop talking and allow Steve to argue, Tony blazed ahead. “I’m serious, I’ve gone weeks without speaking to the forensics department. You can use this space,” he waved a hand around airily, “and whatever amenities you please. I’m not asking you to sleep in my bed.” _Jesus Christ, stop talking._ “You’re staying. Period,” he finished as strongly as he could.

Steve chewed over the idea. Tony was prepared to argue until sunup, if that was what it took, because he was under absolutely zero circumstances letting S.H.I.E.L.D. near Steve again that night, and maybe not ever again. He found his gaze drawn to the edge of the table where he could make out the metal framework curled around Steve’s waist. He thought, _I could do better_. He could; he was certain of it. Steve would heal long before he needed a better brace, but . . . Tony hated it, but the reality was blunt, unavoidable: _Preparedness_.

“Okay,” Steve said at last.

Anxiety melted out of Tony’s shoulders. He almost smiled, a goofy, relieved thing, like they’d been playing Russian roulette instead of stay-with-me chicken. He settled for a stately nod, grateful and reeling at the same time. It was crazy, but it was also the most natural thing in the world. Of course Steve Rogers would stay. Tony had space to spare. Space for days. 

Hell, he could probably wrangle Barton, maybe even Romanoff. Make it a real family. That was what Steve needed. A family. People to look after him.

And even if Steve didn’t need them, Tony did. He couldn’t carry Steve’s weight alone, literally or metaphorically.

“Thank you,” Steve said, his tone so simple, sincere.

Tony looked right at him, said, “You’re welcome,” and then rose from the table, thankfully without tripping over his own feet or knocking the table over. Steve watched him patiently, brow furrowing. “This was an appetizer,” Tony explained, indicating the remains of the cheese and brandy. “You want real food?”

Steve smiled, that same electrifyingly real smile. “Real food?” he repeated. “You don’t eat crackers anymore?”

Tony blew out a breath, edging on exasperated. “Cheese and crackers are not a meal, Rogers.” 

“Sure,” Steve answered breezily. Then, standing with the same care as before, he added, “How can I help?”

Tony didn’t growl at him, but it was a near thing. “If you can take that brace off and walk ten steps, I’ll let you outrun the Uber driver.”

Steve looked down at his own waist like he’d forgotten the brace was there. Reaching for it, he halted when Tony said sharply, “ _Drop it_.”

Ambling over—not limping but too slow for Captain America—Steve joined him behind the counter and repeated, “How can I help?”

Tony caught him by the sleeve, walked him over to a couch, and instructed, “Take a hint.”

Steve sat gingerly, tilting his head to look up at him, a small thing that made Tony’s heart skip a beat. “I feel like a moocher.”

Tony sighed and, compulsively, ruffled his hair lightly, a show of exasperation that burned more like amusement. He couldn’t say what inspired it, other than he had to. Steve’s hair was softer than it looked. Beating a retreat before he could linger or Steve could respond, Tony quipped, “I will pay you to sit still and do nothing.”

“I don’t need money, Tony.”

“Just shut up and stay down, Cap.” 

Steve huffed, but he didn’t offer any commentary, slouching into his seat. That was good, because Tony needed time to—stop shaking, for starters. Why was he shaking? 

_Oh, right, because Captain America is sitting on my couch_.

His life was weird, he decided. Weird and sideways. Ever since the Jericho missiles, everything had gone to hell in a handbasket. He couldn’t decide it if he loved or hated it.

Too adaptable to cry about it, maybe. It was hard to say that being a billionaire was a great burden.

To give himself time to stabilize, he spent an inordinate amount of time tidying up. He slid the pulverized glass into the trash bin. He drained a glass of water, and eventually the trembling died down to nearly nothing. 

Compulsively, he asked J.A.R.V.I.S. how things were downstairs, the same level tone he used when he was tinkering in the lab, nothing abrasive, nothing revealing.

He was about to ask Cap how he felt about seafood when he happened to look over and see a tuft of blond hair visible on the arm of the couch. Tony stilled, listening closely. It was hard to tell, but then he heard deep, even breathing, and knew, instinctively, what it meant. 

_Well,_ _I’ll be_. 

Tony was curious—almost curious enough to wander over and risk waking him to see what the Energizer Bunny looked like asleep—but he kept himself in check. Just because he had Captain America in his _sanctum_ _sanctorum_ didn’t mean he had to surrender his dignity.

“Sir?” J.A.R.V.I.S. prompted.

 _Fuck it_ , Tony thought.

Curiosity won. Tony ambled over, careful to walk at the same pace as before. He knew how powerful the serum was. Changing his gait could tip Steve off. 

He needn’t have worried: Steve was out for the count. He slept on his side, facing the couch. He’d strategically arranged a couple throw pillows under himself to keep his back level. It kind of amazed Tony, that he was _asleep_ , not merely resting like Tony had half-feared, the sort of _I wasn’t checking, I was standing here for my own health_ , conversation he didn’t want to have. Captain America slept. Huh.

The sight of it, quiet, vulnerable, made Tony’s heart twist.

He eased away from the couch, retreating to the kitchen. He told J.A.R.V.I.S.—nicely—to beat it. Then he refocused his energy on whipping up some chocolate ice cream for himself.

It wasn’t the meal he’d planned on eating, but it would help tide him over till morning. _And_ it was delicious. 

There was a satisfying crunch as Tony bit into the cone unthinkingly, followed by an inquisitive sound from the direction of the couch. Tony froze, but it was too late. 

A fuzzy-headed Steve appeared over the back of the couch, watching him with lamplight, unblinking eyes. He didn’t say a word. He blinked once. Tony didn’t move, teeth clamped around the cone.

With a sigh, Steve sunk back down.

Tony couldn’t bring himself to finish the cone until the ice cream was dripping down his fingers, but he needn’t have worried: Steve didn’t stir again. He didn’t snore, either, but Tony was acutely aware of his breathing in the silence. 

He asked J.A.R.V.I.S. to dim the lights. The change, while not enough to disorient, was substantial, a new atmosphere. Out of respect for it—Tony Stark: respectful citizen; call the press—he padded around quietly, torn between giving Steve privacy and sticking around, mostly for the hell of it. And he was honestly afraid that the second he walked out the door, Steve would vanish without a trace. It was too big a risk.

But it wasn’t fear alone that kept him in that room. He felt deeply protective, like he was the only thing keeping Steve in the room and his enemies _out_. He wasn’t sure Steve would consciously describe it that way, but that was how Tony felt. He was on guard so Steve could rest. Like soldiers.

Friends, Tony amended.

He snagged a blanket from the back of another couch. With as much care as an art director handling a priceless artifact, he draped it over Steve. Steve tensed and Tony froze instinctively, but Steve didn’t stir or tell him off, so Tony finished laying the blanket down before stepping back and admiring his handiwork. Satisfied, he backed off.

Standing in the kitchen, chewing on a second ice cream cone, Tony asked, “What d’you think, J.A.R.V.I.S.?”

“About what, sir?”

Tony nodded at Steve. Aloud, he clarified, “Him.”

J.A.R.V.I.S. was silent for a beat. “I’m not quite sure what you mean, sir.”

 _Me neither._ “Never mind.” Finishing the cone off, Tony sighed contentedly, grabbed a tablet, and curled up in a chair adjacent to the couch Cap was sleeping on. He busied himself in his reading, looking up _life in the 1940s_.

He huffed at the occasional absurdity: gas cost eight cents a gallon, life expectancy for men was just sixty-two years, and forty-eight stars flew on the American flag. 

_Did anyone tell you about Alaska and Hawaii?_ Tony wondered, glancing up and looking at Steve, who slept on, not answering. Silently, he told him: _We live twenty years longer, now. On average. It’s no wonder you feel crowded; there are almost three times as many people living here. Well. Two-and-a-half. Still a jump. Gas is expensive, but that’s Fury’s problem, not yours. It’s the least he can do, provide you a nice rig. We need to get you a car. Oh, they’re cool, now. Or a motorcycle. Bet you’d love that, wouldn’t you? Something to drive on open country, letting the breeze run through your hair . . . that’s more your style. You’re a country slicker. And a fighter. I should show you cow-tipping. Bet you could tip a cow. It’s not really a thing, but I’d love to see you try._

Aloud, he affirmed softly, “It’s not so bad here. We’ve got Wi-Fi. You don’t even know what that is, do you? I’m gonna level with you, most people don’t. Doesn’t stand for anything. Just a word. Wi-Fi. It’s how we connect to the Internet. Everybody’s got a computer now. A handful of weirdos in the eighties really helped things take off in the tech industry, and by the nineties they started selling like hot cakes. We’ve still got those, you know. Hot cakes, and weirdos from the eighties. Bet you’d love our pancakes. They’re better. I don’t know what pancakes tasted like in the forties, but I know this diner, and you’re gonna die. They’re that good. Make peace with your Maker and I’ll take you.

“There’s a lot in this city, you know. Have you even been outside? I’m serious. You don’t look like a man who gets out enough. Central Park. You’d love it. Times Square is a bit of a hell-scape, but I can show you the better parts of the city. You’re not a tourist here. You’re a New Yorker. Got that? Memorize it. You grew up in, what, Brooklyn? Close enough. You’re a New Yorker. This is your turf. We still play baseball, if that makes you feel any better. Bet we could get Banner and Barton to play a few rounds, maybe even Thor. You think Romanoff would show up?

“Hypotheticals. Hey, big man, wait till you hear the music. It’s like you’re _there_. You don’t need to show up for a concert anymore to feel it. I bet you love the static. I can get you an old radio. I could even fuck around with the songs, make ’em sound like they’re ten miles underwater and transmitted via tin plates. What’d you do back then for fun, huh? Other than beat the shit out of each other. I know you love to fight. Bet you’re a hockey guy. They had hockey back then, right?”

Sleepy, tipsy, Tony mused, “I’ve got the best of the best, big guy. You’re gonna love the showers. It’s like standing in a rainforest when it’s coming down hard. You ever been to the rainforest? I’ll take you to the zoo. They’ve got some lemurs. You a lemur guy? You look like a lemur guy. I like tamarins. Small, clever bastards. I’m not small, but they are. I know you’re tall. Lemurs are big. You’ll like ’em. You’d like the zoo. It’s a lot nicer now. 

“And the aquarium. It’s gonna knock your socks off.”

The lights dimmed without prompting. Tony continued through a yawn. “Take you to the movies. Show you the good stuff. I’ve got it all here but, the principle of the thing, you know?” He looked over at Steve, half-expecting a response. The warm buzz had nestled pleasantly in his skull, like a tamarin. Maybe a lemur. He closed his eyes. 

When he opened them again, the room was darker still. There was enough light to see by, but Tony didn’t move, slow and satisfied. He was drooling on a pillow, arched uncomfortably over the arm of the chair. “Hey, Rogers, you awake?” he mumbled.

Those were the magic words: the lump on the couch turned towards him. In the dim light Tony could easily pick out Steve’s eyes, brilliant even half-lidded. “Mm?”

“Good,” Tony said, flapping a hand at him, dismissive. “Would’ve had to get my big suit if you ran away.”

Steve sat up slowly and winced, putting a hand on his side. He stretched carefully. It was nice to sit and watch, Tony reflected. He was still in the suit, but he didn’t seem uncomfortable in it. The metal brace didn’t seem so bad. They wouldn’t have used it if the cloth ones were superior, Tony thought, stifling a yawn. Steve was watching him with a curious expression, strangely open, hair tussled.

“You wanna watch _Jurassic Park_?” Tony asked in a sleepy drawl. “Great movie. People get eaten by dinosaurs.”

Steve huffed, sliding his left hand up and down his side a few times, self-comfort. _I can do that_ , Tony thought, but he didn’t want to move. Steve paused, then committed to something, squaring his shoulders.

“Hey, no, don’t go,” Tony wheedled, not whining.

Steve grunted, then sidled over and told him, “C’mon. Up, soldier.”

“’m not a soldier." Steve grabbed his arm securely and pulled him to his feet. Steve’s shoulders were too high for Tony to comfortably sling an arm around them, but Steve had a steadying arm around his waist, so Tony mirrored him. He could feel the edge of the brace, surprised at how soft it felt. It was like a rigid putty. “Huh,” he mused, feeling along it. Steve, gently but adamantly, caught his hand. “Oh, no, I’m not feeling you up, I was just curious,” Tony assured, freeing his hand and patting Steve’s side.

He couldn’t see Steve blush, if he did indeed blush, but he felt the pointed pause before Steve led them across the room. “Where’s your room?” he asked, his voice a rumble Tony could feel. That was nice.

Obligingly, Tony pointed towards the elevator, falling into step alongside Steve. It was a short trip up to the proverbial penthouse, but Tony yawned deeply and leaned freely into the very warm, very soft tree standing next to him. “This whole superhero thing doesn’t work out, you’d make a great living statue,” Tony observed.

“Mm,” was all Steve said.

Tony’s room was smartly appointed, but it wasn’t quite neurotic-supervillain fancy. There was plenty of floorspace but no clutter to speak of. Maybe a bit neurotic, Tony mused, exhaling happily as he let go of Steve and flopped, face-down, on the mattress.

“G’night, Tony.”

Alarmed, Tony moved as fast as his stupefied senses would allow him, reeling around and snagging Steve by the belt. That would have been—well, awkward, if he was firing on all cylinders—under normal circumstances. But his fingers didn’t close on cloth, they caught on the brace.

Steve staggered towards him, planting a hand on the mattress for balance and letting out a faint whimper.

That sobered Tony up in a heartbeat. He sat up, silent and wide-eyed, as Steve stood there, bowed and holding himself so still he trembled faintly, before righting himself. 

“I’m sorry,” Tony offered.

Steve shook his head. “You’re all right. I wasn’t ready.”

That didn’t make Tony feel any better. He sat up, reaching for Steve, who winced before letting Tony take hold of his right hand. Tony squeezed it apologetically, then let go. Steve stepped back, putting space between them.

With his stomach twisted up, Tony was well aware that he was a Goddamn _disaster_ , but Steve didn’t look angry. Tired. Sore. Hard to read.

“Don’t leave,” Tony entreated.

Shaking his head, Steve assured, “I’m not gonna leave.” He moved towards the door. Tony panicked.

“Steve—”

“Room down the hall,” Steve cut him off. He could be sharp when he wanted to be, but his tone was gentle, forgiving. “Come get me if you need me.” He shut the door quietly behind him.

Tony stayed put, sitting back on his heels, hand warm, heart sore. 

Captain America might be invincible, but Steve Rogers was not. He had to be better.

He fell asleep curled up on his side on top of the covers, dreaming about popcorn and old-time movies and eight-cent-a-gallon gas.


	2. TACTICAL ERRORS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, throttling my muse: one more chapter, this was supposed to be one more chapter.
> 
> P.S. Like our first chapter, this one is entirely Tony’s POV with one exception: the opening sequence is Cap’s, rest is Tony’s. Onward and upward, my friends!

“I give up! _I give up!_ ”

Steve released Bruce from his headlock. 

Bruce stumbled forward and crashed into the gym wall, sliding down it. “Feelin’ angry yet?” Steve asked cheerfully, not even breaking a sweat. Of course he wasn’t: Bruce, while far from diminutive, was no match for Captain America. Subduing him would have taken Steve less than a second, but he wasn’t trying to subdue Bruce.

He was trying to goad him into becoming the Hulk.

After a week of immobility, it felt good to _move_ again. Staying with Tony had been surprisingly normal. Steve hadn’t changed his schedule: he still got up early, went on his morning run, and headed off to work. It was nice. Routine. 

He even had the option to select an entire floor, but Tony hadn’t pushed him to move out and Steve hadn’t felt inspired to. It didn’t feel necessary and he didn’t want an entire floor to himself. After living in barracks and sleeping on dirt, he felt the bed was overly commodious and had taken the initiative to strip it of all but the outermost layer.

He was beginning to enjoy having a place to live, an actual home instead of a place to catch some shut-eye. He was reasonably sure that if Tony had designated a pile of sticks he could sleep on in front of an air vent, he might have taken it. It was nice to be _home_. Not living between lives, never quite letting his guard down. 

He couldn’t let S.H.I.E.L.D. see him as anything _other_ than Captain America. Here he could wear pajamas and not be judged for it. 

When Tony invited Bruce to hang out with them at the Tower, Steve felt comfortable, settled-in. He even dressed down for the occasion, out-of-uniform. Bruce had his own place, and it was clear that he wasn’t moving in yet.

It hadn’t been until Tony and Steve had been playfully goading Bruce about his popularity with the youth—kids had really latched onto Hulk—that Bruce had admitted that he hadn’t been able to summon his inner gamma beast on command. It showed in the tension around his eyes that he had tried and in his voice that he hated not having control over it.

So, here they were: try, trying again.

“This was poorly thought out,” Bruce observed, rubbing his neck.

“Tony offered to shoot rockets at you.” Bruce groaned and put his head in his hands. “I hurt ya?” Steve asked, sauntering over.

Bruce waved a hand dismissively. “I’m fine. Why would shooting rockets at me help?”

“Fear triggers the fight or flight response.”

“I’m a fast runner.”

Steve smiled, holding out a hand to help him up. “I know you asked for it, but this is starting to feel coercive.”

“I’d rather feel coerced by friends in a controlled environment than by people _actually_ shooting at me,” Bruce reminded him, hauling himself up.

“Oh, I’m sure Tony would actually shoot you.”

Bruce huffed. “Honestly, I don’t get why he’s being such a baby.”

“Tony?”

Shaking his head, Bruce said irritably, “ _The other guy._ He weighs fourteen hundred pounds. You want to stop a fourteen-hundred-pound object from crashing into you?” Steve crossed his arms over his chest thoughtfully. “Yeah, I bet you would,” Bruce told him, sighing. “Point is, _what is he afraid of_? I’m the one that’s gonna get turned into sawdust if he doesn’t show.”

“We wouldn’t let that happen,” Steve assured.

Bruce squinted at him. “What _were_ you gonna do about the Chitauri if I didn’t show up, exactly?”

Steve’s smile was sharp-toothed. “Hate to break it to you, chief, but we weren’t exactly gonna surrender. You can’t wave a white flag in a war.”

“Better taken prisoner than dead.”

Any trace of mirth vanished from Steve’s face. “You sure about that?” Unfolding his arms, he flexed his hands unconsciously. His left was still sore, but he didn’t need full functionality for a training exercise. Quietly, he challenged, “Tell me, Bruce, would you rather be dead or wishing you were?”

“Awfully pessimistic of you.”

Steve smiled. “Try to hit me. I dare ya.”

“You’re gonna break my face, aren’t you?”

Steve shook his head mutely.

Bruce sized him up. He took a step forward. He grimaced. “This is a trap.” Steve said nothing, hands at his sides, leaning on one foot casually. Fighting stance. It was easier to lunge from a slight crouch than standing erect. “Is it too late for Tony to shoot rockets at me?” Bruce wheedled.

Steve took a step back, unconsciously encouraging Bruce to step forward. Bruce obliged, and Steve sprung.

He had Bruce on a knee, arm extended behind him, in half a second.

Bruce cried out more in alarm than pain, but that changed as Steve applied pressure to his wrist. “I can hold this for a long time,” Steve said conversationally, kneeling on one of Bruce’s legs. Bruce was shaking and straining to pull his arm back, but Steve was iron, immovable. “Probably hurt a lot more if I broke it.” He gave it a sharp twist, not enough to break it but enough to make Bruce howl. “Tell me, would you rather be down here, on your knees, unable to move, or be done with it?”

Bruce panted. He seemed beyond speech, but Steve pressed on ruthlessly. “They did a lot worse than a little wrist play, you know. Those boys, they were brave and smart and tough as hell, but they were broken down, all the same. Putting ’em back together wasn’t always possible. You know what the suicide rate is among soldiers, chief? _High_."

Bruce made a low animal noise in warning, but Steve couldn’t hear or see him anymore. “It doesn’t take torture,” he said, speaking to himself. “It doesn’t even take a hit. The number one reason a soldier takes his own life is the sight of the dead. Seeing dead bodies, that’s what kills. It doesn’t make you think, _T_ _hank God I made it_. It makes you realize you won the lottery. You didn’t earn the right to survive, to bury those who didn’t. You just got _lucky_."

He flinched as something thundered nearby, a giant fist smashing into and through the thin floorboard. Then Bruce was up, roaring, transforming. Steve sat back on his heels, watching it happen, amazed and devastated.

 _Something’s wrong with me._

Hulk roared at the ceiling; Steve flinched at the sound. It was a mortar shell crashing into the earth, exploding with ear-ringing force, wrenching animal agony from the people around it. The steady, sonic _boom_ drowned them out. Gunfire spat a familiar rat-a-tat-a-tat nearby. Steve cowered, hands behind his head, as low as he could get, trying to stay calm, stay calm.

He was strangely calm; his breath came even, his heartbeats slow—but it was an illusion. He couldn’t move. If he caught fire, he couldn’t have rolled onto his side to put it out.

Hulk roared, right at him, a terrestrial sound, Steve was reminded of dinosaurs. The dissonance helped even though he was still shaking, still frozen, stuck in a goddamned _T_ _ake cover!_

_Get up. Get up. **Get up**._

Motivation took a tangible form as Hulk lurched towards him. Steve couldn’t budge. He couldn’t breathe. He could _feel_ the stutter-step motion of a gasp, a short exhale, but it was bringing no air to his lungs.

A familiar, hard, metallic voice demanded, "What the _fuck_ are you two doing?”

Steve couldn’t move. Hulk could, and he charged the man in the doorway. Iron Man.

Instead of hovering, Iron Man landed, growled, “We are _not_ doing this, Banner,” and held his ground like a tree.

Hulk drew up short, exhaled explosively, and snarled at him. Steve gasped, shaking with relief at the feeling of air in his lungs. He stood as quickly as he could manage, but there was no crisis to avert: the faceplate was down and Tony was talking to Hulk in a calm voice.

“Save the world together once and you forget I exist?” Tony asked Hulk lightly.

Recognition passed across Hulk’s expression. The snarl faded; he reached out a big green hand. Tony put up a gauntlet to meet it. “Yeah, you know me, big guy. No need to get punchy.” He shot a glare at Steve, who stared at him, dazed. “God, I left you two for _nine minutes_ ,” he said, exasperated.

Steve shook his head, trying to clear it. It couldn’t have been nine minutes. _Nine minutes? You couldn’t hold it together for ten minutes?_ Steve reached up, clutched his throat in a hand, trying to keep his airway clear. Tony frowned at him.

“You wanna take a nap?” Tony asked the Hulk, who sighed. That was all it took: Bruce melted back into view. Tony steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. He looked at Tony with relief plain in his eyes, reaching up to clasp the hand, and Steve felt like the worst person on the planet.

It was enough to get his head back on straight. He dropped his hand and inhaled deeply. He was still shaking. _It wasn’t real. Get it together._

_It was real._

Shoving that unhelpful voice aside, Steve rasped, “I think we’re done for the day.”

“You _think_ ,” Tony said, his voice pure acid. Steve looked at him imploringly, but Tony couldn’t see what _he_ could. He bulled on, “The man _thinks_.”

“Tony.” Bruce’s voice was surprisingly calm. “Leave him alone.”

“It’s fine.” Steve’s voice still didn’t sound like his own. “I made a bad call. Are you hurt?” he asked, looking right at Bruce, iron in his eyes. It was a shield. It worked very well.

Bruce shook his head, but traitorously, Steve could see the bruise forming on his wrist. “I’ll get you some ice,” he announced, nodding.

Tony didn’t move, but the second Steve was in range, he put a gauntlet-covered hand on his chest, stopping him. “What happened?” he asked shortly.

Steve stared him down. “You’ve got cameras,” he quipped, nodding at the tiny dot on the wall. He side-stepped around Tony. He took a single step towards the hall before an iron grip on his shoulder strap halted him in place.

He tensed up furiously. “Let me go,” he said shortly.

“Let him go,” Bruce encouraged.

The gauntlets fired up; Steve could feel the heat against his back. Like a shooter in an old Western, Tony held his other hand at a right angle, lining Bruce up with the mark.

Steve didn’t know if he even consciously decided to move. All he knew was there was a proverbial gun to his shoulder and a man unafraid to use it. His instincts kicked in. 

He was on Tony in a second.

. o . 

On the list of top ten worst things Tony had ever done, crossing swords with Captain America was an honorary mention.

Far from the worst, but not something he wanted to repeat. Cap moved fast, inhumanly quickly. Tony had the wisdom to snap down the faceplate before Cap tackled him to the floor, driving the breath from him. Cap was up in a furious instant, lunging for Bruce. Tony fired at Cap, knocking him off his step.

Bruce ducked out of the room, but Tony still barked after him, “This doesn’t leave this room!” 

J.A.R.V.I.S. took that literally: the doors snapped shut an instant later. With feral desperation, Cap was on top of them, tearing at them, prying at the reinforced metal seam. _Needs to be seamless_ , Tony realized, scrambling to his feet. He closed the distance between them, crashing into his back, driving the air from him as he was pinned between the Iron Man suit and the door.

Tony didn’t waste a second, putting him in the tightest headlock he dared. Steve was red in the face, crushing the metal hard enough that Tony could _feel_ it, but he didn’t let go.

It took 183 seconds for Rogers to run out of air.

Tony didn’t count, but the head-up display kept track of the seconds. He felt Steve go limp, hauled him carefully away from the doors, lying him flat on the ground.

No sooner had Tony stood than Rogers was twisting sharply. Tony braced himself for a second attack, but after a moment’s disorientation Steve looked up, saw him hovering, and frowned. “Tony?” he mumbled. “What’re you. . . .” He sat up and looked around, gaze falling on the door, taking in his own brutal handiwork. He grimaced, rubbing his face with both hands.

Tony crouched in front of him, but he didn’t lower the faceplate. “You good?”

Steve nodded. He didn’t move his hands. Tony tapped his wrist; Steve looked at him. “Where’s Bruce?” Steve asked, fear in his voice.

“He’s outside.” Tony looked him over, letting the HUD do the work, but he saw only small patches of yellow. Bruising at most. Nothing to write home about, but he was careful to prop Steve up with the shoulder that wasn’t lit up. It was deepening to orange, and Tony stared at the former red patch along his lower back, but it was healing, too, fading to yellow.

Steve’s expression was miserable. “I’m sorry.”

Tony patted his shoulder. The gauntlet was heavy but not unbearably so. For someone like Steve it probably felt like a normal hand. “I prefer to have awkward conversations over alcohol,” Tony offered. He longed for a hint of a smile, of recognition, but there was nobody home. Just a shell-shocked soldier.

He blew out a breath. He needed something strong.

. o .

Vodka took the edge off.

Tony had some potent brews hiding in his cabinets, and he was never more grateful for it. Painkillers would have done the trick—his arms were still imprinted with bruises where the suit had surrendered to Captain America—but he wanted the buzz, the forgiveness.

Bruce had been waiting for them. Despite the damage, J.A.R.V.I.S. had been able to move the doors back enough for them to escape. Tony had communicated in brief that they would be talking later in depth but right then he had really needed to get the immediate crisis under control and if Bruce could please not mention anything to anyone on the way out, that would be great.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had found Bruce in Calcutta. If Cap was losing it—and Tony couldn’t say he _wasn’t—_ the last thing he needed was S.H.I.E.L.D. weighing the pros and cons of it. They wouldn’t put him down. That would be crazy. You put down a rabid dog, not a man who’d earned accolades for his heroism.

The vodka took the edge off. Tony lounged on the couch desultorily. Cap, borderline catatonic on Everclear, laid on the floor, both of them staring up at the screen.

Golf wasn’t that interesting, but Tony didn’t want to risk putting on a heavy contact sport like football. For the first time, he was trying to keep Cap away from fighting. Away from the idea of it.

Polite applause. Tony snagged another tiny sip from his glass—he’d limited himself to a thin veneer, wanting to stay alert if not completely sober—before saying aloud, “You can talk to me, you know.”

Soft agreement: “I know.”

“About . . . anything.” Tony shrugged, waving the glass. He was dozing to the tune of polite applause when Steve finally spoke again.

“Why aren’t you mad at me, Tony?”

Tony mulled that over for a bit. Cap rolled off his belly and onto his back so he could look at Tony, hands clasped behind his neck. His eyes were hazy. Nothing worrying. Tony couldn’t say he didn’t look the same, but it was strange. Captain America. Drunk. He’d have to write Luxco to thank them for their suicide-drug.

“Should I be?” Tony asked.

Steve looked at him with the same desperation as before, like Tony could explain it, logic it out. He couldn’t, but he couldn’t tell Cap that, either. It was too much to disappoint him. “I hurt Bruce,” Steve explained slowly.

“He’s a tough guy.”

“I hurt him.”

Trying a different approach, Tony agreed, “Yeah. You did.”

Steve closed his eyes. “I’m losin’ my mind, Tony.”

There was a mournful ripple from the TV as a putt missed. Tony fumbled for the remote and muted it. “Honestly, I’d be surprised if you weren’t,” he admitted.

Sunlight danced along the golden fringe of Cap’s hair as he turned his head towards Tony. Golden hair. Golden boy. America’s hero. “I’d be messed up,” he explained. “I _am_ messed up.”

Steve squinted at him, curiosity shining in his eyes. Or maybe they were just shiny. Tony couldn’t say, but he shrugged, threw an arm over the back of the couch. “I got my fill of war in less than three months, Rogers, and it still fucked me up.”

“Fury told me. Some of it.” Tony stared at him, coldness sweeping over him. Steve looked right at him, but his eyes weren’t judging or accusing. Maybe if he was sober, they would be. Right then, they were soft. A safe space to confide. Tony relaxed. “You were taken prisoner. You were tortured. You freed yourself. You came home.”

Tony’s chest tightened. The arc reactor felt like it was burning him, even though it was the same warmth as always. “That all?” he asked tonelessly.

Steve shrugged. “I didn’t wanna know it—the story, the whole story—from him. People—they know about me. I didn’t want you to go through that.”

Tony ached. He would never have known. He _hadn’t_ known that Fury had told Steve. He wouldn’t have known if Fury had thrown a folder in front of Steve with the name _Stark, Tony_ at the top. He would only have figured it out eventually.

The unspoken went unspoken: _This is your story to tell_.

Idly, he wondered if Steve had read his own file. He had the sinking feeling Steve _had_ , and that was why he hadn’t read Tony’s.

“Our convoy was waylaid,” Tony began, a natural storyteller. “One minute I was taking selfies with a kid, the next . . . the Jeep exploded.”

He walked through it, and it burned in him, but he pressed onward relentlessly. 

Slowly, Steve finished the bottle.

At some point, Steve grabbed his leg and tugged, and Tony joined him on the floor. It made sense to curl up next to Steve, to hold onto his shirt as he told Steve the whole sorry tale. He talked in broken sentences, rarely completing a thought. Steve kept an arm around his back, grounding him, while Tony kept his head on Steve’s shoulder. It was safe, because Steve was warm and silent, and his eyes were closed.

When Tony rasped, _they drowned me_ , he couldn’t carry on.

Steve stroked a thumb along his hip reassuringly. He did so because it was there, and because it was part of Tony, and because the gentle touch was something he could do—or so Tony could only surmise. The daylight was warm where it spilled from the windows along the far well, and Tony wanted to stay forever, safe, protected.

Aloud, Tony muttered, “The reactor was—it was the worst pain I’ve ever felt.”

Steve pressed a frown against the top of his head. Tony couldn’t see it, but he could feel it. Steve’s breathing was deep, even, but he wasn’t asleep: his thumb paused, settled, then resumed stroking at the same steady pace.

“I thought I would die," Tony admitted. “I wished I would die.”

Steve said nothing, breathed and held him. Tony found the strength between them to keep going. “I lost track of the days. It wasn’t an endurance test. I didn’t think I would outlive it. But there was no other choice.” Steve pulled him so close Tony could feel his heartbeat. “I’ve never wanted to kill myself,” Tony professed, taking everything that was offered, eyes closed, Steve’s heart a metronome under his ear. “There were—times when I got low, stateside, but in that cave, I wanted to die. I couldn’t take another day of it. Even when things looked up, it felt too fragile.”

Steve’s hand grew restless: he dragged it up and down Tony’s back, firm but not painful. “But I made it back,” Tony said, squeezing Steve’s shirt, holding on. Grounding himself. In Afghanistan, there was no warmth to be found. This was . . . this was peaceful. “I made it home.” Softly, Tony amended, “I— _made_ this place home.” His voice softened to a whisper as he insisted, “It’s not a— _brand_ anymore, some kind of sick souvenir. It’s mine. My work. I made this,” he said fiercely, his hand closing over the arc reactor.

He sat up, and Steve let him, watching with half-lidded eyes as Tony tapped his chest pointedly. The arc reactor glowed white-blue through the shirt. “I made this, Steve. I made it mine. Got it?” He didn’t know what he was trying to say, why he _needed_ Steve to understand him, but Steve watched him intently, listening to every word. He set a hand on Tony’s hip again, stroking idly, settling him. Some of the riotous tension in Tony’s shoulders eased.

“It’s mine now,” he insisted. “Even though it was theirs first. It was Yinsen’s, first.” It was amazing how hot the grief and rage could still burn inside him, roaring to life at the first spark. He tamped it down hard. Steve let his gaze settle on the reactor, even though it remained hidden behind Tony’s hand. “I made this _mine,_ ” Tony finished emphatically, gripping the shirt over it like a lifeline.

Steve looked up at him, holding his gaze, his eyes soft with unreadable emotions. At last, he whispered, “I’m sorry.”

Tony blinked and lowered his hand, flattening it on Steve’s stomach. “Why? Wasn’t your fault.”

“Still sorry,” Steve insisted.

Tony curled his fingers in the fabric of Steve’s shirt tightly. “Why?”

With a preemptive movement, Steve pushed himself upright, and Tony shuffled reluctantly back to give him room. Tony sat cross-legged with his back to the couch; Steve mirrored him, eyes soft, almost hazy.

For a moment, they held each other’s gazes, but neither of their hands moved. At last, Steve rumbled, “Somebody’s gotta be.” His voice was low, soft, only for them. Tony stared at him, afraid to miss anything. Steve shut his own eyes and said carefully, “It’s—it’s not fair, Tony, not right that—you. . . . Somebody—somebody owes you more. That’s why ’m sorry.”

With seemingly no conscious action, he swayed, expression still soft, no judgment, no pain. With something unnameable tight in his own chest, Tony gave Steve’s shirt an experimental tug, encouraging him closer. Steve went with the motion easily, shuffling so he could press his cheek against Tony’s shoulder. His arms curled around Tony’s waist; his warm weight pinned him to the couch. He was very heavy, very warm, and absolutely perfect.

Tony hugged him tightly, both hands splayed across his lower back, shielding tender bone from harm.

Sitting there for a small eternity, Tony’s legs went numb, but he didn’t move, savoring something that seemed all too terribly fleeting.

. o . 

Tony drifted between wakefulness and sleep.

He wasn’t sure when, exactly, they laid down, but at some point, he became aware that they were lying flat on the floor, and he was sprawled possessively across Steve. Under different circumstances, he might have been shocked at his own boldness, at Steve’s complacency. Under the present ones, he shut his eyes and listened to Steve breathe.

A short hazy while later, Steve began twitching under him, abortive little movements, one hand flexing against Tony’s back. Tony kept his own eyes shut, refusing to be moved, even though the occasional soft sound seemed far too close to distress for comfort. He didn’t have to worry about his bystander status for long. He startled at the same time that Steve did, both sitting up, Steve’s hands clutching at Tony. Breathing heavily, Steve let go, looking wild and lost in the quasi-darkness. Breathlessly, he asked, “Bucky?”

Tony swallowed hard, not knowing what to say. He couldn’t bring himself to confirm or deny his own identity until Steve looked at him, _really_ looked at him, and exhaled in that torn-out-of-his-chest way that made Tony’s own heart ache sympathetically.

“Sorry,” Steve husked, looking down, guilt furrowing his brow.

Steering him away from it, Tony mused conversationally, “Never took you as one to jump an apology.”

Visibly discomfited, Steve reached up and ruffled his own hair. He was still sleep-fuzzy, lost, but his voice was clearer as he replied, “There’s . . . a lot t’ be sorry for.” Looking around the room, he frowned and asked wearily, “What’re we doin’ here, Tony?”

It wasn’t directed at the room; Tony didn’t mistake it. “Trying our damnedest to stay sane.”

And that was it, really.

He didn’t want to get up, didn’t want to lose their peace, but Steve shifted to his feet and pulled Tony with him. He wanted to protest, to say, _Don’t go_. The words that came out of him instead were triter, less informative. “I’m older than you,” he told Steve, like it mattered, like it captured the buzz of warm needfulness in his chest, _P_ _lease don’t go_. “My Tower. My rules. I’m the boss.”

Steve didn’t contest it, instead murmuring, “Mm. Course you are, boss.”

Pleased, thinking he would have his way, Tony barely stifled his disappointment as Steve, misreading his telescopically clear dictum, nudged him towards the door. Worse still, he didn’t put an arm around Tony. _Why should he?_

It hurt, but Tony couldn’t say why. He could almost hear the words that Steve wasn’t saying:

_Come on. We gotta go._

_We gotta go back._

He didn’t want to, but Steve’s hand was inexorable—gentle, always, but irresistible—and Tony could only cave.

He trusted Steve. 

Steve wouldn’t hurt him.

. o . 

After the Hulk near-disaster, Steve went missing-in-action for six days.

On the first day, Tony awoke alone in his own bed and rambled around the place looking for his favorite blue shadow, but Steve was nowhere to be found. J.A.R.V.I.S. confirmed Tony’s suspicions—Steve wasn’t anywhere in the Tower—and Tony tried to bury the disappointment deep down inside him.

It didn’t matter that he was gone. It was fine. Steve was at S.H.I.E.L.D., at work. Sure, he’d skipped breakfast with Tony for the first time since moving in, but that was his prerogative. Steve owed him nothing, nothing whatsoever.

Still, Tony couldn’t help but feel disappointed, eating alone.

Thankfully, he had Pepper, who was keen to hear about his roommate situation. 

( _We’re not roommates. We don’t live in the same room._

 _You know that’s not what I mean._ )

As sparingly as he could, jabbing morosely at a bowl of cereal, he got her up to speed. Ever persistent, she dug deeper. In the end, he admitted more than he wanted to but less than the full truth. 

( _He sounds sweet._

_He is literally the most dangerous person I’ve ever met._

_That excites some people._

_I’m revoking your rooftop privileges._ )

The day passed by, but he remained distracted, waiting for a proof-of-life call or appearance from Steve. He didn’t expect Steve to text, but Tony kept hoping against hope to hear from him. As night fell and the Tower grew emptier by the hour, it became clear that Steve wasn’t coming back. 

At last, Tony caved and asked, “J.A.R.V.I.S., where’s Rogers?”

There was a long mechanical pause. Then J.A.R.V.I.S. relayed, “According to the last S.H.I.E.L.D. field update, Captain Rogers is somewhere over the Alps.”

Tony kept his tone neutral. “Thanks, bud.”

On the second day, J.A.R.V.I.S. could only offer the consolation that Steve had landed in Austria and was operating, according to the mission status, under radio-silence. It was unclear what size party was involved—the reports, even decrypted, were sparing—but Tony still hoped that the pilot was a fighter, that Steve wasn’t going in alone. 

If he was, Tony was gonna throttle him. _You bastard. You don’t go in alone_.

“Tell me when he’s back in the States,” Tony advised J.A.R.V.I.S., trying to put Steve entirely from his mind.

He nearly succeeded. Three full days passed.

Radio-silence.

On the sixth morning, enough was enough.

Tony showed up at S.H.I.E.L.D. uninvited, tired of the waiting game, the no-information game. He was in the loop, like it or not, and S.H.I.E.L.D. knew more than he did about Steve Rogers’ whereabouts. Their tracking skills were not inconsiderable: they’d even made headway by persuading Bruce to give them his actual phone number. Slowly but surely, they were making sure everyone was in line, in order, filed away.

Forsaking any form of appointment, Tony went straight to the Director, knocking on Fury’s door, three short raps. Without question, the door slid back and Tony stepped through it. Immediately, he saw the Director sitting behind his desk, his back erect, his eye fixed on a tablet in front of him. His entire demeanor was tense. Tony was tempted to leave, to about-face and abort his own personal mission, but he doubled down, stepping closer and offering magnanimously, “Director Fury.”

Behind him—damningly—the door slid shut. Tony closed his eyes, all sense of optimism snuffed out. Bluntly, Tony rasped, “Do you have _any_ idea where—?”

“No.” The simple admission was poisonous.

Four words strangled him: _I_ _let him go._

Driven beyond senseful thinking in his despair, Tony wondered if Steve had finally found his way not to some far corner of the world but back to the past. If he had, then they would never find him, Tony knew. They could spend a lifetime searching, but it would take years, decades, even, and it would be their children that would thaw him out, and tell him that they’d reached the center of the Earth, and they’d invented teleportation, and maybe they had flying cars, too—

Tony took a heavy seat in the chair across from Fury’s desk. “How long?” he asked. His voice was calm. He was grateful for that, the air of professionalism cool between them.

Unresponsive, Fury kept his gaze on the desk. There was something like shame in his posturing, a man who had lost something important. The weight of it all pressed down visibly on his shoulders. Swallowing the lump in his own throat, Tony offered no absolution. He listened instead as Fury said at last, “Our last transmission was received five days ago. He’s missed every checkpoint since, including the preop rendezvous point. We have reason to believe he’s gone rogue.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_. 

“What do you mean, _gone rogue_?” Tony asked, rasped, wedging the proverbial knife in deeper and leaning his weight on it. “I thought you had him on a leash.”

Fury looked up at him, disdain in his expression. “I know we don’t see eye-to-eye, Stark, but surely you don’t think I’m _that_ stupid.”

Suppressing a snarl, Tony retorted, “Never say never, Director.”

Fury narrowed his eye, but he decided to let the quip slide. Closing his eye, he narrated, “Agent Romanoff landed in Vienna four days ago. So far, she hasn’t had any luck finding him. No signs of struggle at the rendezvous point or at the landing site. Our other intercept had a similar impression. We believe he cut loose shortly after arrival. Agent Barton is ready to ship out tonight if Agent Romanoff doesn’t make contact in the next hour.”

Tony’s hackles rose with each announcement, and he found himself leaning forward in his chair, meeting Fury’s eye as it opened, regarding him somberly. “When,” Tony asked, very calmly, “were you going to tell me?”

The picture of still waters, Fury folded his hands on the desk. “You don’t work for S.H.I.E.L.D.,” he reminded, answer enough.

Teeth were shown, a snarl that Tony cut off, saying instead in the same measured tone, “Excuse me?”

Unruffled, Fury met the challenge. “You have made it _abundantly_ clear that you want nothing to do with this organization,” he growled, low as a lion. “I have honored that request. You are to be contacted in emergency situations _only_.”

Tony didn’t snap, but it was a very near thing. “That it? I’m your, what, unpaid consultant? Is that what I’m listed as?” Despair washed away anger, reeling with the knowledge that Steve was just _gone_ , asking plaintively, “What’s he listed as?”

“Avenger,” Fury said, as if it were obvious, which it was. “Same as you, Stark.”

That hurt, more than he expected. Pain translated easily to rage. “You know, this whole ‘secret organization’ thing doesn’t inspire confidence,” Tony simmered. “Last time I had someone above my station, he ripped the metal box out of my chest, so forgive me for not being impressed by the cloak-and-dagger routine when it comes to my teammates.”

Fury exhaled tersely, the only sign of frustration he allowed. His words were blunt, unapologetic. “You’re right.” Tony blinked, caught off-guard, narrowing his eyes as he waited for the other shoe to drop. Fury shook his head, insisting, “No, you’re right, Stark. You _should_ have been informed.” Reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose, he declared, “Until Agent Romanoff reported in, twenty-four hours after Captain Rogers’ last transmission, I had held out hope that it was all a technical glitch. Nothing to lose sleep over. But once that period was over. . . .” He trailed off.

Tony scowled. “If my math is correct—and you know it is—it’s been ninety-six hours since Rogers’ last transmission and seventy-two since Romanoff confirmed it. You couldn’t find five spare minutes?”

Fury looked at him with cool apathy. It showed in his voice as he said, “I know you’re upset.”

With a disgusted noise, Tony stood abruptly, unable to stay still. He couldn’t be here. He couldn’t exchange words when Steve Rogers was somewhere in the world without a soul knowing where. “When’s Barton’s flight leaving?” he asked, brisk, to the point.

Fury looked surprised. “We have no idea where Rogers is,” he warned, leaning back in his chair, entire demeanor still radiating dissatisfaction. “Assuming he didn’t go supersonic, the search radius is still a million square miles, Stark.”

The implication was chillingly clear. _We have no idea if he’s alive, and if he isn’t, we may never find him._

“Just tell me when the goddamn plane’s leaving,” Tony snapped.

“It’s a Quinjet.” Fury checked his watch, then met his gaze and rumbled, “Half an hour.”

“Which launchpad?”

Fury’s mouth curled downward in a sour frown, but he still answered, “D.”

Tony left him to his lair, cursing S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers Initiative the whole way to the Quinjet.

. o .

“Stark.” Leaning against the wall, Barton straightened in surprise. “What’re you—?”

Tony brushed past him. “You better have saved me a seat,” he said shortly, glaring at the rookie that looked ready to ask him for an ID as he stepped onto the Quinjet ramp. Duly humbled, the rookie stepped back, and Tony ascended the ramp without further delay.

The interior of the ’jet was spacious; the Quinjet purred reassuringly underfoot. Tony didn’t have long to take stock of his surroundings before Barton climbed aboard, asking again, “What’re you doing here, Tony?”

“Same thing as you, sharpshooter.” Barton opened his mouth, but Tony held up a hand. “Save it. I already talked to Fury.”

Barton looked him over, genuine curiosity bordering on _admiration_ in his eyes. “Once we’re in the air, you know there’s no turning back.”

Taking a seat and buckling himself in, Tony told him, “Let’s assume I’m an adult capable of making rational decisions and we’ll have a much more enjoyable flight.”

Taking the hint, Barton nodded and deplaned to confer briefly with the outside world, before re-boarding as the door slid shut and taking a seat behind the co-pilot. The Quinjet’s hum grew louder, and Tony thought, _This is crazy_.

But he didn’t bail, committing fully to the plan, and then they were off, rising through the open hangar.

. o . 

Restless and frustrated, Tony was having an unhappy call with an even unhappier Pepper about the sudden holiday when someone knocked on the Iron Man helmet. Appalled, Tony grabbed the hand, told Pepper, _I’m gonna call you back,_ and then lifted the faceplate. “Don’t touch my—”

Barton cut him off: “We got a ping.”

Tony’s mouth went dry. He let released Barton’s hand. “Where?”

A grimace darkened Barton’s features. “One of our under-covers said there was a hit at a base in Kunar. Afghanistan,” he added, misinterpreting Tony’s suddenly blank expression for confusion. “The agent’s in Basra—Iraq—but their cell picked up an emergency contact from Kunar.”

“Tell me S.H.I.E.L.D. had agents planning a raid in Kunar.” Tony closed his eyes. He couldn’t bear to see the truth in Barton’s expression.

“Guy really knows how to turn over a nest of hornets,” was all Barton said, squeezing his hand and returning to the copilot. Barton clamped a hand on the man’s shoulder, listening as the copilot relayed information to him in an undertone. Tony noticed the hearing aids in Barton’s ears and wondered how well he could hear over the ambient hum of the plane, but he was too dazed to spare that a second thought.

 _We got a ping_.

_Kunar._

_Afghanistan_.

“They can’t mobilize,” Barton was telling someone over the headset, “they’re too disparate. Makes ’em hard to hunt down. Cut down seven, three come back.”

 _Hydra,_ Tony thought, recalling the Greek monster which spouted two heads for every one cleaved off.

But Hydra wasn’t based in Afghanistan. No, there were known “hives” in Germany, Italy, Austria, other small European countries. It was a disease, but a relatively self-contained one, an infestation that spread outward.

They weren’t in Afghanistan.

But the Ten Rings _were_.

. o . 

Now that they had a target, the Quinjet couldn’t fly fast enough.

Romanoff was on the ground, stranded eighty hours away from the fight. The Quinjet still had five hours of time in the air to get to the site.

“He’s outside S.H.I.E.L.D.’s search radius,” Barton noted to Tony.

 _A million square miles_. That gave him a radius of a thousand miles in any linear direction. Rogers was—according to J.A.R.V.I.S.—approximately 3,900 miles away from his original drop site.

He flew, or he drove, or he fucking ran, _4,000 miles,_ to Kunar, Afghanistan.

Completely under the radar, too.

Tony would have been impressed if he wasn’t one step away from hysteria. Afghanistan. He was going back to Afghanistan. They were going to _Kunar_ , the very place that had branded him, tortured him.

He gripped his hair in his hands, grateful Barton’s attention was focused on the pilots. God. He couldn’t do this. _There’s no turning back_.

He was gonna fucking _kill_ Rogers, assuming he wasn’t already lying dead in a pool of his own heroic blood.

. o . 

They landed fifteen miles away to stay off the radar and drove in a strange Jeep-ATV hybrid that fit in the back of the Quinjet. They flew across the sandy terrain, but Tony could have covered the distance in less than a third of the time in his suit. He couldn’t make himself put on the suit. He couldn’t move.

Everything was painfully familiar. The bitter cold—it was early morning, eight-and-a-half hours later than it should have been—made him shiver. The Jeep was open, and he felt vulnerable, exposed. When they hit a hard bump in the road, he steadied himself with a hand on Barton’s arm.

He didn’t let go, holding on for strength. Barton let him, looking straight ahead. The pilot stayed with the plane, but the copilot drove. He had a mean-looking gun on his hip and a grim expression on his face.

It was a quiet night. Back home, it was 8 PM. They’d made great time, but it felt like another world, because it was almost 5 AM here. Daylight would be breaking soon. Rogers had struck just after midnight, local.

_If it was him._

They jounced along, taking a teeth-grindingly long time to cover a distance that, on paved roads, would have taken them only twenty minutes.

Cresting a shallow sand dune, they found the huddled, desolate village, laid out in the sands. It looked almost peaceful. It looked very empty.

But even from a distance, the dark shapes lying on the ground were unmistakable.

Tony’s head spun. He couldn’t breathe; even Barton flinched at the sight. Dark stains in the sand, bullet holes and torn cloth, Tony didn’t let himself look, breathing very fast, afraid to see something he could never un-see. _Too late_.

They stopped about a hundred feet away. Tony tumbled out of the Jeep and gagged, back against the metal as he hunched over. Hawkeye—he was Hawkeye, now; Tony managed to draw in a steady enough breath to hit the suit, donning his armor shell—guarded him, standing in front of him, sweeping the scene. The Jeep provided cover. The copilot advanced. 

Barton looked at Tony and asked quietly, “You hear anything?”

Tony’s breathing was loud in the mask, but Hawkeye couldn’t hear it. He held his breath, listening, but his heart was pounding. It was hopeless. He shook his head.

They neared the bodies. Tony started shaking. Twice, J.A.R.V.I.S. advised, “Sir, perhaps you should turn back.”

 _There’s no turning back_.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t look at them. Goddammit, some of them were kids, maybe eighteen, recruited because it was the way of life, their own bastardized family. He didn’t want to identify them. He didn’t want to know who had the most blood on their hands— _on their body—_ among them. They weren’t his torturers. They were bodies.

He shook. Barton put a hand on his elbow, steadying him. “Cover me,” Barton suggested. Nodding once in acquiescence, Tony fell into step behind him, safe in his suit of armor but terrified to the bone.

_Get it together. Get it to-fucking-gether._

He couldn’t. 

“I can’t do this,” he gasped. Barton paused. The third agent paused, looked back at them. Tony swallowed panic, shook his head, and said, “I—”

“It’s quiet, Tony,” Barton—Clint; he was the man standing in front of _Iron Man_ with fearless calm, he deserved to be named—said. 

It was somehow reassuring. Clint’s rigid posture but calm eyes were reassuring, too. Tony stared at them, focused on them, breathed frantically for a few moments.

The copilot walked forward, running point. Hawkeye covered him. Tony marched after them, gauntlets at the ready. J.A.R.V.I.S. could pilot the suit if need be: Tony had made sure it was fully automated. He couldn’t remember what had motivated him then, but he was grateful for the foresight now.

They found the main lair and descended into hell.

Tony shut his eyes, following the sound of Barton’s light footfalls. It was quiet, he noticed. No breathing, no running, no cries for help or shouts of alarm. The fight was over. This was the battlefield, but he had missed the war.

He reached out and snagged Clint’s quiver, hand still shaking. Clint let him, balancing a wicked-looking knife in hand. He had a gun on his belt, too. In any other circumstance, Tony would have commented on the absurdity of having a gun and a bow, but it made sense: bows and arrows were better for long-range combat; knives could be thrown if needed.

Deep in the heart of the cave, Tony opened his eyes.

He shut them quickly, but it was too late.

Bodies. Not as many as in the open, but four of them in plain view. Tony moaned in despair. Clint called out, “Rogers?”

No response. They moved forward cautiously. Tony watched, but even with the HUD he could barely see. Images were burned in his eyelids. They superimposed themselves over familiar scenes. _Like a Hydra. Kill one, two come back._

 _Disparate. Can’t mobilize_.

Tony’s kidnapping, Yinsen’s death—these were footnotes in the Cell’s life. They had grown, despite his efforts to raze them to the ground. He had acted in a panic, had acted on a _deadline_ , literal, metaphorical, flying away before he could be sure he’d killed them all.

He hadn’t.

He let go of Clint’s quiver. They walked on. A reassuring fog was settling between Tony and the world around him. He didn’t have to focus on it. He could just follow Clint, ready to fire at the first thing that moved that wasn’t wearing red, white, or blue.

The tunnels were elaborate, well-connected. It took a while to search them all.

“He’s not here.” 

Standing in the sand, looking away from the carnage, Clint spoke. Tony felt like vomiting. The copilot said in a wondering tone, “No; he’s there.”

Tony whipped around and saw a scene from a dream. Captain America, shield dragging on his right arm, walking towards them. He limped visibly, but he walked steadily towards them.

Tony watched the mirage, expecting it to evaporate, but Cap kept coming, until he was ten feet away, looking at the three of them with wolf eyes. They didn’t glow, but there was a feral glint to them. He surveyed the copilot—a man he didn’t know; or maybe he did, Tony didn’t _know_ Steve’s life—and then Clint. He dropped the shield.

Tony caught him before he could follow it.

He didn’t weep, but he trembled against Tony, forehead on an iron shoulder. Tony clutched him hard, one gauntlet-covered hand fisting wild, blood-damp hair. God. He was covered in it, Tony realized, but he didn’t push him away in repulsion. Desperate, desperate beyond words to be free, Tony started pulling him. Steve’s fingers fumbled and grabbed the edge of the shield.

He walked but barely, leaning heavily on Iron Man. The Jeep wasn’t far, but he seemed completely drained by the time Tony shoved him inside.

The copilot drove, talking to S.H.I.E.L.D., letting them know. Tony had a strong feeling Clint was doing the same for Natasha.

 _Steve, Bruce, Clint, Natasha._ He could call them by their first names. They were his friends. _His_ family _._

Given a second to breathe, Tony stared at Steve in the dim pre-morning light. There were little metal shards sticking out of Steve’s chest, oozing blood. His right ankle was either broken or badly sprained. A laceration inches above it dripped red onto the floor. His chest was a kaleidoscope of orange, red, and blue. Tony shut his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at it, the worst of the damage seeping from the dozen metal shards sticking out of his suit.

It was nearly bulletproof, but the best Kevlar had its limits. A close-range explosion was bad news, no matter how good your suit was.

Maybe it was an accident, maybe it was planned, maybe it was an act of desperation on the part of his enemies—one way or another, it hadn’t stopped him. He leaned on Tony. Tony cradled his head in a gauntlet.

He bled all over the suit, his own and others’ mingling against the red and gold. Tony kept his eyes closed, but he could still imagine it, screams and gunfire and anguished cries. It made him shiver. The suit hid it.

They were on the Quinjet, then, somehow—Tony thought Clint helped him, got under Steve’s other shoulder to take his weight off the bad leg, but the Iron Man suit could have carried Steve in his arms, if needed—and then there was a spell Tony obliterated from memory but for strapping Steve into his seat with gauntlet-covered hands. It would have been easier without the suit, but Tony didn’t dare take it off. He would shatter without the iron framework holding him up.

They were in a world of trouble, Tony knew distantly. Vigilantes killed people. Vigilantes raided nests without warning and struck the fear of God into their enemies without supervision. Vigilantes were exactly what S.H.I.E.L.D. feared, the rabid dogs they put down. As much as Tony hated the proverbial leash S.H.I.E.L.D. had tightened around Steve’s neck, he knew it was security for them.

One wrong kill could end an agent’s career. Steve had killed at least twenty people.

Tony knelt in front of him, staring up at him, trying to process it all. They had both knocked down Chitauri like the bastards they were, no mercy, no prisoners, but these were _humans_ , human-people with human-needs and a human-desperation to survive. It was easier to compartmentalize Chitauri into _rabid insectoid aliens_ and cut them into pieces.

But this was _war_. There was no separating _you_ from _them_. Tony didn’t want to, but he imagined it, a sense of normalcy over the camp before the hurricane swept through and killed them all.

 _Because of you_.

He swallowed hard and stood. Steve looked at him with glassy eyes.

Soldier, Tony thought.

He grazed a gauntlet-covered hand over blood-matted hair. Steve shut his eyes and leaned into Tony’s palm, right where the warm muzzle of Iron Man’s repulsor gun resided. He stayed there. Tony had the impression he was waiting, waiting for something. Appalled at the implication, Tony staggered back, moving too fast, crashing noisily to the floor.

Clint was on him in a second, helping him up, staring at Steve like he barely recognized him. The pilots were talking to each other, to S.H.I.E.L.D. They were sparse on details, but Tony knew it would all come to light soon.

He saw a number in his mind’s eye. 

_Twenty-eight_.

He waited for the triumph, the feeling of relief, but it wasn’t there. Clint ushered him to a seat. He sat hard, watching as Clint moved between the pilots and Steve, looking every time like he wanted to say something to the latter but never quite managing it.

At some indeterminate point, the pilot handed the controls to her partner and stood up. She didn’t flinch from Steve; that was S.H.I.E.L.D. Even Clint struggled, but she was there, grabbing a med pack from the ceiling. Clint slid into the copilot’s seat. Back to them. Like he couldn’t look.

Tony couldn’t look away, watching as she crouched in front of Steve, wrapping gauze around his bleeding calf. Talking. _You’re okay. We’ve got you, Cap. Fury’s up to date; he’ll talk to you later. Take it easy._

It wasn’t what Tony expected. He didn’t know how to feel about it all. 

He watched, taking it all in behind the safety of a mask.

It was triage—she didn’t touch the shards; they were keeping him from bleeding out further—and it wasn’t long before she was taking his gloved hand and giving it a firm squeeze. “We’ve got you,” she promised. He nodded once and she let him go. She wiped her hands on a clean rag, slid back in the pilot’s chair, and said, “ETA 39 minutes to Geneva.”

Geneva. Switzerland. A neutral country. Tony wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t stop staring at Captain America, slumped in his seat, bleeding onto the floor.

He caught Tony staring and held his Iron gaze.

With apparent effort, he formed the words. 

_Not your fault._

Tony didn’t say a word as he stared at him. Cap shut his eyes and bled onto the floor.

. o . 

_I’m neurotic. I know that. Always have been. Probably always will be. I don’t know how you retire from being yourself._

Step. Step. Step. Arm around his waist. Don’t let go. Elevator. Step, step. A word. A mechanical response. Hold him up. Up they go. Don’t let go.

_I think personal growth is realizing your own neuroses and accepting them instead of fighting them. I’m a goddamn mess, but I own that. I embrace it. I let it take me for a ride, see how high I can fly. I don’t want the perfect life. I never did. I just want one I can live with._

The lights came on low. J.A.R.V.I.S. listened. Tony didn’t talk. He guided Steve over to his bed, one staggering step at a time. Hold on. Don’t let go. I’ve got you, Cap.

_I’m an Avenger. I know you know that. See, that—that’s the self-absorption. I like to make it about me. It’s always about me._

With careful hands—human hands, no metal between them—he helped Steve lie down. 

_It’s always about me._

He flattened a hand over Steve’s bandaged side. A breath. A pause. Then Steve held up an arm in quiet invitation. Tony didn’t say he wasn’t drunk enough to join him. He crawled into bed beside him, huddling close. Steve smelled like his shampoo. It was heady.

_I kind of wish that was still true._

Steve’s heartbeat was fast but not frantic. He curved an arm around Tony’s back, holding him from hip to shoulder. It reminded him of the suit. It was very safe. He breathed and Tony felt it against his own chest.

_I kind of don’t. I honestly have no idea how to do any of this. Be an Avenger. Be Tony Stark. It used to be easy. I was my father’s son, but better. Always better. He made gadgets? I made missiles. He was loud and proud of himself, I was louder, prouder. It felt good. I was an only child. I’m grateful for that. I don’t know how I would have shared it all._

Steve didn’t cry. Tony did. He cried into the bruised skin on Cap’s naked shoulder. Steve shifted his grip, nested a hand in Tony’s hair. Comforting. Close. He said nothing. He didn’t need to.

 _I don’t like sharing. Sharing means letting people see you. The real you. The neurotic, angry, scared, I might-actually-cry you. That’s not me_.

“It’s okay.” A whisper. A mantra.

 _If I share too much, I can’t retract it_.

“It’s okay.”

_I feel like I should be more and less scared. More: because I’m starting to realize I can never build a suit of armor that’ll protect more than my skin. But I want to be less scared. I want to care less. I want to—I just want to move on, you know?_

He sobbed.

_I wanna be okay._

Again. And again. And again. 

_I’m terrified I’m never gonna be okay again. Like, ever._

Steve held him close, held him _together_ , as he quietly fell apart.

_I’m friends with the Hulk, did you know that? The goddamn Hulk. Two master assassins. A literal god. Honestly, maybe neuroticism is my superpower. Nobody can touch me, because I don’t let them. You can’t take a hit that way. Simple, really._

Steve rested his cheek on top of Tony’s hair, and breathed _S_ _hh._ It wasn’t advice. It was just a sound, a comfort, like the arm around his back. Tony bit back a wail, clutching at him, bandages instead of skin.

_But—and you might’ve figured this out, given that we’re sitting here—I’ve recently discovered I’m not invincible. I know that sounds—honestly, I don’t know what it sounds like. I’m not one for self-deprecation. I didn’t need two voices like that in my head._

It was quiet and dark and he wasn’t crying anymore, but Steve was still holding him, and he wondered if you could break your heart being too grateful for someone next to you.

_My dad, he was a character. I didn’t actually hate him. Weird as that sounds. I wanted to be better. Be exactly what he saw in me. Something brilliant. Something shiny and meteoric._

“I’m here, Tony.” Three words, and he was crying again, fuck. Steve didn’t say anything. He just kept them safe.

_I made myself into that thing. And I’ve been proud of that. It’s been one of the highlights of my career, to be perfectly honest. Being Iron Man feels like my destiny. It was a tragedy, and it literally almost killed me, and I—I’m not sure how I can begin to talk about some of the things it’s done to me._

There had been shrapnel in Steve’s chest. There wasn’t shrapnel anymore. They’d removed it. The right way. No arc reactor. Never again.

_But it’s who I am. And I embrace that._

He pushed at Steve and Steve moved accordingly, lying down on his back instead of his side. Tony settled next to him, head on his shoulder, hand on his heart. Steve’s own hands closed gently around Tony, splaying across his back.

_I need to believe that all of this is worthwhile. And I’m—I’m lucky. Weird as that sounds. I’m one of the lucky ones._

Tony wasn’t drunk, but he was warm from head to toe, safe from the rest of the world under the covers with Steve, and that was better.

_I’m grateful I get to live this fucked-up life. I can’t parse it like I want to: here’s the good, here’s the bad. It’s all tangled up. I don’t think I can untangle it without cutting strings._

Steve’s thumb stroked his hip, back, forth. Tony had shorts and a t-shirt on, but his hand was on bare skin. Tony shivered. Steve, wearing shorts and too many bandages, sighed.

_You don’t choose the people you love. It just happens. And if those people are a little fucked-up, too, maybe you’re both kidding yourselves believing something good can come out of it._

Time passed. Tony didn’t know how long. Steve breathed, lifting him up with each breath. Tony let the rhythm hypnotize him.

_I’m more afraid to lose the good than I am to find the bad. I know it’s there. Everyone’s got their rough edges. The people I care about . . ._

Steve slept. Tony didn’t.

_Let’s just say they really are exceptional._

Tony drifted, the tension in his body draining away. _At ease, soldier._

_Someday, I’m gonna have to pay for this. I’m already paying for it. I don’t mean being here, seeing—well, you. I mean sleepless nights, panicked waking moments. I’m afraid these things are gonna haunt me forever. How do you un-see things?_

Steve’s skin was a smooth canvas, splashed with red and blue, like the shield he wore. He slept like he couldn’t feel it. Tony hoped he couldn’t.

_It shook me up. I don’t know how things can still shake me up. I flew a nuke into space. I went so high my suit gave out. I wasn’t afraid. I was just watching it happen. I was—I was okay. I was okay with what was going to happen, because I’d done what I’d been trying to do._

It was amazing to think the man underneath him, still holding him with loose-limbed warmth, could have spat with searing earnestness the words mere weeks ago: _You may not be a threat, but you’d better stop pretending to be a hero_. 

_I don’t know how this is all going to end, but I think in that moment I was able to accept_ that _ending. I could believe that it was the culmination of something. And when I shut my eyes, I thought it was over._

Tony thought of a plane, of a man frozen in time. He wondered if Steve had felt the glacial calm he exuded now, or if that was the moment when the fear of death was finally snuffed out of him.

 _I’m glad it wasn’t_.

Steve stirred. Blinking, eyes barely open, he rasped, “Tony?”

_I was still needed._

“Shhh.”

 _I—I still had a life to live. Things worth fighting for. And I’m grateful that I get the chance to keep doing that_.

“Don’t go.”

 _Keep fighting_.

“I’m here.”

 _I never thought of myself as a fighter. Kind of strange. I helped fund wars, but I didn’t think of myself as a fighter_.

“Don’t go.” The repetition broke Tony’s heart.

_I guess we’re all fighting something. Maybe death and taxes. Maybe for each other. And maybe just for peace._

“Where else would I go?” Tony asked. He rubbed Steve’s side. “Go to sleep. I’ve got you.”

 _Strange, isn’t it? We fight for peace_.

Tony listened to Steve’s breath even out.

_I want this to help me find peace with myself, because I’ve already found peace with them._

_Him,_ Tony corrected, not sitting with hunched shoulders in the therapist’s office but lying on top of a sleeping Steve Rogers.

_I’m here to find peace with myself. I need that. I’ve needed it for a long time, but . . . more than ever, I want it. I want to feel safe in my own skin, at home wherever I’m standing. I want to feel okay again._

Thh-thump, thh-thump, thh-thump. It was fast, almost fluttering, but it was Steve’s heart at rest. There was no better mantra in the world than that unflagging heartbeat.

_Can you help me?_

Somehow, that was the sticking point. Not admitting that he was arrogant, or fucked-up, or sad, or overwhelmed with how much he felt for the man underneath him. Asking for help he didn’t know how to give himself, or find, in someone who made a living doing that.

 _I’ll do what I can,_ the man replied. _I believe you can achieve what you are looking for, absolutely._

Absolutely, Tony mused. He closed his own eyes and stroked Steve’s side, keeping up the repetition until he, too, drifted off.

His sleep was dreamless. 

Peaceful.


	3. AN OCEAN BETWEEN US

They’d fallen asleep face-to-face, but when Tony awoke, Steve was hugging him from behind.

Steve breathed deeply, rhythmically. Tony stroked against the grain of hairs on the arm curled around his stomach. It twitched, moved back a little; he stopped, resting his palm flat against it. Steve sighed and unconsciously pulled him closer, sliding one leg over both of Tony’s. He was warm and heavy and content. Tony couldn’t name how he felt about it all, other than he would turn down all the tech in the world to stay right here for a few more hours.

He got ten more minutes before Steve stirred. Mumbling something, he pushed his cheek against the back of Tony’s shoulder like he was chasing sleep, but it was a lost cause. He sighed. Tony didn’t make a sound, barely even breathed, but Steve still asked in a sleep-heavy tone, “Time is it?”

“No idea,” Tony admitted. He couldn’t hide the wakefulness in his own tone.

Picking up on it, Steve released him. He did it with unhurried movements, falling onto his back and exhaling titanically. The warm imprint of his skin was still etched across Tony’s, but the loss was keen. He didn’t know why it hurt. He was afraid to even think about it, like it would shatter the ease they shared. It was such a tentative peace. He wanted to keep it. _So don’t think about it_.

Easy enough.

Steve leveraged himself out of bed. Tony watched him, tucking a hand under his head. He was too old to pull off coquettish, but he felt borderline playful when Steve looked down, saw him watching, and flushed. For the man who invented staring contests, the bashfulness was unexpected. Tony smiled, then said calmly, “We’re taking a night in.”

Steve met his gaze and nodded once. “Okay.” He looked lost, glancing around the room like he was taking it in.

Tony got up slowly, aiming not to startle him. He sauntered over to his side, wrapping his arms around Steve’s waist and squeezing. “We need to talk,” he said, easing the sharpness of the words with the softness of his embrace.

Steve still tensed, but he nodded. Tony released him.

He could still feel the warmth of his skin. It was becoming a problem.

 _For another time_ , he promised himself, stuffing the thought into a drawer and resolving never to open that drawer again.

. o . 

No matter how Tony approached it, it felt like an interrogation.

“How’d you do it?”

Steve stuffed a slice of pizza into his mouth, avoiding the question. It was one of the more exasperating facets of his personality, Tony was discovering. If Steve didn’t want to talk about something, he found a way to avoid it. He trained. He moved on. He didn’t pause. The mandatory halt was pulling him up short. Tony stayed firm. Even when Steve took another exasperating bite, he refused to lose his calm.

At last, Steve swallowed and said lowly, “I drove. I flew. I walked.”

Already stuffed full of pizza, Tony leaned back against the headboard and leveled a very flat look at him. Sitting across from him, Steve looked away. “Budapest wasn’t far,” he allowed.

That was progress. “Budapest,” Tony repeated.

Steve nodded slowly, pushing the pizza box aside. “S.H.I.E.L.D. safe house. Clint mentioned he and Natasha spent a few nights there. It was well-appointed.”

“Steamy,” Tony said, just to make his ears turn red. Steve sighed like he was disappointed, but his ears did turn red, which was gratifying.

Bulling on, he added, “I spent the night—morning; got in late, ’round 2 AM local—and then I used a S.H.I.E.L.D. alias to get a ticket to Kabul.”

Tony cocked his head at him, curiosity lacing his tone as he asked, “You have aliases now?”

Steve shrugged, brushing his hands over his uniformed knees. “Mm-hm. Alex Morgan, Sam White—burner names. Stuff you pull out of a hat. I don’t need ’em often, but they come in handy, ’specially outside the States. Captain America isn’t universally known.”

“If I were Nick Fury, aliases would be first thing I’d check,” Tony pointed out.

Steve’s expression was cool, his entire posture radiating discontentment, trapped-animal displeasure. He said slowly, “For a genius, you’re a little slow on the uptake, Tony.”

Suddenly out of patience for the game, Tony narrowed his eyes. “Pizza privileges can and will be revoked if you don’t roll back the tone, Rogers.” Steve stared him down hard, but Tony shoved him back just as hard, glaring at him. “If you think _I’m_ prying, you’re gonna love what Fury’s gonna do to you. And that’s just Fury. You think the Council will be better?. You’ll be lucky if they let you keep your shield.”

Steve’s expression clouded, but Tony pushed on, refusing to let it go. “You don’t wanna tell me? Fine. Let me guess: You bailed on S.H.I.E.L.D., drove to Budapest in a stolen car, flew to Kabul under a secret alias, hitched a camel ride to Kunar,” a flash of annoyance. Tony knew he was pushing it and he pushed it farther as he snapped, “And you killed _twenty-one people_ in cold blood.” He was stunned at the vitriol in his own voice. “I miss anything?”

Steve stared at him. His expression was blank. If Tony had slapped him, he couldn’t have looked more surprised. “I . . . .” The lost expression was back. “I didn’t. . . .” He shook his head. Tony’s heart beat very fast, but he didn’t say anything. Didn’t offer the comfort those despairing eyes were suddenly searching for. “I didn’t wanna kill all of ’em,” he croaked.

Tony shut his eyes. He was terrified the tears would be visible otherwise, but they never fell.

He heard movement and opened them, watching Steve pace, head in his hands like he couldn’t bear to sit down. He was still limping, but he didn’t seem to pay attention to it, stepping and flinching whenever his right foot hit the floor. It was still blue with bruises. “I thought I could shut ’em down,” he rasped. “You know, I would—I would—” He didn’t seem to know where he was going with his thoughts. It was painful to watch, but Tony forced himself to watch.

He stepped on his bad foot and stumbled. He caught himself on the wall. “Shit. Fuck.” He slid down the wall. Tony stared in abject wonder as Captain fucking America fell apart in front of him, hugging his knees to his chest.

Tony stared at him, a tiny voice whispering, _Murderer_ where _Soldier_ had once been.

He had absolutely no idea what to do.

When Steve started sobbing, he just sat there in horror, utterly unable to move.

. o . 

There was an ocean between them.

Tony moved cautiously, staring at the figure hunched on the floor by the wall, as small as he could get. Trembling hands seeking normalcy, he closed the pizza box. He didn’t know how much time had passed, because it was dark out and silent. There was no one else home. Steve wasn’t home. He was right there, but he wasn’t moving, wasn’t speaking, wasn’t making a sound. Tony moved one step towards him, hesitated, and retreated to the bathroom.

He locked the door and sat on the floor against the shower. Softly, he admitted, “J.A.R.V.I.S., I—I can’t do this.”

“Perhaps now would be a good time to reach out to a friend or family member,” J.A.R.V.I.S. suggested, kind as ever. J.A.R.V.I.S. would never hurt him. J.A.R.V.I.S. would never kill twenty-eight people, more than half of them in a single bloody night.

God. God.

Tony nodded, realized he was shaking. “That’s a good idea. I should do that.”

“Who would you like me to call, sir?”

Tony couldn’t answer the question. It was too much to sort, to try to figure out who could help him. “Anyone,” he said at last, pure desperation.

“I shall see who responds,” J.A.R.V.I.S. said at last.

A long time passed. Tony didn’t move from his huddle. At last, J.A.R.V.I.S. said, “Sir?”

“I’m here.” His voice was hollow.

“Mr. Rhodes is here.”

Tony released a shuddering breath that sounded like a sob. “Okay.”

“Shall I let him in?”

Tony wanted to say yes. He wanted to, but that would mean Rhodey would have to come there and see what had happened. Tony couldn’t bear that thought. “No, I’ll—I’ll get it. Tell him to wait.”

“Of course, sir.”

Tony waited for so long he was sure Rhodey would leave, but when he asked, “He still there?”

J.A.R.V.I.S. replied: “Of course, sir.”

“Okay.” He pushed himself to his feet. He was shaking like a foal, but at least he was on his feet. He made himself walk. He made himself not think. “I’m on my way.”

J.A.R.V.I.S. didn’t respond. 

Slowly, Tony opened the door. The ball huddled on the floor hadn’t moved. Tony skirted as wide around him as he could, considering and dismissing climbing over the bed. He held his breath, terrified he would break the shattered glass into pieces. He slipped out the door. He gasped with relief the second it was shut, all but ran to the elevator, stumbling over himself.

When he arrived, the door slid open. Tony lunged at Rhodey, holding onto him like a drowning man. “Hey, whoa, easy,” Rhodey said, hugging him firmly as Tony clung to him, shaking. “What’s going on? Talk to me, Tony.”

“I made a mistake,” he babbled, clutching Rhodey’s shirt, gasping for breath. “I made a mistake—”

“Easy,” Rhodey soothed, walking him back into the main room. He encouraged, “Breathe, Tony, you gotta breathe.”

“He killed twenty-eight people,” he gasped, over and over, like he was drowning in it. “He killed _twenty-eight people_.”

“Easy,” Rhodey repeated, letting him hold on as he drowned.

Tony couldn’t stop saying it, astonished at how much it hurt, how he could accept Natasha’s bloody past, even Clint’s ruthless career without a mental hitch, but he couldn’t accept the fact that _Captain America_ was a killer.

Rhodey kept him from shattering but only just.

. o . 

Tony was aware that he was shaking as he sat next to Rhodey on the couch and watched _House Hunters_. Tony leaned against Rhodey, barely paying attention to the show, but the noise was nice. Refreshingly normal. “Rhodey, we should get a barnhouse."

“Why a barnhouse?”

“I could put in rafters and we could watch football in our suits.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready for a fixer-upper,” Rhodey mused. “I’d at least ask you to take me to dinner.”

Tony sighed. “We should get married. Then my life would be normal and good and I would have a dog and be able to sleep at night.”

“You can get a dog. What kind of dog?”

“I don’t know. What kind of dogs are there? A mutt. Something with character.”

“Lots of mutts at the shelter.”

“Take it on walks, let it pee on people I don’t like.”

“It’s good to have clear, reasonable goals.”

“Big dumb lovable mutt. Something with character.”

“You’re an adult, Tony. You don’t have to ask permission to get a dog.”

“I’ve never had a dog.”

“Lots of first-time owners out there.”

“How would I even take care of it? I’m busy.”

“You’d figure it out.”

Tony sighed. “Rhodey, I wanna be normal so bad my teeth hurt. Why can’t I say no to people who make that harder?”

“Who’s making it harder, Tony?”

The truth was too much. “Fury,” he deflected. “He wants me to be an _Avenger._ What’s the point? Once people are dead, they don’t get back up, no matter how many other people you kill. If the world burns, it won’t make a damn difference if I avenge her. The only thing I can do to help is to make sure the bad thing _never_ happens. I don’t want blood on my hands.” He shivered, repeated, “I can’t live with blood on my hands.”

Rhodey didn’t respond immediately. “I think you would benefit from someone who can help you deal with this stuff. Professionally. You know I’m here for you. I’m always here for you, Tony, but there’s a lot you’ve been dealt. Trying to deal with that all on your own is a lonely path.”

Tony shivered. “I don’t need a therapist.”

“No, you don’t,” Rhodey agreed, “but I think a therapist could help you. You’ve been through hell, Tony. Maybe you’d finally get that sleep at night if you found a way to deal with what’s happened to you.”

Tony didn’t know what to say. 

“I’m still here for you,” Rhodey assured, “but I think it would help you to talk to someone who can help you make sense of it all.”

“I’m afraid of making sense of it all.”

Rhodey dropped his arm from the back of the couch to his shoulders and squeezed.

They didn’t speak. Still, Tony couldn’t forget about the things he wanted to.

. o . 

It was two in the morning when Rhodey left, giving him one last firm hug. Tony held onto him, trying to keep the kicked-puppy expression from his eyes when he pulled back. Rhodey was tranquility in any storm, but it was two in the morning and Tony was past feeling like he was going to die, so it was only fair to let him go. “Get some sleep,” Rhodey advised him in parting.

Tony grimaced. “No promises.”

“Good night, Tony.”

“Night, Rhodey.”

Alone, Tony looked around the main room, the nighttime city, feeling dizzy with it all. “Hey, J.A.R.V.I.S.?”

“I’m here, sir.”

Tony swallowed. The sick feeling was back. “He still there?”

There was a pause. “Yes.”

Tony closed his eyes. “Okay.” Then, moving towards the balcony, he added, “I’ll be out here. Don’t need me.”

The night air was cool. The city noises, while subdued, were comforting. He stood at the railing and listened to it all, immersed himself in it all, tried to lose himself in the city.

When that didn’t work, he called Pepper. “Hey, sweetie,” he greeted.

She yawned. “Tony, hon, you know I love you, but it’s three in the morning. What’s wrong?”

“How do you uninvite someone from a sleepover?” he asked. His voice was soft but didn’t tremble. He was grateful for that. It sounded normal. Sad. But normal.

“Oh, Tony.” He couldn’t stand the compassion in her voice, squeezing his eyes shut. “What happened?”

He leaned his head on his arms, his wrist aglow with the call. “Please fix this, Pepper. Like you always do.”

“Do you want me to come over?”

He buried his face in his arms. “No,” he said. “I still have my sleepover to deal with.”

“That’s what I mean.”

A beat. He sighed. “I don’t know,” he said, sounding thoroughly miserable to his own ears. “I don’t want him to go.”

“What happened?” Pepper asked gently.

She was so gentle. And so . . . innocent. She didn’t know. She shouldn’t know. _Nobody should know this_. Even Rhodey didn’t know _who_ he was crying about. Maybe he had an idea, but it was speculation. This, though—this was confirmation. It was cruel. It was wrong. No one should know what Captain America was underneath the shield and the accolades and the impossible nobility.

“Tony,” Pepper prompted. “You there?”

“I’m here.”

“I’m serious about coming over. Do you want me there?”

 _No. I still have my sleepover to deal with_. Tony let out a weak laugh. “I’m not even tired.”

Pepper sighed. Affectionate. Sad. “Do you wanna come over?” she asked.

It was tempting. Really tempting. Run away, bury himself in real comfort, real warmth, unentangled, a person who was exactly who he thought she was and who loved him wholly. It was the kind of comfort he usually craved in the wake of a messy breakup, but this was so much different. Worse. And “the sleepover” was still there.

He couldn’t do it.

“I’m okay.” His voice was small, but it was earnest. She picked up on that.

“Okay.” Then she said, “Take care of yourself, Tony.”

He nodded against his arms. “You, too.” He hung up, let the night air drift over him, standing at the edge of his world.

The door slid open behind him.

He heard footsteps, slow, measured. Some distance away. He stopped at the railing, keeping the distance between them.

Tony lifted his head and looked out at the city. He could see Steve from the corner of his eye, face a mask, hands leaning on the railing. His expression was a thousand miles away. He didn’t look at Tony, didn’t acknowledge him. Waiting.

At last, Tony said, “I’m sorry.”

Steve’s expression didn’t change, but his fingers flexed on the railing. Tony didn’t miss the fact that he was back in uniform. It was still stained with blood. Tony stared at it, waited to feel something, but nothing changed. He shifted closer, not quite committing to even a full step. Steve stood motionless, straight-backed and silent.

“If I can’t forgive myself,” Steve said at last, hauntingly honest, “I don’t want anyone else to.”

Then he turned and walked away.

The door slid shut behind him.

Tony didn’t move.

. o . 

_Captain America’s on threat watch?_

. o . 

Fury asked him to come in.

Tony went.

The others were there. Natasha, Clint, Bruce.

Steve.

He stood in his soldier’s uniform, shield strapped to his back, looking for all the world like he had a week prior. Calm. Collected. Whole.

It was a mask. Tony could see through it, now, but he didn’t say anything. He took a seat at the table next to Bruce. Steve stood, hands clasped in front of himself. It was almost prayerful. There was nothing soft in his eyes, nothing approaching peace. Fury, seated, looked at the others. When Steve didn’t sit, he said, “At ease, soldier.”

Steve didn’t move, standing with his hands clasped in front of himself.

“That means sit, Rogers.”

Still he didn’t budge.

“Steve,” Tony warned, surprising himself, but Steve was unyielding, hard lines and neutral expression, like he was being insubordinate.

“Need I remind you this is already a sensitive situation?” Fury said, real hardness entering his voice. “Take a seat.”

Steve spoke. “Where are the others?”

“There are no others. Thor is off-world and unreachable.”

Steve looked at them all. He looked hunted, but it was only in the tic of his jaw and the way he didn’t linger on any of them that Tony even knew it. He imagined Natasha might, too.

“I don’t want your protection, Director,” Steve said.

“I don’t give a damn,” Fury retorted. “The Council is not concerned with the human element here. _I am_. That’s why I created the Avengers Initiative: I saw that the world needed more than tanks and armor to protect it from the threats it faced.”

“I don’t want your protection, Director,” Steve repeated quietly.

The room was silent. “Steve,” Clint began in a clipped tone, “what Fury is offering you? Is a good deal. Take it.”

“I don’t want special treatment.” Steve looked at Fury coolly. “I made my choices. I stand by them.”

There was more there. Tony wanted to ask, but Fury spoke first. “I know you’re angry,” Fury said, staring at Steve. “I know you’re pissed off, you hate us, and you want to fight everybody’s fight to prove something to yourself. You know why I keep you around, Rogers? Because in spite of all that, I see a damn good man. Right now, I’m not sure where he is, but I need _him_ in this room.”

Steve narrowed his eyes. Fury held up a hand, looking more exasperated than angry. “I don’t wanna hear it.” He pointed at the chair. “Sit. Final warning.”

Steve looked like he would walk. For a terrible moment, Tony thought he would leave the room, and that would be that. _Rogers is the most likely to go rogue._

Steve removed the shield, pulled out the chair, and sat down. He had the presence of a soldier but he wouldn’t look at Fury anymore. He said, “I don’t hate you.”

“We pulled you out of the ice,” Fury retorted. Steve’s eyes darkened, fight tensing in his shoulders. “We brought you here.”

“You rescued me.”

“From what?”

“Prison.”

This was too personal, too much, but Fury had called them there. Tony forced himself to listen. 

“You weren’t imprisoned.”

“I would never have gotten out on my own.”

“Did you even want to get out?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to go back.”

It was such a simple, raw admission that it seemed to catch even Fury off-guard. Tony had the impression the whole conversation was circular, meant to reinforce Fury’s own stance by getting Steve to point out the positives. But those words— _I don’t want to go back—_ hurt.

Fury seemed at a loss for words. Clint, again, stepped in, his voice the same calm caliber. “No one’s gonna put you back in the ice, Steve.”

Steve shuddered, a full body, involuntary thing. 

Tony couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t a hypothetical in Steve’s mind. It was a certainty. They would lose control of him. The only way they could regain it would be to do the unimaginable.

And he would _let_ them.

 _If I can’t forgive myself, I don’t want anyone else to_.

Steve glanced at him; Tony held his gaze. He couldn’t stand the weight of that stare, the emotions hidden underneath the calm exterior.

He saw a man screaming in agony, not from pain but anguish, pure, unbridled despair.

He moved. Pushing the chair back, he stood, walked the ten steps to Steve’s chair, and said firmly, “Up.”

Steve stood. Tony didn’t know what that meant, but they were in the hallway and he hauled on Steve’s shoulder strap, forcing him to the elevator, a semblance of privacy. The second the doors shut, Tony hit the full-stop button with a closed fist.

He grabbed Steve by the shoulder straps of that goddamn uniform and hauled him in, holding him, back crashing into the opposite side of the elevator as Steve stumbled into him with a surprised sound.

“No one’s gonna hurt you,” he told Steve, a lie, a promise he couldn’t make but meant with his entire heart. “Not on my watch. Got it?”

Steve didn’t respond, holding on, shaking. He gasped, grasping at Tony’s shirt. Tony told him, “I know, I know, buddy, I know,” because he did, he _knew_ that panic. He knew what it was like to drown in an empty room. “I’m here. I gotcha.”

He didn’t know how to even save himself. He had a moment of knowing exactly how helpless Rhodey and Pepper felt, as he grasped at Steve’s shoulders, anywhere he could reach, a hand finding its way into Steve’s messed up hair so Tony could feel something that wasn’t the _suit_. He didn’t care about the suit, would’ve torn it away if he could, but it was too tough. Irremovable.

There was a metaphor in there, he knew, but he didn’t care. He held Steve in the jammed elevator for what felt like hours.

Eventually, the shaking stopped.

And somehow, the world kept turning.

. o . 

They lounged on the floor in a tangle of blankets Steve had removed from his own bed. There was a single sheet on it, crisply made, but Tony didn’t want it. He didn’t want the reminder of military paucity.

Steve followed him down and wrapped his arms around Tony’s waist, hugging his stomach. He seemed desperate for the contact. Tony was desperate, too, hand tangled in his hair. Soft. Golden.

“Tell me what happened,” he whispered, terrified of what he might do out of ignorance. Terrified to step on a land mine.

But Steve said, “I saw red” and Tony began to understand. He didn’t talk about the details, the things S.H.I.E.L.D. and Fury and, hell, the Ten Rings were probably keen on knowing. He talked about the gut instincts, the panic, the horror, the justification. 

He talked about being thirsty and tired. With the barest attention, he mentioned that he _walked_ from Kabul to Kunar.

(Tony looked it up later. _170 miles_. He tried to fathom it, walking across a fathomless landscape in a strange land for 170 miles but couldn’t do it. Steve did it for him. He did it with barely a mention.)

He talked about how he knew the night before he attacked that he was about to do something terrible, the sleepless, reckless, irresistible forward-momentum. He told Tony’s stomach about the indescribable, the adrenaline of a firefight, the way people fell and it was fine because they weren’t dead, they weren’t dead. 

Tony rested a hand on the back of his neck and remembered how to breathe even as Steve told him that he hadn’t meant to kill them all.

He’d wanted to kill the killers, the ones who had done the harm, who were a _threat_. Somewhere in the middle of blood and metal and fire, he had killed them _all_. Steve shivered, then, like he couldn’t bear it. Tony was grateful he was already lying down or he might have fallen down. Even seven thousand miles away from ground zero, Kunar felt too close to them.

Then Steve rasped that he hadn’t even _felt_ the pain until Tony was there. Then it was indescribable, unbearable. Tony was beginning to see that _that_ was what pain was like for him: it either wasn’t there, repressed so hard he didn’t even realize he was bleeding out, or trying to kill him, a force that couldn’t be ignored and wasn’t in his ability to forget.

He gagged at the smell of pennies. He trembled over slammed doors, dropped glasses, popped balloons. He was terrified of losing his sense of reality because the pain or fear or anger became too much.

Tony held him, listening, grasping at his shoulders, stroking his back. Tony hadn’t been an overly tactile man before Afghanistan, but he’d craved the solidity of other humans after three months in near complete deprivation. He needed warm, comforting touch the way most people craved a sincere _I love you_ from their loved ones. He needed it to remind himself that this was real and good and worth living for.

It couldn’t all be the war.

Steve let the shield down. Tony didn’t flinch from him.

He wrapped Steve in his arms and wished the war to end all wars hadn’t made so many false promises.

. o . 

The appointment terrified him.

Tony hadn’t flinched from a nuke, bearing its weight and implications with unhesitating determination, but he was uncertain, uncomfortable, in a way he’d rarely been leading up to the therapy session. It seemed like an admission of weakness. _Something is broken within me._

It was an odd way of putting it, a bastardization of two separate concepts, but it was how Tony felt. And why he went.

He was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was. The guy sat there and listened, with the free interest only a stranger could afford. No strings attached emotional catharsis. You could make a business out of this.

Tony smiled to himself at his own private joke, grateful to be joking again.

. o . 

_The Quinjet landed at S.H.I.E.L.D. at 4:08 AM._

_Tony felt sick and more than anything crushingly tired, like he’d had his head rung despite not taking a single hit. He couldn’t stay awake, even though his eyes were open and he was somehow moving, somehow even answering a question with_ I’m fine.

_He was the farthest thing from it, but he was desperate to get out, to go home, to leave the whole nightmare behind him._

_He could have. He was free to leave, free to take off the second he was back on American soil, to run and never return._

_He stayed and held the limping soldier up beside him, deterring with the same withering Iron glare anyone who dared to come closer._

_They shuffled along. It was damning for Steve because he couldn’t get his feet under him, couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t even seem to keep his eyes open. He sagged and Tony took his weight, encouraging him to put his good foot forward. He would’ve carried Steve, but he didn’t dare. Appearances. He hated the word, but Steve wouldn’t forgive him if he took that away from him._

_A woman who introduced herself as Commander Hill came up to them. She looked them over, Cap in his uniform, Tony in his suit. Tony knew it was insolent, but he kept walking, half-leading, half-dragging Cap alongside himself. She fell into step beside Tony. That was fine. He was the wall between her and Cap. Between the world and Steve Rogers._

_She spoke in a steady voice. “Director Fury knows the details. The Council doesn’t.” Step. Step. Steve shivered. Tony held him closer, firming his jaw. “Agent Romanoff is on the ground.” Tony thought about what that meant, imagined standing in the cold light of day in front of all that carnage. He shuddered. “Agent Barton is with the Director.” She kept her voice soft, even though people were giving them a wide berth. “We have medical staff on hand.”_

_“We’re going home.” Tony’s voice was thin, but there was no apology in it. “Now.” He kept up the same—plodding—pace. It still seemed more than Cap could do, but he did it anyway. Tony needed him to, so of course he did. He did anything he was needed to do, even if it cost him everything._

_Commander Hill didn’t seem surprised. “I’m sure you appreciate the magnitude of this situation.”_

_Tony didn’t. He wasn’t sure anyone could._

_“Stay home. Contact us tomorrow. Don’t say anything to anyone. We’ll put out whatever fires we need to, but this . . . this is big, Stark.”_

_I know._

_“This is unprecedented, actually.”  
_

_Tony closed his eyes. He didn’t stop walking. He faced the world and stepped into the elevator. Hill joined them. On the descent to the parking garage, she added, “Fury cares deeply about him, you know. We all do. No one wants to see him fall. We can make precedents if we have to.”_

_The doors pinged. Tony stepped out. Steve moved slowly beside him. He seemed like he was sleep-walking, not engaging, only responding to Tony’s nonverbal prompts to keep moving. At last, Hill said, “Keep your head low, your door locked. Don’t let him out of your sight.”_

_Tony nodded once._

_Hill didn’t say anything else, following them to the first available car and holding the door while Tony ushered Steve into the passenger’s seat. He buckled Steve in. He shut the door. He looked at Hill, towering in his Iron Man suit, and said thinly, “We’ll talk later.”_

. o . 

They didn’t turn the Kunar incident into a win. Tony didn’t expect them to. 

But they didn’t ice Cap, either. That was a good start.

Fury didn’t want Steve in the field. Tony thought that was a great idea. But Steve wanted to be in the field. After all, what was Captain America without the good fight?

 _A good man_ , Tony thought, watching him in a moment of repose, open book in hand, brow relaxed, shoulders loose; watching him banter with Thor and laugh in the most unexpectedly delightful way that Tony was afraid he was falling in love with it ( _him_ ); watching him, in short, be anything but a grenade, ready to explode into motion as soon as the pin was pulled.

But Steve didn’t want to be shelved from the fight or turned away at the door. He’d fought to be drafted, to be put into action, to be given the _chance_ to save the world. This was how he could. Not with his wits or his creativity (and Tony saw him drawing one day and was stunned at how _good_ it was). He was a man out of time, a quick learner but not quick enough to outpace the best and brightest of the twenty-first century.

Red, tooth and claw, Steve Rogers was exceptional. He knew it. He knew that physicality was his new strength, his new area of expertise. He relished the raw power at his disposal, beating the absolute shit out of punching bags and leaping gladly into the ring again and again for the chance to get his blood pumping. He was the perfect Captain America, because somehow, he was both earnest and lethal.

He meant every word he said and stood behind every decision he made, ready to take the blame, to share the glory. He got along well with the others, Tony noticed, especially Clint and Natasha. That was fine. Tony welcomed the opportunity to talk science with Bruce. Thor was the big brother who showed up for social gatherings and made everyone that much happier. It was a happy arrangement.

But S.H.I.E.L.D. had tightened the leash around Captain America’s neck. Steve wasn’t happy about it.

Tony caught him pacing at night. He had nightmares when he did sleep, choosing to sleep on the couch in the main room over his own bed. Tony was good at ignoring him, because he liked to be ignored when he was working in the lab. Steve never sought him out, so he did what he wanted and left him alone.

Then Tony invited Bruce to move in, and things started to agitate.

Steve seemed happy at first, making a good effort to bring Bruce into the fold, but he also kept his guard up more. The easygoing attitude he’d carried the first time Bruce had come over on a social occasion was gone. Steve could be found only in uniform, straight-backed and perpetually busy, even at three in the morning.

It wasn’t uncommon for Bruce and Tony to be up at the same time in the lab. Tony could tell Steve hated it, hated that he couldn’t even be restless alone without knowing they were around. One wrong step might tip them off to his presence on the floor above them.

Tony finally asked J.A.R.V.I.S. point-blank how much sleep Steve was getting. J.A.R.V.I.S. replied, “Twenty-five minutes per night, on average.”

Bruce probably thought it was normal for Steve. Certainly, Steve looked in good health. He didn’t have dark shadows under his eyes or the pale weary look associated with lengthy sleep deprivation. He slowed down and became twitchy, paranoid. Tony ignored him because all he would say to, “Are you okay?” was a stern, unflinching, “I’m fine.”

Besides, he and Bruce were making headway on a new suit, a better suit. It was nice to immerse himself in a new project. It was nice to have someone around to bounce ideas off. Bruce was one of the most laid-back people he’d ever met. Sure, he had anxieties about the Hulk and the future in general, but he also took things in stride and came up with solutions, dozens of them, before even considering the possibility that something was unsolvable.

Clint moved in about a week after that. Tony thought it would be good for Steve. They got along well; Clint was easygoing. Tony and Steve were the firebrands, the ones most likely to turn supernova. It made them brilliant and dangerous.

Clint made the mistake of indulging Steve’s casual request for info on his latest mission. Clint then spent half an hour backpedaling, diminishing the case’s importance, which riled Steve up as he insisted he wasn’t gonna do anything. Tony understood Clint’s concern, remembered all too vividly seeing Cap covered in blood and shrapnel, but Steve didn’t see it that way. He saw it from a cornered perspective. When Steve told Clint to drop it, his tone was unfriendly.

Tony didn’t like it, didn’t trust it.

He shouldn’t have been surprised, then, when Steve finally set up an audience with Fury and bargained for the chance to go back out. Fury was reluctant, but Natasha volunteered to go with Steve, and Fury conceded. Natasha was experience personified. Tony figured that if anyone could keep Cap out of trouble and keep up with him, it was her.

He was right.

Their first mission was moderately difficult, nothing requiring backup but duly challenging for their combined talents. They were in Istanbul for two days. Tony thought it was awfully generous of Fury to let Cap out of the States, let alone so close to the prior disaster, but it was a trust test. Fury needed to trust Steve or he couldn’t put him in the field. Tony needn’t have worried: Natasha and Steve were back inside seventy-two hours.

When they got back, they were heroes: the political prisoners were reunited with their families. The world had a new dynamic duo to look out for. Steve seemed content for a delightful change of pace. Natasha stayed at his side. That was how she ended up spending the night: they fell asleep on the couch in the balcony room together. 

At the sight, Tony couldn’t define the emotion it stirred in his chest, but it was painful and loud, and he had to leave so he would not give it voice.

He was finding that reaction increasingly common around Steve. Mixed affection and frustration. It was foolish to feel slighted because he had no special claim to Captain America. Sure, he’d saved Steve’s life, advocated for him when no one else would, kept him warm and fed and under a roof, but he had no special claim to the man. If Steve wanted to sleep with—literally sleep with—anyone else, he was allowed. It was good for the team, anyway.

Still, it tasted like sour candy to see him spending time with Natasha. Tony liked Natasha—she had a quick wit and could make them all laugh unexpectedly—but Steve also liked Natasha, and Tony liked that less. 

Tony tried to brush it off because he didn’t even like when _Clint_ got too comfy with Steve. Tony asserted his dominance by claiming his rightful place on the team leader couch, relegating Clint to the floor. Bruce’s friendship with Cap was too casual to be a threat, but Clint and Natasha had the shared history, all those S.H.I.E.L.D. days Tony knew nothing about. 

Tony was curious, but he kept his thoughts to himself, afraid his jealousy would shine through his voice. He wasn’t good at hiding his emotions and he didn’t want to air his laundry in front of the team.

Besides, that was what his therapist was for. The man kept him sane as he dealt with the increasingly complicated dynamics at home. His one consolation was that Steve lived on _his_ floor, his special claim to Cap.

Then Clint, Bruce, Natasha, and Thor all had their own floors. Suddenly it wasn’t Stark Tower anymore: it was the _Avengers_ Tower.

Tony still exercised his authority by claiming the nearest chair to Steve, even if it was occupied. It was in line with his personality; nobody batted an eyelash. 

Once, just to see what would happen, he’d sat right on Steve’s lap. Instead of pushing him off the chair, Steve had just slung an arm around him and kept talking to Bruce. That was all fine and well except it meant Tony was trapped on Steve’s lap. He didn’t want to be that close to Steve in such a public setting, at least, not until he was deep into a bottle. Then he could have kissed Cap and laughed it off.

He told his therapist—Jeremy; he’d taken to calling him by his name, too—about his frustrations, careful to voice them in an _I used to have my friend to myself and now I have to share him, how do normal people do this?_ light. He wasn’t sure he succeeded, but Jeremy didn’t judge him. He suggested telling the others how Tony felt.

 _That_ wasn’t happening.

They’d laugh at best and take it all the wrong ways at worst. Tony didn’t even know what wrong ways there were, but they existed. He wasn’t about to deal with them.

When he saw Natasha holding an ice pack to Cap’s face and all but sitting in his lap, he made the mistake of snapping, “Get a room.” That was the worst suggestion he could have made, because they both looked at him, and Natasha’s eyebrows lifted a hairline. Tony knew he was _fucked_.

Just to mess with him, he was sure, Natasha goaded him. She kept a hand on Steve’s arm or tousled his hair in passing, touching him in the platonic, not remotely suggestive way that made Tony grind his teeth in frustration because _he_ couldn’t do that or they would start speculating.

And he liked these nerds, he did, but the last thing he wanted was to start a rumor.

An unfounded rumor, at that. 

He consoled himself by watching Clint simmer about the sudden shift in dynamics, even though he couldn’t have said if Clint was more jealous of Steve or Natasha.

Tony didn’t ask for things to reach a head, but they did anyway. 

Then Steve came back one night in a spectacularly poor mood. Tony had noticed immediately but found his compassion jar low. Natasha had been messing with his head all week. He was unexpectedly short with Steve when he confronted him. Rather than offering an explanation, Steve glared at him. Tony glared back. 

With a disgusted sound, Steve slunk over to a couch and flopped down. He tried to sleep off whatever frustration was kicking around in his head. It didn’t work: he was, if anything, crankier when he got up, all but audibly growling, one hand rising to fist in sweat-damp golden hair. Tony still didn’t push, didn’t ask. 

When Steve stalked off, he didn’t follow. He went off to beat the hell out of a punching bag and returned less than half an hour later moodier than ever. 

Tired of dancing around the issue, Tony asked what the hell his deal was and Steve ignored _him_.

“What’re you, ten?” Tony sneered. He wasn’t mad at Steve—he wasn’t, he told himself—but when Steve looked at him, he didn’t back down. “What the hell happened out there?”

Blowing out a breath, Steve said, “We messed up. Leave it.”

Tony stared at him, stupefied by the response, before he regained his footing and pressed onward. Steve was finally _talking_ to him. He didn’t want to admit how lonely he’d felt and how long it had been since they’d had more than a two-line conversation, but he also didn’t want to let the opportunity go. “What happened?” he asked, gentling his tone, trying not to trigger the _fight_ response lurking under Steve’s skin.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Steve—”

“Hey, Tony—” Bruce paused mid-step, looking at the two of them standing in the kitchen, then added, “Um. Am I interrupting something?”

Steve made a disgusted sound, turned away from Tony, and stalked past Bruce without so much as a hello. Tony blinked, then looked at Bruce, who appeared apologetic, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re fine,” Tony answered, the mechanical response he’d honed. _Conceal, don’t feel—don’t let them know_.

He was going to kill Clint for making them watch _Frozen_.

“I’m gonna go see what’s up,” he narrated, stepping around Bruce, needing to keep his tone and actions as normal as possible. “Don’t eat my pineapple,” he added on the way out.

“There’s pineapple?” Bruce replied tellingly, but Tony was already in the elevator.

He didn’t ask J.A.R.V.I.S. where Steve was. He didn’t need to.

He knocked on Steve’s door. He could have had J.A.R.V.I.S. override the lock and let him in, but he didn’t want to. Steve must have known it was him—or maybe he was pissed enough he didn’t want anyone near him, but the irrational little voice inside Tony was personally offended, all the same—because nothing happened. But Tony could hear him inside, pausing when Tony knocked again.

Tired of knocking, he pulled out his phone, called up an air horn sound effect, and pressed play. Ten seconds later, the door unlocked. A deeply unhappy Steve stared at him. It was Steve, too, no uniform, just dress-down clothes, a black t-shirt and a pair of white shorts. He said in an annoyed tone, “You really don’t take a hint, do you?”

“I’m the king of taking hints,” Tony said, brushing past him and planting himself firmly in Steve’s space. Steve could literally pick him up and carry him out if need be, but he didn’t, because he had manners. Tony waited until Steve shut the door before turning to look at him again.

“What happened?” Tony asked.

Steve sighed. “I don’t wanna talk about it,” he repeated.

This was going nowhere. “I don’t like you like this.”

Irritated, Steve echoed, “Like what?”

“Closed off.”

Steve frowned, not expecting that. He looked at the door and Tony was halfway to a quipped remark when Steve said, “We lost somebody. Okay?”

Tony’s heart skipped a beat. Horror curdled in his belly. “Who?”

Steve shook his head. “Ray. He got shot. I was . . . .” He trailed off, then finished furiously, “I should have had his back.”

Tony didn’t know who Ray was, but Steve’s expression said _a friend_ , and that hurt. He took a step forward. “I’m sorry.”

Steve shut his eyes. “Don’t apologize. I can’t—I don’t wanna deal with it right now. Okay? I just want to forget.”

Tony took another step forward. “Okay.”

Steve looked at him, eyes red. “I made a mistake,” he said. “And I should’ve had it, Tony, and I should’ve said it, and now he’s dead, and he’s dead because of—”

“Don’t say it.”

“Tony.”

Tony closed the distance and slung his arms around Steve’s waist. “Don’t say it," he insisted. "It won’t help.”

Steve stared at him in an assessing manner before wrapping his own arms around Tony’s back. He tucked his chin over Tony’s shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world. A tension Tony hadn’t known he’d been carrying melted out of him. “It’s okay,” Tony said softly. “I’m here.”

Steve exhaled, shoulders slumping. “I can’t do this, Tony,” Steve murmured. He wasn’t drunk, but he was tired, exhausted, so goddamn sad it made Tony’s own heart ache. “I can’t.”

“You don’t have to. Not right now.”

Steve nodded against him. Tony tugged him towards his bed, still with one sheet on it. He sat down. Steve followed him as he shuffled back. It should have surprised him how normal it all was: he held out his arms and Steve slid into them, curled up so his head was under Tony’s chin. Tony dared to think it was a safe space for him.

He wished he had a blanket to pull up over them, protect them from the rest of the world, but that would mean letting go. He couldn’t bring himself to do that. “I’ve gotcha,” he muttered familiarly. “It’s okay. You’re all right, big guy. I missed you. I’m really bad at feelings, but I’m here now.”

Steve curled a hand in Tony’s shirt, holding on, pulling himself closer, Tony closer. Always closer. “I’m here,” Tony promised, meaning it with every fiber of his being. “I’m here.”

They fell asleep at some point. When Tony awoke at some early hour in the middle of the night, Steve was breathing against his collarbone.

Tony closed his eyes, trying to decide what flavor of platonic love this was.

 _My best bud,_ he settled on, but even it held more, enough that he couldn’t say it aloud.

Tony Stark was a meteor, brilliant alone, but there was something irresistible about Steve. He didn’t even have to worry about others looking at him strangely for giving in: they all felt it. He was something else. Magnetic. Electrifying. Thor had once shot his suit to 400% power; spending a night with Steve had the exact same effect on Tony’s psychological well-being.

He couldn’t be touched, with Captain America in front of him, around him, protecting him.


	4. THE STRAW THAT BROKE

The Avengers were his family. 

Tony had accepted the fact, even embraced it to a degree. It still surprised him how quickly he had adapted to having five other people living with him. After a month of growing pains, things had started to run smoothly. They’d all settled into their routines. 

Well. Almost all of them.

Thor was nothing if not unpredictable.

“There he is!” Thor boomed. That was all the warning Tony had before being lifted off the ground in the most terrifying hug of his entire life.

“Don’t break me, don’t break me,” he chanted—gasped, really, as Thor squeezed him. Thor put him back down and slapped him on the shoulder nearly hard enough to knock him over. Steve laughed. _Traitor_ , Tony thought, stumbling a pace and putting a hand on the table for balance.

“Easy, Thor,” Steve advised, sounding amused. Tony glared at him.

“When did you even get _in_?” Tony asked, rubbing his ribs.

“Last night.” Looking over at Steve, Thor nodded and explained, “I felt it imprudent to wake you, so I spent the evening with our good Captain.”

Tony knew Thor meant nothing of it. He still felt a tug of jealousy as he looked at Steve, who smiled back sheepishly. “Spent the night, huh?” Tony echoed moodily.

It had been a rare quiet evening in the Tower—Natasha and Clint were on an assignment; Bruce was out of town for a conference—and Tony felt betrayed at the thought that while he had slept, sad and alone, Steve had been up with Thor. _Rude_. He stuffed the defiant little creature into a closet, ordered it to rethink its life choices, and tried to confront the cold light of day with dignity.

“We wanted to wait till you got up before we made smoothies,” Steve supplied. “Natasha kind of got me hooked on this blueberry one—you’d like it, real sweet.”

Tony scowled, refusing to be bribed. He pointed out, “I didn’t say you could touch my blender.”

“Isn’t it really _our_ blender?” Steve lofted back.

Thor put a bruising hand on Cap’s shoulder and gave it a friendly shake, oblivious to Tony’s wrath. “First we feast, then we fight,” Thor declared.

Tony blinked in surprise, reeling, their combined good humor overpowering. He hadn’t even had _coffee_ yet. It wasn’t fair: _they_ had been up all night, feeding off each other’s radiant energy, but _he_ was running off of midnight fumes. Shaking his head in errant dismissal and stalking off to make coffee, he yelped when Steve grabbed the back of his shirt and tugged him into a backwards hug. “Let me go,” he grunted.

Steve tightened his grip and rested his chin on Tony’s shoulder. “What’s gotten into you?” he asked benignly.

Tony scowled, because Thor was _right there_ , but Steve was immovable. “I want coffee,” he said, refusing to be swayed, prying at Steve’s arms. “Give me coffee.”

“Tell me what’s wrong and I will.”

Tony considered biting his arm, because that seemed to throw anyone off their game, but Steve wasn’t likely to be deterred. “Do you like not having fire ants in your room?” he asked caustically. “You won’t have that luxury if you don’t _let me go_.”

Steve sighed, sounding more amused than angry, as he loosened his grip. It wasn’t enough for Tony to break free, but he wasn’t hugging him quite as close, and Tony—

 _No, wait, I changed my mind_.

He slammed the unhelpful-bastard voice back in the closet.

The blender flared to life. Steve let go of him, turning around in surprise, like he’d forgotten Thor was there. “What’re you doin’?”

“Oh, it’s quite all right, Darcy has one,” Thor said over the blades, blending a green concoction. “Don’t let me be a bother.”

 _Too late_ , Tony thought as Cap huffed and wandered over to Thor to help. Tony tried not to feel sad that he was gone again.

He’d been acting like a lovesick puppy around Steve all month, despite the distance created by having the entire family present. He wasn’t about to drool on Steve’s shoulder in the middle of movie night with Clint and Natasha paying attention. He’d kept a respectable distance between them to maintain it. But with the others gone, he’d almost entertained that having the Tower to themselves for a few days would be nice. Normal. The old normal, not the new one, where Thor blended smoothies and Steve laughed his stupidly wonderful laugh at his antics.

He tried to simmer down by making coffee, grateful that Thor kept Steve distracted. Something was probably going horribly wrong, but Tony couldn’t bring himself to care, keeping his back to the two Stooges as he waited for his morning brew. He poured himself a cup and took a long sip. Then he turned to see what nightmare Thor and Steve had turned the rest of the kitchen into.

Miraculously, it was still spotless. They had no less than seven glasses full of various tropical-colored drinks on the counter. “Who pays for the groceries?” Tony snarked, taking another sip of his coffee.

Steve finally looked sheepish, but Thor just frowned. “Groceries?”

“Food,” Steve explained, perking up again. 

Thor beamed. “Oh! Worry not, I shall pay for the food.” 

Tony shut his eyes and drank his coffee. He grunted when Steve approached. “Touch me and I’ll bite you.” He’d meant it to sound more menacing, but at least Steve caught the spirit of the message, holding back. Tony finally looked at him. Steve smiled, like he was enjoying the whole kerfuffle.

 _I hate you and your genuine warmth_.

There were a lot of things he hated about Steve—how goddamn perfect he was, how he would sing old timey tunes upon request, did the dishes without being asked and replaced the couch pillows after they’d all gone to bed and looked at Tony with a soft sort of _wonder—_ but his sincerity was the worst. It was impossible to resist.

Tony drank his coffee. Steve said, “You’re welcome to come” before reaching out and giving Tony’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Just don’t get locked up in your head here. Okay?”

“I’m not alone,” Tony muttered, “I have J.A.R.V.I.S.”

Steve smiled knowingly and released him, picking up three of the smoothies while Thor grabbed the rest. “All right, let’s see who the real King of Asgard is.”

Thor laughed. Tony watched them disappear together with an indefinable emotion. It wasn’t fair how easily Steve got along with _everyone_. They hadn’t earned his attention and interest and _affection_ like Tony had, hadn’t been there to pull him back from an edge, but here they were anyway, benefiting from _his_ emotional labor.

_Get it together._

He tried to enjoy having the space to himself, but it wasn’t enjoyable alone in his big, fancy Tower anymore. He didn’t even have an appetite for breakfast now that Thor and Steve were gone—mostly Steve, although now that he could think rationally, he _was_ glad Thor was there—but he lingered in the space. He was not going to give in to them. He was not. He was not—

Thor hauled Steve over his shoulders and smashed him into the floor with enough force that the boards cracked. Instead of crying out with pain, Steve let out a breathless sound, lying there in the new crater with joy on his face. “Betcha couldn’t do it twice,” he teased. When Thor leaned down to grab him, he twisted out of reach, moving so fast Tony had trouble keeping up, putting Thor in a headlock. Thor twisted out of Steve’s grip with a punishing elbow to the gut.

“This is fun?” Tony asked, drawing both their gazes to him. Thor recovered first, swiping Steve’s feet out from under him, but he barely hit the ground before kicking out hard, knocking Thor back a few paces. Any space Steve might have had for conversation was being used up launching himself back to his feet.

Captain America was a formidable foe, but Thor was a god. Even without Mjölnir, Thor had brute strength on his side, dexterity, something like 1,500 years of experience, but he saw Steve as a baby brother and didn’t want to hurt him, so he pulled his punches. Steve, lacking the same fear that a too-hard punch would break his opponent’s ribs, was giving it everything he had and only keeping pace.

 _Remind me never to piss you off,_ Tony thought, amused, as Thor sunk a fist with bruising force into Cap’s side, bowing him. Tony stayed near the wall, sitting cross-legged and sipping at a second cup of coffee as he watched them clash. The smoothies were nowhere to be found. Steve was red-faced with exertion, but he didn’t tap out, grabbing Thor’s hand and twisting it when he reached out to snag Cap.

They fought like their reputation depended on it. It was an hour before Steve started to slow, evading more, confronting less. Thor, fresh for the fight, asked, “Do you surrender?”

“Not on your life,” Steve huffed, but there was no anger in his expression. He was having fun. It was strange to see him both trembling from exhaustion _and_ bouncing from foot-to-foot with anticipation. He struck with stunning speed, jab, jab, grab, twist, lunge, duck, parry, jab. Thor had to focus to keep the blows from throwing him off balance.

Tony had long finished his cup of coffee, hands on either side of him, legs in front, confident they wouldn’t come too close, when they ran out of steam. Steve did—Thor, he noticed, in something approaching amazement, hadn’t even broken a sweat—and though Steve didn’t say it aloud, he was done. 

Steve made one last stunning forward play before delivering one last solid blow to the chest. If he had been fresh or fighting for his life, he would have tackled Thor to the floor, pushing his advantage. Instead, he staggered back, flushed with excitement and adrenaline, and panted, “I could do this all day, pal.”

Thor struck faster than Tony could follow, but he saw and heard Steve hit the floor hard. He was back on his feet in an instant. 

Tony stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled.

“All right, I’m calling it,” he declared. Steve’s shoulders slumped, and even Thor looked satisfied. _He_ wasn’t tired, but Steve was breathing harder than normal. Like a sled dog, he would run until he dropped dead before admitting he was tired. Tony almost felt guilty for not calling it off sooner, but they were _adults_ and if they wanted to be stupid, who was he to stop them?

“Who won?” Steve had the gall to ask, but he was smiling as he pushed the arm Thor put around his shoulders off. “I need a shower, you’re too hot.”

“I’ll accept a second bout any time,” Thor said cheerfully, nodding at Tony. “Care to try?”

Tony snorted, pushing himself to his feet, empty cup in hand. “Yeah, no, we don’t all drink the same crazy juice around here, I like my face in its current configuration.”

Thor stared at him, frowning in gentle confusion. “He’s the punching bag,” Tony explained, nodding at Steve. “I’m just here for the show.”

“Good show?” Steve asked, right in front of him. Tony glared at him because Thor was _right there_ , could he not be more. . . . Tony couldn’t say, because he wasn’t touching Tony, barely inside the circle he’d call _personal space_ , but he was flushed and grinning wolfishly, mellow and wild. He looked like he could go ten more rounds without flinching, even if it took him days to recover after.

“You’re incorrigible,” Tony told him, turning around and heading towards the door. “You owe me a new floor!” he told Thor and Steve, both, but Steve was crowding him into the hall before the door slid shut behind them, leaving Thor alone in the gym. Tony was about to comment on that, but Steve grabbed him by the back of the shirt, holding him in place. “What?” Tony asked peevishly.

Steve let go, like he didn’t know what to say. Tony turned to face him. He looked pleased but also sad, like he couldn’t quite figure out what was wrong. Tony sighed. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Steve’s brow furrowed. “Like what?”

“Kicked puppy.”

Steve _pouted_. It was involuntary, but it made Tony’s heart skip a beat. He wanted to take Steve’s head in his hands and shake it back and forth gently, frustration, adoration. He had Steve’s face in his hands before he thought better of it. Steve clasped his elbows. For a moment, Tony couldn’t breathe. They stood there, staring at each other, Cap hot under his hands, Tony hot for a different reason altogether. Then Tony let go and stepped back. Steve was faster, catching him by the shirt. Tony scowled at him, but there was no heat.

“Incorrigible,” he told Steve, who smiled like it was a compliment. Tony scowled, because _someone_ had to be reasonable here. Clearly, it was going to be him. 

The door slid open behind them. Thor laughed in delight. “At last!”

Steve turned to face him, releasing Tony. Thor explained happily, “I have solved the riddle.”

Tony closed his eyes. Kids. Both of them. “It’s motion sensitive,” he said. Looking at Steve, he tried to reclaim the high ground, saying firmly, “Go shower. You smell like a gym.”

Steve didn’t. It wasn’t fair, but Tony didn’t have time to dwell on it, because Steve brushed past him. One arm slid possessively across his back, squeezing him, before Steve was gone, sauntering off down the hall.

He was out of sight and Tony was rooted to place, surprised at how not angry he was. Now _he_ needed a shower. It should’ve pissed him off, because Steve was annoying, but, for a moment, his brain turned off. He couldn’t quite believe it had happened, any of it.

Then Thor said in amusement, “He cares about you.”

Tony looked at him. Thor nodded, then winked conspiratorially. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.”

“Tell everyone,” Tony challenged. Thor looked at him, surprised. Tony stood his ground. “There’s nothing. Got it? Nothing.”

Thor smiled. Tony scowled and stalked off, resolving to put fire ants in _his_ floor.

. o . 

Tony didn’t get sick like a normal person. 

No, he got sick in the middle of _June_. He blamed it entirely on cosmic karma: he didn’t sleep at normal hours and lived with four people who were immune to all ailments, so he had to pick up their slack. (It wasn’t a fair assessment—he’d been the same way as a kid, plowing through the school year without a hitch and then coming down with a summer flu—but he was fine being unfair with them.)

Head hurting, mouth painfully dry, he wanted to crawl _under_ his bed and stay there for the next—well, as long as it took for the awfulness to leave, but he couldn’t do that, because he had _roommates_ now. They would take notice if didn’t make an appearance in days. His options were to either: a) admit his defeat or b) feign good health. The former was reasonable, the correct choice by all accounts, but he ignored it. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them. He didn’t tell _anyone_ when he was feeling poorly, not Pepper or Rhodey or J.A.R.V.I.S. He kept it to himself and returned to the land of the living when he was well again. It had made him ashamed when he was a kid, Howard’s weak kid who got sick in the _summer_ (he wasn’t weak, he was brilliant, smart and _strong_ and a Stark through and through, but that didn’t matter when he was laid up). He was surprised at how much of a hang-up it still was, but he didn’t try to reason with it.

No, he shuffled into the kitchen, heavy head, tired bones, every breath uncomfortable. Thankfully, Clint was already off for his workday—he always awoke at an obscenely early hour before heading to S.H.I.E.L.D.—and Natasha was still asleep. Steve was MIA, presumably on his morning run. 

Tony had time to collect himself, drink his coffee, wake up some more, but he couldn’t shake the unwellness from his bones. He was on his second cup when Bruce shuffled in, grunted a greeting and poured himself a cup of coffee, and didn’t otherwise notice his state of disrepair.

That gave him a winning idea. Locking himself in his lab, he put on his suit and let the diagnostics tell him what he already knew. “You should get some rest, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. advised. “It will help with your condition.”

 _Condition_. Tony hated that, so he said, “I’ll ask for your input.”

“Of course, sir.” J.A.R.V.I.S. rarely showed disappointment in him. 

Dismissing it, Tony leaned back into his glorified bean bag, still in his suit, and ran through old Iron Man logs on the HUD. It gave him a headache in minutes, so he said, _Display off_. Instantly, his view went pitch-black. _That_ made him claustrophobic: he lifted the faceplate a moment later, gasping.

“Are you all right, sir?” J.A.R.V.I.S. asked solicitously.

Tony exhaled. It would have been a laugh if he wasn’t so shaken. “Just wasn’t expecting it,” he admitted. His head throbbed in the dim light. He longed to curl up and hibernate, rejoin the world when he was back to Tony Stark, insufferable, indomitable bastion of the future.

He left the suit on. J.A.R.V.I.S. pointed out that it had the ability to change the ambient temperature. It was designed for both arctic and desert environments, which came in handy: Tony cranked up the heat and, once he was sweaty and uncomfortable, blasted cool air. The contrast helped enliven him. He actually got some work down, faceplate down but displaying a dim screen of the view right in front of him, none of the frills.

Bruce didn’t join him; that was a relief. Muttering to himself or J.A.R.V.I.S., he worked alone. It was evening before he realized the day was gone. He reeled and almost fell over, stunned as misery sucker-punched him. He caught himself on the chair and disengaged from the suit, shivering in the cool air of the lab. He was shaking, and the headache had turned into a mean thing, punishment for skipping meals, but he hauled himself to his feet, somehow and told J.A.R.V.I.S. to save the files for later.

He was shaking as he made his way past the balcony level straight to his own room. He wasn’t hungry, wasn’t anything but exhausted and cold and miserable, and he wanted a hot shower and a comfy bed and perfect solitude for at least twelve hours. He almost got it, too. The shower didn’t help, only made him more aware of the sorry state of his head. He crawled into bed in nothing but his boxers, buried himself in his covers.

He awoke a time later to a knock on the door, groaning in frustration. “Who is it?” he rasped.

“Captain Rogers, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied.

“Tell him to scram.”

A long pause. Tony could hear Steve’s voice, but it was too quiet for him to pick up the words. At least he wasn’t shouting. That was nice. Tony drifted off without an answer, stirring a few minutes later after J.A.R.V.I.S. said, “Sir?” a second time.

“’m here.”

“He’s insisting.”

“Let him insist,” Tony grunted. “Don’t let him in. Y’ hear me?”

“Perfectly, sir.”

Time slid by. Exhausted though he was, he couldn’t get comfortable, alternately too hot and too cold. He kicked the covers off only to haul them back on moments later in silent agitation. Dozing half-on, half-on the bed, he almost dropped off, but his head ached dully, keeping him loathsomely conscious. Mouth dry, eyes sore, the last thing he wanted was to interact with another human being, but he wanted even less to have to get up himself. At last, he caved: “J.A.R.V.I.S.?”

“Yes, sir?”

He hesitated, turtling deeper under the covers, before finishing, “You can let him in.”

Tony didn’t need to ask if he was still there because naturally, he was. The door slid open. Steve moved hesitantly, like he could tell something was different. He asked, “Tony?” When Tony didn’t reply, he moved closer, crouching beside the bed. “Hey. You okay? Tony?”

Tony snuck a hand out from under the covers, grasping at his shirt. He held onto it like a security blanket, a comfort he hadn’t known he’d been craving. He sighed. “Wanna be my hero?”

He was glad he couldn’t see Steve, because he wasn’t sure he would be able to handle what his response to that question was. All Steve said was, “What do you need?”

He spoke as clearly as he could, even though the mere action of talking was misery. “Water. NyQuil.”

A beat. “NyQuil?” Steve repeated.

Tony let him go, lowering the blankets so he could look at him instead. He didn’t feign a smile, didn’t try to look any better than he felt. Steve’s expression softened when he saw Tony, reaching forward and brushing the hair back from his forehead. Tony closed his eyes and nodded. “It’s a drug. It’ll be in the same cabinet as the rest of the medicine. It’s green.”

“Green medicine,” Steve said affirmatively. “Water. Anything else?”

Tony shook his head. When he was gone, he sighed and told J.A.R.V.I.S., “Drop the temperature a few degrees. I’m hot.”

“Of course, sir.”

Steve was back in record time. He probably hadn’t run (although Tony couldn’t confirm it, and he hoped Steve had enough tact to play it cool because he _really_ didn’t want to be the subject of family meeting time). Tony found he didn’t care if the others knew as Steve stepped into his room and the door slide shut behind him. He padded over, shaking the bottle and musing, “These really cure colds?”

“No,” Tony croaked. “They mitigate symptoms. You’re really old-fashioned.”

Tony’s eyes were shut, but he could hear the amusement in Steve’s voice. “I’ve been told.” The bed dipped. Tony rolled over, planting his face against a sweatpants-clad thigh. He threw his arm possessively over Steve’s legs near the hip, holding on. He was very warm. Tony muttered, “J.A.R.V.I.S., drop it two more.”

Obligingly, he heard the gentle whir of the air conditioner. It wasn’t an instant thing, but the room was already cooling down. Steve shifted, but Tony didn’t let go as he moved his legs up on the bed and set his back against the headboard. He settled a hand in Tony’s sweat-damp hair, scratching lightly.

Tony dozed, moaning in relief when Steve set a cool hand between his bare shoulders. “Here, lemme up,” he murmured. Tony didn’t want to let him go but made himself do it, moving his arm away. Steve slid out of bed, and that was terrible. Then he walked away, and that was even worse. Tony was about to feel sorry for himself when he heard the water running in the adjacent bathroom. Then Steve was back with a pleasantly cool washcloth that he set against the back of Tony’s neck.

It was ecstasy. Tony knew he should thank Steve for thinking of it, but he lost his thanks somewhere in the heat of the blankets. He knew he was drifting off, but he wanted Steve there. He was also just the side of miserable to want something to quench his dry throat, so he made himself sit up. Steve took the cloth away but handed him the water and two NyQuil capsules. Tony swallowed them, drank as much of the water as he could, and shimmied back down to hide in his blanket nest. Steve replaced the washcloth over his neck. Tony tugged on the corner of his shirt. Steve obligingly slid down.

Tony wrestled with the covers before Steve caught on, pulling them off to the side, exposing Tony’s chest to the cool room. Tony’s stomach growled, but he ignored it, scooting closer until Steve wrapped him in his arms. Without prompting, Steve pulled him until Tony rested on top of him.

He hadn’t realized how nice it was to lie on top of someone—not just lean against or even spoon, but to rest on top of them, cover them, feel them—until then. It was addictive; he rested his burning cheek against Steve’s shoulder, hugging him, breathing in the smell of his shirt, his skin underneath. The washcloth was heavenly against the back of his neck. He was so grateful he could cry, but he didn’t need to express his gratitude. He knew Steve knew it, felt it, as he exhaled.

Tony fell asleep to the sound of Steve’s heart thumping under his ear.

At times he became aware of movement as the comfy surface underneath him shifted. Not quite restlessly but to hold him in a different, easier position. The covers were tugged up Tony’s back as he shivered, the cloth providing a pleasant contrast. He was aware of getting up at one point, returning and flopping onto Steve hard enough the latter grunted in surprise. He curled his arms around Tony without hesitation. Steve got up and returned with a pack of saltines.

Sitting up against the headboard, Steve let Tony lean against him, bare-chested and sweating, while Steve handed him crackers. Tony ate, more asleep than awake. Steve offered him a newly-filled glass of water and he drank, trying to satisfy his appetite so he could _sleep_. His throat wasn’t quite as parched, at least, but he still shivered.

A tiny, cognizant corner of his mind thought he should be more embarrassed, but he couldn’t hold onto the feeling. It was quiet, comfortable, no questions asked, no instructions needed. With efficient movements, Steve re-dressed the bed. Tony slunk under the newly-made covers. He was out like a light the second Steve pulled him back over his chest, arms slung low around his waist. He slept through the night.

. o . 

Steve cracked a Coke bottle lid off with his teeth. Tony wrinkled his nose at him. “You’re gonna break your teeth.”

“No, ’m not,” Steve replied, gulping down half of the bottle in one go. It was the little things that meant a lot to him. Thankfully for Tony, there were still old-fashioned Coke bottles to be had. Steve set the bottle aside, looked across the table at him, and smiled. “Am I in trouble?” he asked.

Tony frowned. “Why would you be in trouble?” He cracked his own lid open with his hands, like a civilized human being.

Steve shrugged a shoulder. “Feels like every time we sit down for a drink, a lot of stuff comes up.”

“These are nonalcoholic,” Tony pointed out.

Steve tilted his bottle at him. “All right. What’s on your mind?”

“What’s on your mind?” Tony retorted.

Steve cocked his head. “You always this confrontational, or am I just special?”

Tony stared at him. “I have no idea what you mean.”

Steve didn’t speak, folding his arms over his chest, holding his gaze until Tony’s eyes burned. He still didn’t look away. Steve blinked and picked up the bottle, but he didn’t drink. “What’s on your mind, chief?” 

_You_. Tony couldn’t say it.

Steve waited, setting the bottle down after a beat. “Tony?”

“You’re not. . . .” He trailed off. _Gonna do something stupid_ seemed like a curse. “Are you happy?” was too raw, honest, but it was what came out.

A shadow passed over Steve’s eyes. “Yeah.”

 _No, you’re not_. “Good,” Tony said briskly. “A happy Captain is a happy team. We need a good Captain.”

“We’ve already got one,” Steve assured. He was looking right at Tony.

Tony couldn’t make himself say any of the words he wanted to. _I keep thinking about you. Us, really. What are we? I mean, I get the—we’re a team, but . . . I don’t want any of them like I want you. Why? What did you do to me?_

“Are _you_ happy?”

Tony shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Steve watched him, calculating. Then he nodded, finished off his drink, and said, “If you’re ever not, you can come to me. Okay?”

_Okay._

. o .

It was a morning like many others, except Tony awoke earlier than usual.

At five in the morning, he wandered into the kitchen in a conspicuously good mood, surprised at how refreshed he felt. He bumped _into_ Steve, who blinked and stepped back, steadying him with a hand on his arm. “Mornin’, Tony,” he said, smiling. “Wasn’t expecting you. You sleep okay?” He sounded like Tony did after two cups of coffee, bright, alert, but that was who he was. You could haul him out of bed at two in the morning and he could pull off the _good morning, America, this is your Captain speaking_ voice.

Tony stood in silent bemusement, reaching out to grasp Steve’s arms, like he was affirming this wasn’t a dream. The muscle was solid under his hands. Steve’s skin was soft, warm, invitingly near. Tony made himself let go. He said, “When’d you get up?”

“Four-thirty,” Steve said, like it was the most reasonable time in the world. “Was just headin’ out, actually, but I could stick around, make some coffee?”

The offer was sweet, but Tony needed time to wake up. He didn’t want to disrupt Steve’s routine. He waved a hand. “Go, make me proud.”

He’d meant it to sound more like a directive than a declaration, but Steve grinned and said, “Always do, chief.” He brushed past Tony with one last squeeze to his shoulder, leaving Tony alone in the main room. 

Making himself coffee, he was sinking into a happy stupor when the main door slid open. He swiveled in his chair and saw Steve, who looked, if not exactly the same as before, indistinguishably different, except for the slight ripple to his breath, like he was panting softly.

“If I didn’t know you, I’d say you cheated,” Tony mused.

Steve looked at him and bared his teeth in a smile. “Yeah? Maybe I’ll take that newfangled phone you gave me sometime, let it track my steps.”

“How far’d you go?”

Steve made a thoughtful sound. “Thirty? I wasn’t paying attention.”

Tony didn’t sit up, letting his voice carry the weight of his disbelief. “Let me get this straight. You ran _thirty miles_ in an hour?”

Steve smiled tamely. “Erskine said I could probably top seventy.”

Tony tried to imagine it: crouched on enemy lines as Captain America chewed up miles between them, as fast as a freight train. He shuddered meaningfully. “It’s not sustainable,” Steve added in a comforting tone. “I can only do sixty-plus for short bursts. Fifty, though, I can do that for a while.”

A second image popped into Tony’s mind: Steve loping across the desert, covering 170 miles in. . . . “How long did it take you?”

Steve frowned. “How long’d what take me?”

“The desert.”

Steve shrugged, expression shuttering. His tone was calm, flat, colorless. “Couple hours shy of a full day, so—seven hours, give or take?”

 _Seven hours._ Tony did the math in his head. It came out to just under twenty-five miles per hour. He blew out a breath. What Olympians could sustain for seconds, Steve could manage for _seven hours_. In the _desert_. He was equal parts impressed and horrified. “I could only run for a few hours each day,” Steve went on, tone still overcast. “Took me a couple days. Got lost, added a few miles to the trip.” 

His expression was very neutral, talking about the desert. Tony knew Fury had forgiven him for his transgression, but S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn’t: Steve Rogers was still treated like an important visitor, not a high-ranking international agent. They humored him with keycards and locked the doors in the same breath, sent him on low-risk missions and denied him access to vital information and support, demanded verbal check-ins every twenty-four hours and called _Tony_ if Steve was unresponsive. It was beyond insulting; it was dangerously closed-door, a double-blind experiment that couldn’t last.

“Tony?” Steve said, gently intruding. He had a hip against the counter, a blueberry smoothie in hand, watching him with evident concern. “You okay?”

“I’m just . . . processing,” Tony said truthfully. Waving a hand errantly, he obscured the truth: “I think it’s one thing to _read_ that Captain America is faster than any of us could dream to be, and another to hear you _say_ you can run upwards of fifty miles an hour.”

“Anybody could be me, Tony,” Steve replied easily, popping the lid on his drink and chugging down a mouthful. Tony stared at him disbelievingly. “I was the runt of the litter,” he reminded. “The scrawniest little mutt you’d find. Erskine could have used the serum on a real military guy, but he gave it to me, and it worked.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Clint chimed in, stepping in around Steve, giving him a hearty slap on the back. “You’re one of a kind, Cap. He’d have gotten Hulk 2.0 if he gave it to anyone else.”

“Technically, it would be Hulk 0.5,” Bruce corrected, leaning in the doorway. He nodded at Tony, then explained, “My work was a direct derivative of the super-soldier program. We were trying to capture the magic in the bottle. We got the Hulk instead.” He shrugged dismissively. “Honestly, I’m surprised S.H.I.E.L.D. hasn’t tried to clone you, Steve.”

Steve shrugged, putting Clint in a one-armed headlock as the latter reached hopefully for his smoothie. “I asked,” he said bluntly. “Trouble is, my blood isn’t pure serum. It’s a mixture. Separating the—” He grunted, released Clint, holding his hand to his side. “You pack a mean elbow, Barton,” he said, but there was good humor in his voice as he breezed on. “You ever try to unbake a cake? It’s about that easy.”

“Why not make an imperfect clone?” Bruce pressed, scientific curiosity taking over.

Steve shrugged. “It’s immoral. We haven’t cloned people. There’s a reason.” Looking at them, he added in a deeper voice, “We haven’t cloned people—have we?”

Bruce shook his head. Steve relaxed. “Imagine a second Bruce Banner with bastardized DNA,” Steve breezed on. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. You wanna imagine what could happen if your clone was insane or stronger or incurably paranoid? He could kill you. He could kill a lot of people. Maybe his version of the Hulk would be feral; not something anyone, even if your clone, could deal with.”

“They don’t wanna make a monster,” Bruce mused. 

Steve tipped his head. “I think they’re already concerned about the Captain America they’ve got,” he said, voice unreadable. “The idea of _two_ of us running around makes them more nervous than excited. I could form an alliance with myself and take ’em down. Two-man con. I wouldn’t,” he added pointedly, looking at them all in turn, “but I can’t say my clone wouldn’t try.”

Tony watched him. Steve finished off the smoothie. “Or, he could be completely normal,” Steve said, using his _everything’s going to be okay_ voice. “A duplicate in every way. We’d be more like twins than the same person, but he’d be me in everything but—” He shrugged. “Well, he’d be me in name, too.”

Tony couldn’t help it: he imagined a second Steve Rogers standing next to the first, surveying them with the same iron look. He didn’t know how he felt about it, but uneasy made the list. He had the far worse feeling that he was _already_ looking at Steve Rogers, 2.0.

“Well,” Steve said, trying to reclaim a sense of normalcy, “Fury shelved it, said it was too risky. Besides, we don’t need super-soldiers to fight wars anymore.”

Clint paused mid-sip of a cup of coffee. He seemed like he wanted to say something— _you kidding me? The need couldn’t be higher; the world is at war with other worlds—_ but Steve’s calm demeanor seemed to put an end to the discussion. He finished his drink, set it aside. “Maybe don’t give them any blood samples, if you can help it,” he said at last.

Steve shook his head. “They’d need gametes,” he said tactfully. “They can have all the blood they want, but they’re not gonna grow Captain America two in a petri dish.”

They were all quiet a moment. Finally, Tony asked, “So—Steve. What’s my favorite color?”

Steve looked at him, cocked his head. “That a trick question?”

“No.”

A beat. “You’ve never told me.”

“Right answer.”

Steve narrowed his eyes. Setting his empty smoothie aside, he folded his arms across his chest. “What’s this about, Tony?”

The erroneous belief that crossed arms was a sign of aggressive discomfort, a wall between a person and their world, had succumbed to a more human explanation: it was a kind of self-hug, comfort in an uncomfortable situation. He didn’t like putting Steve in it, but all the talk of clones made him uneasy. An even worse thought occurred to him: a man dead in the ice who carried valuable information in his preserved DNA.

He looked Steve over once, perfect in his splendor, no sign of the ice on him. No sign of trauma. No hint that he’d been dead for almost three-quarters of a century.

It seemed damning. Tony stood, covering the space between them. Clint and Bruce gave them space. Steve didn’t lower his arms, didn’t blink. Tony stopped in front of him, looked him over, trying to confirm for himself that what he saw was real. He’d never met Steve Rogers before the ice, had no reference point. Even with old wartime footage, none of it was definitive. A clone could be taught. A clone could _learn_. Seventy years in the ice was more than enough time to find, grow, and recalibrate a brand new Captain America.

He exhaled sharply, realizing he’d been holding his breath. Steve’s expression softened. He stepped forward, but Tony edged back. He paused. He seemed hurt, looking away from Tony. Voice hard, he said, “Where I came from, you could mask your identity, but you couldn’t become another person. I get that it’s a different world now. I get that I missed a few things. But if you think I’d. . . .” He trailed off.

He turned, but Tony was faster—just once, and he thanked his lucky stars for that—catching him by the back of his shirt, holding him in place. “Don’t go.”

Steve didn’t move. “Sorry,” he said tonelessly. “I overreacted.”

Tony tugged on him. When Steve didn’t turn around, Tony said _fuck it_ and wrapped his arms around Steve, hugging him. “No. Shut up.” He squeezed tighter when he heard Steve exhale unhappily, about to speak, and there was silence. “Just. . . .” He was aware of their audience but in a vague, unimportant way. “Don’t apologize.”

Steve tried to turn, but Tony held him too tightly for that. He didn’t want to see Steve’s face. Couldn’t bear to see earnest blue eyes entreating him for answers, truth, _justice_. He held on, an anchor. Steve stood still, waiting for him to let go. He reached down, but instead of prying Tony’s arms from his waist as he surely could, he put his own hands on them. He said, “I don’t need you to trust me.”

“I trust you.”

“They recorded it.” He shivered. Tony loosened his grip. Steve turned in his arms, burying his head in Tony’s shoulder, hands scrabbling for purchase on his back. He caught his shirt in both fists and held it. Tony could barely breathe, almost overpowered by Steve against him, trying to hide. 

He heard the door slide open briefly, aware of two footsteps drifting away, but it was a distant thought. He stroked Steve’s back, aware of the dampness under the shirt. Robots didn’t sweat. Clones might. “When they—when they got me outta the ice,” he said, voice unsteady as Tony had ever heard it, “they recorded it.”

He didn’t offer to show Tony. Tony didn’t ask. “I trust you.”

“Tony—”

“Shh.” A simple word, a hand in damp hair. Steve shivered like he was freezing. Tony held him as close as he could, hoping his own body heat would help. It was an oxymoron: a blisteringly hot summer day brewed outside while the super-soldier who ran warm shook in his arms. “I gotcha,” he murmured. Steve exhaled, inhaling on a gasp. “I don’t need it.” He crushed Steve against him, but Steve was too strong for him to break, making a desperate sound. “I’ve got you. That’s all I need.”

There was so much more—more he could say, more he wanted to say—but he stood there in silence, holding Steve as he shivered to stay alive, to keep from freezing to death in Tony’s arms.

 _I’ve got you_ , he promised, cheek against the top of Steve’s bowed head, eyes squeezed shut. _You hear me?_

_I won’t let you freeze._

. o . 

S.H.I.E.L.D. tried, but they couldn’t hide the truth from Captain America. 

As soon as he learned about the hostage situation, he begged to be put in the field. He refused to accept that the odds were borderline suicidal, that they had no plan, that he wasn’t cleared for a mission of that level. He refused to mutiny, but he was tireless, fearless, a force of nature. They couldn’t resist him. They were a hardened black-ops organization used to dealing with tough cases under the worst circumstances, but they weren’t a match for Captain America’s unflagging spirit. When Fury finally granted him an audience, he said, “I can save them” and meant it with every fiber of his being.

Tony heard it all after the fact. While he was in his own lab, testing out a new suit, Steve was on a Quinjet, preparing to infiltrate a hostile organization and free two compromised agents. There was a high probability both agents were already dead, but Steve wouldn’t have accepted that assessment as final. 

He needed to see it for himself. He needed, if there was even a prayer of success, to go in and save them. He was still on home ground, but bullets under the American flag were as deadly as their international counterparts. He was exposed, uninformed, and devastatingly alone. Fury refused to throw more bodies onto the pile. Clint and Natasha had been halfway across the world on their own mission. There was no backup.

Tony heard it all after the fact, how the agents were both alive when Steve landed. He didn’t have a parachute, but the drop was eighty-two feet, exactly two Quinjets standing vertically on top of each other. It was a lethal fall for an ordinary human, but after a few milliseconds of dazed unresponsiveness, Captain America shuffled to his feet and took cover. He’d landed on his shield, which absorbed most of the blow, but it rattled him hard. He hairline-fractured two ribs. Tender but battle-ready, he approached the unguarded bunker.

No one suspected him. The Quinjet had flown under the radar, staying so low details on the ground were nauseatingly near. He hadn’t tripped any alarms. 

He slipped inside the bunker undetected.

Tony heard it all after the fact. "All” was brief.

Both agents were alive when Steve landed. Steve got shot. One of the agents got shot. The firefight dragged on. Twice, Steve was pinned down with the agents under a hail of bullets, his shield rattling with each concussive impact. He got back up and gave them his shield. Then he fought on. He took his enemies down. He didn’t kill any of them.

The three S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives escaped. The agent who got shot died. Steve carried the survivor over his shoulders and dragged the body behind him. Dragged it because he couldn’t bear to leave the man on enemy soil, couldn’t leave him to the wolves he’d come to save him from. He was supposed to contact the Quinjet for pick-up, but his comms were unresponsive, so he walked.

He walked to the rendezvous site, almost twenty miles away. It took him ninety minutes.

He climbed aboard, lowered the living agent to a seat. Talked to him, comforting him, believing in him: _You’re gonna be okay. It’s gonna be all right_.

He hauled the body inside, dragged a thermo-blanket over it, secured it to the floor. Returned to the living agent. Pleaded. Assured. Grasped a bloody hand in his own and whispered, over and over: _You’re gonna be fine._

The other agent bled out internally and died twenty minutes from S.H.I.E.L.D.

Tony heard about it all later. Heard it as, tears dripping down his face, a hand holding a sodden medical bandage to his broken jaw—small mercies, that their aim had been low; the wound was gruesome and bled profusely, but it shouldn’t kill him—Steve spat blood and choked on the weight on his own guilt, agony in his expression as he pleaded with anyone who would listen that they needed a doctor. When someone approached him, he snapped like a wounded animal that they needed to attend the other agents, the bodies, the bodies, and it was sinking into him painfully slowly.

Tony arrived when Fury called him, sounding as shaken as Tony had ever heard him. He flew to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s HQ, flew all the way to the Quinjet landing pad, landed in their midst as Iron Man. They stepped back, and he saw Steve, holding a blood-soaked cloth to his wounded jaw. Tony didn’t throw up, but it was a near thing, stumbling forward, grabbing him with the Iron Man hands, wrenching a whimper from his throat. He gentled his grip, fearful he’d hurt Steve—and he had, he could see, there were other bullet holes in the suit, _fuck—_ but Steve didn’t flinch from that.

He just insisted, over and over, that they needed help, all the while lashing out at anyone who so much as looked compassionately in his direction. He planted his feet like a tree, didn’t budge an inch until the bodies were on the floor, and then he choked on his own blood, vomited, and collapsed to his knees.

There was nothing—Tony thought, ears ringing, eyes not seeing as he pulled Steve to his feet, away, away from it all, cradling him to the Iron Man suit—that compared to the horrors of war.

Steve panicked the second the bodies were out of view—the medical crew had the compassion, the foresight, the simple dazed horror to put blankets over them, making them almost bearable on the clean linoleum floor—and tried to drag him back. Steve was weak with blood loss, with grief and shock, but he was still incredibly strong. He dropped the rag and fought Tony like his life depended on it.

It reminded him of an animal caught in a trap. Tony couldn’t bear it, but he didn’t dare let go, Steve would hurt someone else if he didn’t hold on. Steve screamed, dug his feet in, pulled with everything he was worth, thrashing and tearing and trying desperately to escape, but the Iron Man suit prevailed. Tony found his voice, somewhere. Detached. Calm. “Easy, Steve.” Again, again. “Easy.”

He made no false promises, said nothing other than _Easy_. This wasn’t Captain America. This was Steve Rogers: the soldier, the man who’d lost everything and still had more to lose. Steve stared at him. Tony lowered the faceplate. “It’s me,” he said softly. “Me, you know me, c’mon, buddy. Easy.”

Steve closed his eyes, falling against the suit. He whimpered. There was pain in it, like he didn’t have the capacity to hide it. With every ounce of care he could muster from the suit, Tony cradled him in his arms, keeping his back to the carnage, shielding them both from the chaos, walking them slowly away. “We’re going,” he promised. Steve sobbed once wretchedly. “We’re leaving.”

Nobody tried to stop them. Tony was cognizant enough to accept the new cloth Fury handed him, the Director looking like he’d watched his son die. _He’s not dead_ , Tony thought fiercely, taking the cloth and pressing it into Steve’s hand. Hands that had held bodies. Tony wondered why he himself wasn’t falling apart, because this was worse, this was _worse_ than Afghanistan, and yet . . . it wasn’t.

Just another casualty of war.

He got Steve to wrap his fingers around the cloth, but he wouldn’t hold it to his own bleeding jaw, mouth slack, dripping blood onto the clean floor. Tony, hidden behind the mask, encouraged softly, “C’mon, buddy, c’mon.” He lifted Steve’s hand, gently, the barest pressure, encouraged him to hold it to his jaw. With eyes that weren’t home, Steve obeyed, holding it in a white-knuckled grip, trembling.

Trembling.

They had cars, but cars were slow and that wasn’t good enough, so Tony wrapped an iron arm around Steve, told him, “Easy.” He lifted off, not at the same leaping pace he preferred but in a slow, measured upward movement. Steve’s feet slid away. He pressed his face against the Iron Man suit. Tony held him in one arm and flew. Iron Man was strong in ways Tony Stark wasn’t.

They arrived on the balcony level. Bruce was inside. Clint and Natasha would be home after midnight, if they could be. Fury hadn’t told just him, Tony knew. Bruce’s expression confirmed it as Tony half-held, half-dragged Steve inside. He lowered Steve gently onto the couch. He stepped back and let Bruce step forward, talking and moving slowly. 

It wasn’t fair to expect so much of him, but Bruce moved confidently, directing Tony to fetch the first aid kit, no, Tony, the other one. Tony hated leaving them but the real trauma kit was in the lab, so he left, moving like his life depended on haste. He was back in time to see Bruce unzip Steve’s suit. Steve’s torso was covered in black and blue. The HUD lit up with complementary colors, reds and violets, degrees of pain quantified.

Tony shut the detailed screen off, handing the kit to Bruce. He stepped out of his suit. He realized he was covered in a cold sweat but didn’t care, nothing mattered, nothing mattered, as he stumbled forward. He sat at the edge of the couch and got Steve’s head and shoulders up onto his lap. With cold fingers, he took the cloth and held it to Steve’s jaw. 

Steve closed his eyes and passed out stone-cold.

Tony held the cloth for him, ears ringing loudly, as Bruce talked to him reassuringly. Bruce talked about possible fractures but no dislocations, grazed bullets but no deep wounds. The worst part was Steve’s jaw, where he’d been shot—shot in the _face_ , fuck, Tony didn’t want to picture it but he could, could see him reel, gasping blood—and Bruce proceeded with caution. He tipped Steve’s head gently and found the exit wound on a diagonal, near the back of his jaw. That was good. Tony still felt his vision gray out, overwhelmed. He was grateful when Bruce covered the wound with a new, folded cloth.

Tony’s mind worked even when he didn’t want it to: he imagined Steve leaning around a corner, erroneously believing the coast was clear, before staggering back with a sharp cry as the shot rang out. It was the kind of wound that felled great officers in the heat of battle, a disorienting blow, _shot in the face_ , but Steve kept fighting, kept moving, kept _going_.

Tony didn’t know anything other than there were two bodies in the hangar and Steve was lying insensate on his lap, but he would learn it all in time, all that Steve was willing to share.

It was four in the morning before Steve awoke suddenly. He lurched upright in bed, and Tony blinked back delirium—not sleep; he hadn’t fallen asleep, wasn’t sure if he was ever going to sleep again—as he followed Steve, wrapping his arms around Steve’s bare chest. He breathed heavily, frantically, shaking in Tony’s hold. He made a deep rasping sound, like he was about to speak, but they’d wrapped his jaw, helping hold it together while it healed. He reached up to pry the bandage off and Tony caught his hand, holding it. “Easy. I’m here. I’m here.”

Steve sagged forward. Tony let go of his hand, shifting his grip so he could hold Steve up. “Easy, big guy, I’m here.” He spoke softly, hushing him as he whimpered. “I’ve got you.” He let the words be slow and clear, a promise. “I’ve got you, I’m not gonna let go.”

Steve moaned. “I know,” Tony soothed. He couldn’t know, but he could feel the animal pain radiating off Steve in waves, and that he could understand. “I know it hurts. It’s okay. I’m gonna hold you and it’ll stop hurting soon.” Steve hunched over his own stomach, arms wrapped around it like he would be sick. Tony was prepared to get the bandage off in a second if need be, but Steve just whimpered again. Tony pressed against his back. “You don’t deserve this,” he whispered, resting his own hands on top of Steve’s. “You don’t deserve any of this pain.”

Steve leaned into him. Tony held him. “I wish you weren’t as brave and good as you are,” he admitted, not to lash him but to soothe him. _You can stop fighting, buddy_. He saw a brief, happy image of Steve panting, flushed with joy but trembling with relief as Tony called off the joust. Even in play, he didn’t know how to _stop_. That broke Tony’s heart. 

“I wish you were selfish and scared sometimes. That you didn’t go, even when your heart told you you had to.” He shuffled back, lying down on the pillows. Steve sank back into his embrace, almost on top of him, the marginally less damaged side of his face pressed against Tony’s stomach. Stroking his arm, Tony talked to him endlessly, soothingly.

“I know you’re a hero. No one under the Stars and Stripes doesn’t know what you did for us. What you did for the soldiers out there, the people who needed you the most. You were their hero. Maybe you didn’t know it, but they did, they kept that. People would paint trash can lids like your shield. I saw the pictures. Kids holding them up, beaming, just like you, the American dream incarnate.

“My dad, he wasn’t a talker—a show-boater, sure, but a reserved guy, never knew how to say what he was really thinking—but he’d talk about you, ’f I ever brought it up. Talk about how Captain America was the bravest sonuvabitch he’d ever known. They don’t make them like you. They never made a second Steve Rogers, even though I bet they wished they could. He missed you forever. Everyone missed you.”

A pause. Steve was breathing slowly against him, eyes half-lidded. Listening. Tony kept his voice soft, sincere. “Agent Coulson called me, nearly in tears, said they’d found you, and I remember dropping the phone because it was something people dreamed about, meeting Captain America, but nobody in their right mind thought it’d happen. We’d lost you, and that was the end of it, until you came back. I know we found you, but you . . . you came back. The hero.

“You could’ve laid low, could’ve said no, probably should’ve said no. In your next life, I’m begging you, Cap, please say no. To everyone. Don’t let them take a thing from you. Don’t let them have any more of your heart. It’s the biggest I’ve ever seen, but it’s gonna break. We’ve got a lot of trouble for one man, no matter how strong and good and brave he is. I need you to say no. I need you to tell everyone to go pick up the mess they made and enjoy a day off.

“It’s nice. Takin’ time off. You’ll like it. It’s good for you. I know you eat your Wheaties, but this is the kind of good for you that sticks. We’ll go to the zoo. We’ll go to the aquarium. Hell, I don’t know why you’d want to, but we’ll go to Times Square, if that’s what you want.” Inspired, he said, “You know what? Fuck New York. We’ll go to Hawaii. It’s beautiful. It’s goddamn gorgeous. Can’t drive there, it’s in the middle of the Pacific, but it’s worth the flight.

“The Star-Spangled Man with a Plan in a Hawaiian t-shirt. You can swim with dolphins. You wanna pet a dolphin? Beats the hell out of an office job. They’re bigger than you’d think, too, although maybe you have a weirdly correct view of how large a dolphin is supposed to be. We’ll meet the dolphins. That sounds formal, but I’m like, eighty percent sure they had names anyway. I didn’t really care, but I bet you would.”

Steve’s eyes were closed, now. He was breathing softly against Tony’s stomach. Tony kept talking, one hand tangled in Steve’s hair, stroking. “Yeah, you’d like that. I wanna lay in the sand, maybe drink myself happy and sleep until two in the afternoon. That’d be nice. Being on a routine is awful, Rogers. I’m supposed to be the neurotic genius, not the domestic CEO who works a nine-to-five.” He stayed silent, brushing Steve’s hair in the same steady rhythm, losing himself in it.

“I just want you to be okay,” he said at last, cradling Steve’s head in a hand. “I want you to be happy. I don’t wanna think you’re gonna run and never come back. Not just for my sake. For you. I want you to be happy more than I wanna be happy, and I don’t even know what that means.” Sighing, he finished, “I know what it means. I don’t wanna say it. Now’s not the time.” Stroking Steve’s sweat-damp hair, never more careful about not breaking him, he added softly, “Maybe another time, huh, bud?”

Steve said nothing, breathing in and out, curled around him. Even with the bandage cushioning his jaw, it had to be hurting him, but he was quiet against Tony. Tony’s heart swelled with indescribable emotion until it was all he could do not to cry. “It’s gonna be okay,” he said, hating himself for false promises but needing to believe it anyway. “We’re gonna make it through this. You and me, tough guy, like we always do. You and me, we’re invincible.”

. o . 

Steve slept on and off for three days, following the failed operation.

The thing that broke Tony’s heart was that it wasn’t a failure. Despite the indescribably dangerous nature of going in blind and unaided, Steve had gotten in, subdued their captors, and brought both agents out. He’d done what’d he had set out to do. _F_ _ree the hostages._ But despite his best efforts, the agents had died. That was what had mattered.

Tony was ready to punch the first person to even _suggest_ that Captain America going in had resulted in the agents’ deaths—they’d both been alive when he landed, and that phrase would haunt Tony for a while, how of all the sparse remarks Steve would make on the situation, _they were alive when he landed_ was a theme he returned to over and over—but nobody gave him the chance. 

Tony stayed at home. He worked on his laptop while Steve slept beside him, the purple bruising on his jaw gradually fading. He drank torturously but obediently, using smoothies to compensate for his inability to chew food to bulk up his calorie intake. He awoke in the middle of the night and couldn’t seem to place where he was, what was happening. Tony would help talk him down even though he was tired, too, until Steve fell asleep again.

Tony wondered—sitting in a chair and reading a book for a change of scenery—if this was what it had been like when Steve had broken his back, all those weeks ago. Lying in a near coma, occasionally stirring to force himself to sustain his body so it could heal before dropping off again. Except Tony was reasonably sure he’d been alone then.

He hoped against hope that maybe Natasha or Clint had stopped in on him to make sure he was breathing, as Tony did, anxiously, like the visible progress was a fleeting thing, apt to fade. He hoped that maybe Fury had knocked on the door, asked if he needed anything. He hoped _someone_ had cared that Steve was hurt.

And then he saw Steve standing slowly, painfully, getting up from the conference room table he presided over, sleeplessness and hurt in his eyes, and he knew the truth.

Tony didn’t leave. He embraced a strange normalcy as he worked remotely. Not for his company, he left that to Pepper; he just tinkered and toiled with the suit, always the suit. It needed to be better. If he could make it flexible enough, thin enough, maybe Steve would wear it. He wouldn’t if it would impair his movement. He probbaly didn’t think a suit would help him at all when he had his shield, but Tony saw the gruesome aftermath and knew, as so few people did, just how damningly Captain America bled.

 _I can’t stop them from shooting at you, but I can make you bulletproof_.

After three days, Steve was doing well enough that he got up for extended periods, showered, got the bandages off his face without asking for permission, looking at Tony with dark eyes when he emerged from the bathroom like he expected to be chided for it. It looked excruciating, but he didn’t say anything, meeting Steve’s gaze in quiet acceptance.

He watched as Steve stripped the bed, marched the sheets off to the laundry chute—handy, that—and rummaged around in the closet for a new set. He made the bed, filled a glass of water and drank it—grimacing, and Tony remembered _I hate the smell of pennies—_ and at last, exhaling, he looked at Tony. He took a seat on the edge of the made bed, looking exhausted.

Tony said softly, “You can sleep, chief.”

Steve looked at him, then he straightened his shoulders, getting shakily to his feet. Tony was there, then, ducking under his right arm. Together, they walked to the door, the few steps to the elevator, emerging in the main room. It was informal family meeting time, but if Steve was uncomfortable at the audience, he gave no notice. 

Solicitously, Clint came up, looked ready to duck under his other arm, but Steve caught his hand and squeezed it before releasing it. Clint backed off. Bruce, who couldn’t communicate telepathically, asked, “Hey, Steve, you need anything?”

Steve shook his head again and Tony guided him over to a free couch, facing the city. It was midday. The sight of it disoriented Tony, but he bucked himself up, getting a couple extra pillows behind Steve’s back for support. He stepped back, but Steve’s hand slid down his shoulder, his sleeve, never letting go, grasping at his wrist.

Tony took the hint, encouraging him to budge over and sliding into the vacated space between Steve and the arm of the couch. He wrapped an arm around Steve’s shoulders, giving him a gentle squeeze. Steve closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, an uncomfortable rattle in his wet, hurting mouth.

He whispered, “We ’eed t’ talk.”

Tony shook his head. “Easy. We can talk later.”

Steve looked at him, eyes hazy with discomfort, but he insisted more strongly, “Tony. . . .” He pushed himself upright, not quite sliding out of Tony’s grip, before he raised a hand to his mouth, holding his fist in front of it, looking pale around the edges. Tony rubbed his side, kept rubbing it even after Steve lowered his hand.

Bruce was nearby, rubbing his hands like he was trying to come up with a reason to help. Clint was pacing, itching to be of more use. Natasha sat at the table, watching them in silent consideration. Thor stood near the windows, arms folded, frowning at them.

Finally, Steve said, “Please—I can’t say this twice.”

Inside a minute, they all drifted over like it was family meeting time, taking up posts. Clint sat on the floor, Bruce propped himself up on the arm of a different couch, Thor found a space to stand nearby. Natasha curled up in a chair. They waited intently. Steve looked at each of them in turn before he spoke.

“I can’t . . . do this anymore.” No one moved, but Tony’s heart skipped a beat. He knew the others felt the same shock at hearing the words. He didn’t say anything because it was clearly torturous for Steve to talk and he didn’t want to rob him of even the painful opportunity. “I can’t . . . solo.” Steve winced. “Shouldn’t’ve. . . . It’s too much of a risk t’. . . . I’m an Avenger. First.”

“It’s okay, Cap.” Natasha’s voice was steady, normal, comforting. Steve stared at her, looking for something. “No more solos. You and me, or the three of us.” She nodded at Clint, who nodded once in emphatic agreement. “Neither of us solo anymore. It’s okay.”

“I do not march alone into battle,” Thor chimed in, his voice also normal. “It is noble to try, but you shouldn’t have to. That is what friends are for.”

Steve’s shoulders relaxed. Bruce said nothing, but Tony knew it wasn’t judgmental. He himself had nothing to say, no words of comfort. He wasn’t a soldier or a spy or a Norse god. He was a man in a suit of armor. It wasn’t his forte. Bruce, the pacifist, had nothing to add, either.

Steve exhaled and gathered himself. He sat up straight as he could. Tony kept his grip loose, letting him. Steve addressed them in a strong voice, then, like he’d resolved to plow through the pain to say it. “Two people are dead . . . because of me.” Tony squeezed his shoulders. Steve looked out the windows. “Wouldn’t’ve . . . happened, ’f I hadn’t intervened. Need you t’ . . . understand that.”

“You did everything you could, Cap,” Natasha said quietly.

Steve shook his head. “Won’t have . . . anyone, anyone else b’cause. . . .” He swallowed, grimaced, looked around with firm eyes. “Nobody’s gonna die.”

There were silent, but their mere unflinching silence seemed to confirm something for him. He hunched inward. “’m takin’ a few days off,” he told them, barely moving his jaw. “You kids be’ave. Be real mad ’f you do anythin’.”

“You got it, Cap,” Clint said, pushing himself to his feet and stepping forward, reaching for Steve’s hand. He gave it. Clint squeezed it. “No trouble.”

“Lemme get you an ice pack,” Bruce suggested kindly. “It’ll help take the swelling down.”

Steve nodded. Bruce took off. It was amazing, Tony mused, how much they still deferred to him. Even he had given into Steve’s burning need to _talk_ to them. He was their Captain. He deserved to be listened to. Far more than he deserved the pain heaped on his shoulders.

Thankfully, just as they knew to defer to him, they also knew how to leave him be. Clint asked if Tony had a Wii, and then he was explaining the merits of video games to an enraptured Thor, a playfully argumentative Bruce, a disinterested but overseeing Natasha.

Steve, for his part, kicked his legs up on the couch and presided, eyelids slipping shut as Tony carded his fingers through his hair. He caught Bruce smiling at him. He thought about making a smart remark about it— _T_ _his? Is nothing. I would do this for anyone—_ but it wouldn’t materialize. He couldn’t lie about Steve. He could lie about anything, under the right circumstances, but not this.

So he kept his mouth shut and watched them rediscover the joys of Pac-Man—even Tony couldn’t have said where Clint found the game, let alone got it up and running—while Steve dozed against him, one hand curled in his shirt loosely. He thought outsiders would have a fit to see Captain America cozied up to Iron Man, but here, among friends—friends who cackled like hyenas and threw things at each other, who fought side-by-side and argued over movies—it was pleasantly normal.

Steve looked after him, and he looked after Steve.

Really, it was that simple.


	5. OAHU

Waves washed over Tony’s calves. He inhaled deeply, saturating his lungs with ocean air. He wanted to go farther, to duck under the water, but he didn’t dare. Not with the arc reactor. He stood, bare-chested and longing, as the sun set in front of him. It was a procession, and he embraced the time it took. He loved the ocean, the gleaming water stretching endlessly in front of him. It would be nice to swim out and bask for a while. He waded out farther, halted knee-deep, and closed his eyes euphorically.

Oahu was already winning accolades as “best vacation spot ever” in Tony’s book.

. o . 

It hadn’t been easy to get there, but to Tony’s surprise, the most difficult part of the trip hadn’t been getting Steve to agree to it. He’d been surprisingly receptive to the idea of skipping town and going somewhere warm, somewhere safe. It also hadn’t been finding the means to fly down on short notice, either, because Stark Industries was amply equipped for such spontaneous events. No, the most difficult part had been keeping Tony’s name out of the gossip mill and prying eyes at bay. 

The Avengers Tower was spared scrutiny thanks to one-way windows and rigorously enforced security (it didn’t hurt that the balcony level was over 1,000 feet off the ground, either), but any escapades outside it were fair game. Despite turning over a somewhat more refined leaf in the playboy department, Tony was a magnet for slow-day gossip reels. Being the CEO of Stark Industries _and_ one of the world’s most recognizable superheroes also meant he received a certain amount of media tailgating no matter where he went. Luckily, he could use the suit to get where he needed to be before removing and storing it in a briefcase-sized unit for whatever meal or other event he was attending, thwarting the general paparazzi swarms he knew Steve, bless his heart, entertained every damn morning on his runs.

( _Hey, how you doing, Cap?_

_I’m good, hoss, what about you?_

_How far you gonna go today?_

_How much gas you got in that car?_

_That far, huh?_

_Gotta make Uncle Sam proud._ )

He could actually outrun them—all he had to do was exceed the city’s motor vehicle speed limit for a while and they had no hope of catching him—but he was gracious about the whole thing. Tony knew because he’d seen the footage, usually recorded by a cameraman in the back holding it level with an open window while Steve jogged alongside, great loping strides, restful enjoyment plain in his expression, not a drop of sweat on his body. 

He had conducted whole informal interviews that way, giving the American public what it wanted, and he seemed to find the whole arrangement more of an obligation than genuine disturbance to his routine. He gave them five to ten minutes of his time every morning, usually of the “hey how you doin’?” “I’m good, hoss, how ’bout you?” variety, and then he took off alone, and they let him be. He’d be back tomorrow, after all, like clockwork.

( _Another beautiful day in America, huh, Commander?_

 _It’s Captain, sir, and it always is._ )

Tony, on the other hand, preferred to keep his precious time to himself. The media vultures were always looking for someone to tear to pieces and feed to a ravenous public, and he had been careful to cultivate a certain unbroken image in the wake of Afghanistan. Iron Man was superheroic, beyond the ordinary man, and he was expected to play up the part. 

At the same time, he was still the head of a multi-billion dollar company, and he needed to make sure he schmoozed and laid his foot down in the right measure. He couldn’t be a pushover—not that Steve was a pushover, but he had more patience for the ordeal than Tony—but he also couldn’t blow them off completely. Engaging them meant _he_ controlled the narrative, more so than he would have if he tried to avoid them and allowed them to speculate in the vacuum.

A simple trip to Oahu was complicated by their dual celebrity status. Tony had spent a good deal of Steve’s convalescence consulting Pepper about the upcoming trip he’d decided (he’d been ready to argue with Steve if necessary, hence his pleasant surprise when Steve had given in with no fuss to the trip when Tony announced it), setting up the arrangement and brainstorming ways to handle the publicity. The absolute _last_ thing Tony wanted was to wake up every morning to a handful of eager beavers trying to snap a picture of him in a swimsuit for their latest tabloid cover. 

So he’d called in a favor, spent a few days with a friendly company to learn about their initiative to clean up ocean plastic, and pledged an unpublished by handsome amount to the cause. The media loved it, and Tony’s word was as good as gold. He hadn’t _planned_ on dedicating $100 million to the cause, but he could spare it as long as he waited a few more months to start a new suit. Besides, he had a soft spot for sea turtles. 

Touchingly, the company had invited him on as an honorary board member. The whole project had almost overtaken the trip in Tony’s mind as he drank good wine, ate excellent food, and thought about other humanitarian projects in need of cash. He’d walked in planning on spending a quarter of what he had, but they needed more, and he was debating shelving a new suit for three years just to see the project fully funded, but it was risky. He could lose his current suit in battle and need a spare at a moment’s notice. They were expensive bastards, growing more expensive by the year, but he was Iron Man first, Sea Turtle Champion second.

By the fourth day, his last day with the company, he itched to get out to the water. They’d spent a half a day holding a photo-op at the beach, talking while they crunched numbers behind-the-scenes. Once freedom was in reach, he could barely stand the wait. He stayed patient: smiling, his arc reactor glowing through his Hawaiian t-shirt, he held several interviews about what had inspired the change of heart: realizing life was fleeting, the oceans were essential to all life, he had a duty if not moral obligation to help fight the wars he was able to now that he’d given up weapons’ production, the like. At last, he announced, as planned, that he would spend a few weeks soaking up the Hawaiian sun as part of a much-needed vacation from life in New York City.

He even let them snap a few photos of him in his other suit, holding up a t-shirt with the company’s logo imprinted on the front. The Iron Man visor couldn’t smile, but Tony could. He was touched that they’d given him a shirt, so much so that he’d worn it as Pepper drove him to the villa they were staying at. 

The rumor mill adored Pepper Potts and Tony Stark, and they hadn’t done much to deter it: their relationship was sublime, the sort of comfortable that endured all storms. Tony couldn’t even put a name to it, other than he would die for Pepper, and she would do the same for him, and maybe that was all true love was. 

But as they pulled, alone—thank God, alone; he’d been very particular that the place was remote and not accessible to the public—into the driveway, his heart pounded with anticipation. With relief.

The villa was beautiful, an idyllic estate on a breathtaking piece of land. It cost nothing next to the Sea Turtle Project, but it was still handsomely furnished and free of onlookers. Tony had ensured that by renting the entire estate. Billionaire may not have been his proudest title, but it sure had its benefits. 

They parked and were greeted by the smell of a Hawaiian cookout, complete with grilled pizza bread and Mai Tais. The chefs were none other than Clint and Natasha, who had also flown in under greatest secrecy: Clint’s red-eye was at an ungodly early hour and Natasha had spirited herself to the villa without a single paparazzi photo to show for it. Bruce was in the pool, laughing with Thor. Tony was overjoyed with relief to be home, _home_ five thousand miles away from home.

They weren’t staying much longer, a few days at most, but they had all been pleasantly surprised when Tony had extended the invitation to them. The reason was simple: while he’d been hobnobbing with the company, Steve had flown to Oahu and driven in the first night Tony landed, hours away and already immersed in the company’s welcome party. 

The idea of Steve, alone, in a state he didn’t even know had _been_ a state until a few months ago, was unbearable to Tony, not least because he had a genuine if irrational fear that Steve would try to swim out across the ocean and get eaten by a shark, unsupervised. 

It was natural to invite Natasha along. He’d come around to Natasha, about the same time that he’d stopped caring what the others thought of him holding Steve in their presence meant. Tony couldn’t say how it mushroomed beyond Clint, but Bruce, in fairness, had tried to politely decline before Tony insisted. Even Thor had agreed to stop by for a few days, see what all the fuss was about.

And here they were, luxuriating in solitude, laughing and talking and cooking up one of the best-smelling meals Tony had ever had the pleasure to anticipate. He said hellos with a wave, deciding full greetings could come later, because there was one member of the party who was conspicuously absent from the festivities. 

Concern coiled in his stomach, and he kissed Pepper on the cheek in gratitude and told her to save him a Mai Tai while he took their bags and stepped inside his new home away from home. He inhaled deeply—the waves were audible over the conversational murmur and laughter, and he was so goddamn happy he thought his arc reactor might explode—but he focused on the issue at hand, toeing off his shoes and wandering around, taking it all in. The villa was massive, and it would take several days to get a handle on all the nooks and crannies, but he moved intently, searching.

He almost missed his target, catching a hint of golden blond hair over the arm of a couch across the floor. Setting the bags down with utmost care near a wall, Tony approached cautiously, feeling like he had that night, so many nights ago now, when he first saw Steve in a moment of repose. 

He’d been Captain America then, the man, the myth, the legend, but this—this, he saw, as he got close enough to see, was just Steve, wearing blue shorts and a gray t-shirt and breathing into a cushion. He was facing the couch, back to the world. Ocean air wafted into the room through an open window. His cheek was faintly purple, tender and healing, but he looked peaceful. Tony reached down, not letting himself think, and brushed a hand against his side. Steve made a soft sound, hugged the pillow tighter, and kept sleeping.

Aching with affection—God, he was sweet—Tony leaned down and kissed his temple. He lingered for a moment before straightening. Steve exhaled, and Tony greeted, “Hey, sweetheart.” He didn’t know where it came from, but it was the most natural thing in the world for him. Steve’s eyes slid open a touch, and he shut them before rolling onto his back, blinking up at Tony fuzzily. “There’s my best guy.” 

Steve smiled, just the uptick of one side of his mouth, but it was more than Tony had seen in days, and he loved it. He leaned against the back of the couch, chin on it, temptingly close. “You miss me?” he teased.

“Mm.” Steve reached up, brushed his arm with a hand, and murmured, “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

He meant it so much that Tony had to close his own. The hand on his arm drifted to his face, cupping his cheek. “Yeah,” Steve said at last, soft with sleep, “missed you.”

Tony turned his head into the hand, almost kissed the palm, but . . . fell short. He didn’t know why, but it was too much to do with Steve’s gaze on him, with the low, almost inaudible rumble of contentment in Steve’s chest. “I’m here now,” he said, holding the hand there for a moment before releasing it. “You wanna go to the beach?”

Steve stroked his thumb over Tony’s cheek once, then released him and nodded. “Yeah.” Clearing his throat, he dropped his hand to his eyes, rubbing them. “I miss the party?”

Tony smiled even though Steve couldn’t see it. “You kidding? I just got here.”

Steve’s smile added five years to his lifespan, Tony was certain.

. o . 

And now: here they were. Watching the sunset while their friends laughed and cooked and gallivanted in the distance.

“What d’you think, chief?” Tony asked, now standing hip-deep in the water and looking back at Steve, rubbing his already mussed-up hair with a hand as he approached. He wasn’t doing it deliberately to endear himself to Tony, Tony was sure, but it was still working for him. “This the American dream, or what?”

“Not a lot of white picket fences,” Steve rumbled, his voice sleep-heavy. “But I can’t deny: ’s a helluva view.” He followed Tony to the water’s edge, pausing and planting his hands on his hips, surveying the way. “I could get used to Hawaii,” he decided.

“You’re talking a lot better,” Tony noted, pleased. Steve lowered his arms and splashed into the water with measured steps. “How’s your face?”

Steve rubbed his cheek. “You ever get kicked with an iron boot?” Tony winced. Steve nodded to himself. “S’bout that. Not so bad. Doesn’ feel like it’s gonna fall off anymore.”

Tony shuddered. Steve waded closer. They were both bare-chested and in non-aquatic shorts; Tony hadn’t unpacked and if Steve owned swimming trunks, Tony had yet to see them. It was an amusing mixture of formal and informal, and Tony had the irrational thought that they were two guys having a cookout at the beach back home, not even bothering to dress for the occasion. Then Steve was near enough to reach out, and Tony saw the faint blue of his own arc reaction reflecting off Steve’s chest, like a very dim flashlight.

He stared, entranced, for several long moments. Then he noticed a hint of red creeping across the otherwise immaculate expanse of skin and looked up to Steve’s face. His ears were red, though his expression was unrevealing. Tony smirked. “I wasn’t checkin’ you out,” he teased, reaching out to pat Steve’s chest, right over the mirrored reactor light. “I was. . . .” He trailed off, hand lingering—the guy was made of _steel_ , and somehow in all the time they’d slept together, he hadn’t appreciated that fact—before dropping his hand.

Steve’s gaze fell on the arc reactor on _Tony’s_ chest, and Tony flushed, unconsciously reaching up to cover it with a hand. Even through his fingers, it glowed light blue, more visible in the dark, evening light. “S’beautiful,” Steve said, the last thing Tony expected to hear.

Tony’s brain short-circuited long enough for a bigger wave to slap at them. It wasn’t near enough to even get his flanks wet, but Tony still backpedaled, darting out of the water. Steve was right behind him, not in the same panic but concern, saying, “Hey, it’s okay. What’s wrong?”

Tony inhaled, exhaled. Put out a hand to stop Steve when he reached for Tony’s shoulder, bulking up his defenses, _don’t touch my reactor_. Steve wouldn’t, and he lowered his hand, but Tony still felt himself trembling. Fuck—he shouldn’t have been in the water, he could’ve damaged the reactor, could’ve _electrocuted_ himself—and Steve said softly, “You’re okay. It’s still glowing, Tony, it’s okay. Does it hurt?” He looked Tony over, frowning in concern. “Talk to me.”

He forced himself to speak. “I’m a live wire. In an ocean.” Huffing, breathless laughter that lacked mirth, he added, “Tell me the problem, Cap.” He was shaking, and he wasn’t sure if he looked ashen but Steve’s expression was worried. Steve bit his lip and released it, the dark smudge on his cheek protesting. “It’s fine. Let’s go back,” he said, needing to calm down. It was just the ocean. He even _liked_ the ocean. The ocean was warm and familiar and—

 _Dangerous_.

“Okay, Tony.” Steve stepped a touch closer, then stepped past him, careful not to touch him. “We’ll go back.”

Tony followed, gasping with relief when sand gave way to patio. “Hey, Tony!” Bruce called.

Steve held the gate for him, ever-chivalrous, and Tony snatched one of the towels off the deck and wrapped it around his shoulders. The blue glow from the arc reactor was more prominent than ever in the dark, and he closed the cloth around it, desperate to forget it.

Steve gave him space, and Tony hated that, but he couldn’t make himself close the distance, either, skittish, protective. _Don’t touch it, don’t touch it. Don’t you dare touch it_.

It hadn’t pained him in a while, but it ached viscerally now. He knew it was an illusion, but he couldn’t shove it down, even as he worked hard to calm himself. His body, thankfully, obeyed his commands. He took the water someone handed him, kissed Pepper on the cheek, and took a seat on the deck with the boys. Natasha was in the pool, now, Bruce nearby, laughing at a joke Tony hadn’t heard. Tony drank listlessly, more eager to get it all over with than enjoy it. Finally, he set the empty glass aside and excused himself.

He stumbled inside, dripping wet, getting sand everywhere, the cleaning crew was going to hate him. He found a room, locked the door, and sat down on the bed, trembling. Less than a minute later, there was a familiar knock. Tony ignored it. There was no J.A.R.V.I.S. to negotiate with, nobody to intercede. After a moment, Steve said, “Tony?”

He didn’t respond, gasping, clutching the towel to his chest. He didn’t know why he was so afraid—he’d showered a thousand times with the arc reactor, but he’d always protected it with a special wrap before, sealing it off. He could bathe and peel off the clear tape-like material when he was finished, and he never had so much as a spark. But the thought of being dragged under, of having water flush the reactor and short it out and kill him—

“Tony,” Steve pleaded. “Please let me in.”

Tony closed his eyes tightly, refusing to entertain the thought of drowning in the reactor, drowning and dying in agony, he wasn’t gonna die, _everything was fine_.

Steve said, “I need to know you’re okay.”

 _I’m not_.

“Tony?”

 _I’m drowning_.

“Nothing bad’s gonna happen, Tony.”

 _I’m gonna die_.

He stumbled to his feet, all but crashed into the door, unlocked and wrenched it open. Steve was there in an instant, holding him up as he shivered, saying, over and over, “Okay, Tony, s’okay, I’m here, I’m here, Tony, it’s gonna be okay.”

He held him there, moving them inside the room so he could shut the door behind them, and Tony was horrified at the sob that slipped past his own throat. “Hey, hey, you’re okay,” Steve crooned, cradling him in both arms, one hand on the back of his neck. “S’okay, I’m here, I’ve got you.”

He sobbed again, and Steve made a soft sound, held him somehow closer. Tony gasped against his skin, holding onto the towel for dear life, and Steve grounded him, insisted as many times as he could, “I’m here, I’ve got you, s’okay, Tony, shhh.”

They sat against the wall, Tony all but _in_ Steve’s lap, trembling against him and holding a towel around his shoulders, head ducked underneath it, hidden, as the panic finally ebbed, drawn back to sea. Tony whined pathetically, safe in his little hiding spot, and said in a muffled voice, “I’m sorry.”

Steve rubbed his side over the towel. “S’okay, chief. I’m here.”

“Is it too late to go home?”

Steve sighed and slouched down the wall. “If that’s what you want, we’ll go home, Tony.”

Tony inhaled a fortifying breath, lifted his head out of his towel prison and looked at Steve. His eyes were soft and bright this close, lit up by the lights on the deck outside the windows. The others were on the opposite side of the villa, nowhere in sight. Tony released the towel, reached up to cup Steve’s face, and said, “Stop it.”

Steve tilted his head in Tony’s hands. “Stop what?”

 _Making me love you_. He sighed, shaking Steve’s head back and forth gently before releasing it. “Being you. I’m ashamed. I have to go into hiding now.”

“Tony.”

“A new name. Grow a new beard. _Shave_ my beard.” He sighed. “God, Steve, I can’t rock the baby-face.”

Steve made an appraising noise. “I dunno.” Tony looked at him. He shrugged. “S’your body, Tony. You can rock anything.” He reached up, then, spiking his hands through Tony’s hair. “Mohawk.”

Tony pressed his cheek against Steve’s shoulder, hiding under his chin. “Cute.” Steve hummed in agreement. “No, you bastard, that wasn’t a compliment.”

“You hungry or somethin’, chief? You’re not usually this—sharp.”

“I am always this sharp.”

“Okay, boss.”

Tony pinched his side. He didn’t even grunt. Tony squeezed harder, until Steve caught his hand. Held it. Flattened it against his side. Tony slumped in defeat. “I hate this.”

“S’okay, boss.”

“They don’t get to touch this. Me. This. Mine.” He squeezed Steve’s side, the nearest part he could reach. He couldn’t bring himself to touch the reactor, safe under the towel. “I get to enjoy my life. They can’t take that from me.” He squeezed hard, and Steve made a soft sound. He let up. “I got away. This is _mine_ now. Nobody gets to fuckin’ touch that.”

“Nobody’s gonna, Tony.”

“Damn right.” He shuffled upright and Steve let him go. “I need a Mai Tai. You want a Mai Tai?” He tried to keep his voice firm, normal. Steve looked up at him with soft eyes, knowing eyes. Tony held out a hand to him.

Steve took it, pulling himself up, cocking his head. “What’s a Mai Tai?”

. o . 

It wasn’t Everclear, but that was fine, because Natasha had brought that per Tony’s request.

It probably ruined the flavor of the Mai Tai, Tony mused, but he'd ordered a whole case of the poison for special occasions. He figured if ever there was one, it was in a goddamn gorgeous villa in Hawaii, surrounded by family and friends. He enjoyed the way Steve was a sleepy drunk, too. (Unlike Clint, who memorably tried to fight Thor on one over-indulgent occasion.)

Tony was feeling more human, properly dressed and well into his second Mai Tai, the panic a softer, distant thing. He watched with a pleasant buzz in his belly as Steve purred as Natasha carded a hand through his hair, his head in her lap as he lied on the pool deck. Tony felt comfortable, warm, and only looked over when Pepper tapped his arm. “You okay?” she asked softly, for his ears alone.

Steve was whistling an old-time tune, something that sounded like _Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy_ , but with his sore jaw, it was hard to tell.

“Yeah,” Tony said, smiling at Pepper. “Yeah, I’m fabulous.”

“You seemed a little. . . .” Pepper frowned thoughtfully. “Upset. Earlier.”

 _He’s the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B,_ Tony hummed along, glancing over at the soldier on the deck. He hadn’t dug up an old radio yet, but he had introduced Steve to the wonders of recorded music, and every so often Tony would catch him singing along to an old-time tune he didn’t know. _Bugle Boy_ was the most recognizable. It was no surprise that, punch-drunk, it was the song Steve could whistle faithfully. It was nice, comforting. Like things couldn’t be so bad if Captain America was singing. Whistling. Whatever.

“Yeah,” Tony agreed belatedly. Looking at Pepper, he promised, “Just a minor episode.”

“You gonna be okay here?” Pepper asked. She seemed far too sober, but she had let him finish off her drink, so that was her fault.

“I _invented_ being okay,” Tony promised. Clint laughed, a familiar hyena-cackle, and Tony grinned. “Hey, Cap, sing somethin’ else, wouldya?”

Steve ceased, quiet for a moment, and then, in a pleasantly deep baritone, he sang: “Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high. There’s a land that I heard of . . . once in’a lullabyyy.”

Tony stared. Clint wolf-whistled. Even Natasha was smiling a little as Steve sang.

Tony wanted to say something smart, something meaningful, but he sat in stupefied wonder as he listened to Steve Rogers. The man, the myth, the living legend.

“Pepper,” Tony said earnestly, as Steve drifted off into whistling again, a soft tune Tony didn’t know, eyes sliding shut contentedly. “Pepper, I have a problem.”

She looked at him with such earnestness, and he knew _she_ knew what he was going to say before he said it. 

He still said it. “I’m like . . . twelve percent in love with him.”

. o . 

The others were asleep, and Tony was, too. Except then he wasn’t, moving in the dark, padding stealthily across the villa. He bumped into walls, twice, but after much ado about nothing, he found Steve’s room, pushed the partially open door fully open. Steve always shut— _locked—_ the door when he didn’t want to talk, but even then, he’d let Tony come by. He sauntered inside, keeping his balance long enough to sit on the bed. Steve was sound asleep, his breathing loud enough to hear in the quiet room. “Hey, bud,” Tony murmured, reaching out to stroke his back between his shoulders. “You up?”

Steve didn’t respond, breathing deeply. Tony pressed harder, adding serenely, “I love this place. Knew I would, but I really do. Love it ’cause you’re here.” He flopped down next to Steve, back to back, not even touching. “I’m glad you’re okay. You scare me. Y’know? I just think you’re gonna run away.” 

He rolled over, facing Steve’s back. Steve didn’t budge. Tony threw an arm around his chest, hugging him. “’m not keeping you here,” he mumbled. “Just holding. You’re just warm. And soft. Remember that living statue thing?” He shuffled closer, until the arc reactor glowed against Steve’s back through their shirts. “Hey, c’mere, buddy. I miss you.” Imploringly, he tightened his grip around Steve’s torso, giving it a shake. “C’mon. I know you’re in there.”

With a sudden, heavy exhale, Steve stirred, turning in Tony’s grip. “Hey,” he sighed, voice sleep-deep, sleep-heavy. “S’goin’ on?”

“Shh.” Steve relaxed, and Tony shuffled up next to him, cheek on his shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s just me.”

“Tony. . . .”

“Sorry to wake you.” He wasn’t. Steve was so goddamn pretty, even sleep-mussed. Maybe especially: his eyes were so soft, none of the hard anger, the flaring pain. “I missed you.”

It had been maybe two hours, but he meant it. Steve seemed to understand, sliding an arm around his back and pulling him closer. “S’okay, ’m here.” He rubbed his cheek against the top of Tony’s head slowly, affectionately. “’m here, Tony.” The arc reactor pressed against his skin, but if it bothered him, it didn’t show. “’m always here.”

“Yeah.” Tony closed his eyes. “Yeah, you are, big guy.”

Tony thought he might have said something more, but if he did, it was lost to him, falling asleep against Steve’s shoulder, one arm wrapped around his chest.

. o . 

It was beautiful, peaceful, everything Tony hadn’t realized he’d needed in the wake of . . . everything. He couldn’t remember the last time he was this _happy_ , overjoyed to wake up and greet the day. He didn’t go in the water, but he sat at the beach a safe distance from the ocean and watched as Thor and Steve alternated between tackling each other and playing keep-away with a volleyball they’d dredged up from the storage room. 

Periodically, Thor would shout, “Go long, Steven!” and Steve would dive into the water like a fucking seal, emerging maybe forty feet away as Thor pitched the ball hard. He caught it, without fail, whooping and pitching it back before crashing under the waves. Tony wasn’t sure if it was fun, because Steve’s idea of fun was getting the shit beat out of him (well: brawling; he didn’t like to just be the punching bag), but he emerged and swam ashore and tossed the ball back and forth on the sand for a while with enjoyment plain in his expression. 

Once, Thor accidentally pitched the ball and hit him square in the face. Steve clutched at his jaw while Tony scrambled to his feet, but before either he or Thor could react, Steve straightened, waved them off, and reclaimed the volleyball, pitching it back.

Thor was apologetic, but when Steve warned, “Go long!” he leaped with Pavlovian enthusiasm into the water. Steve had an arm and Thor could swim, so Tony had to squint to see where ball and Norse god ended up, but Thor’s triumphant cry was still audible over the waves, and Steve whooped back just as joyfully, both fists in the air. “Way to go, Thor!” he roared.

Maybe three hundred feet down the way, Thor held the volleyball overhead triumphantly, roaring back faintly. Tony stared as Steve casually spit out a mouthful of blood and rushed forward the second Thor was waist-deep in water, tackling him.

Morons, he thought affectionately.

. o . 

“Hey, Tony, look what I found.”

Tony lowered his book, lying on his back and tilting his head to the right where Steve was standing, cradling a strange-looking white bird in his arms. “What is it?” he asked, like Tony knew, and Tony stared in mute disbelief at Captain goddamn America holding a bird about the size of a watermelon. It reminded Tony of an albatross, soft blue shadows around its eyes and its beak.

“Steve.” Tony couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “Put it back.”

“I think its wing is broken,” Steve said, cradling the bird like a goddamn child. “What do we do?”

“We _put it back_.”

Steve frowned. “What, you not a bird guy?” The bird pecked at his arm a few times, but he caught its beak in hand and insisted, “Go get Bruce.”

“I’m not getting Bruce. _Put the bird down_.”

Steve shook his head, saying more to himself than Tony, “Okay, I’ll get Bruce.”

He started walking towards the villa, now docile bird in hand, and Tony finally found the urgency to get up, hurrying after him. “Steve Rogers, _put the bird down_!”

Naturally, Bruce said in a normal voice, “Yeah, its wing is definitely broken. We can try an animal service, see if there’s a wildlife rescue unit in the area.”

Tony had given up trying to get Steve to drop the bird, instead standing a safe distance away and watching as, for the dozenth time, the bird started pecking at his arm. It was already red from previous pecking, and Steve winced as he shifted his grip to try and keep his arm out of pecking distance. It didn’t work, but he didn’t drop the bird.

Bruce got the wildlife rescue agency on the horn and a van at their place in less than two hours. They identified it as a red-footed booby and transferred it to a crate, at which point Steve shook hands with the agents and added, “I’m more of a hands-off guy, but when you see a bird in trouble—well, you can’t just leave it, y’know?”

Tony thought it was incredible that on a solo walk down the beach, Steve had happened upon a bird in distress, leaped into the fray, and walked back God knew how many miles, but he believed it. The proof, after all, was right in front of him. Steve smiled sheepishly, like he knew he’d been foolish to pick the bird up, as he thanked the agents for the help.

As they drove off, Steve said cheerfully, “That’s one mean bird.”

Tony groaned and shoved him into the pool, fully-clothed.

. o . 

The fresh air, the warm weather, the removal from everything resembling New York and S.H.I.E.L.D.—these things had a therapeutic effect, not only on Steve but Tony. Having the family around was nice, but Tony couldn’t say he was sad to see them go. He’d see them again, and for now he just . . . took a deep breath and savored it.

Steve and he fell into a domestic routine, making meals together, sketching (in Steve’s case) and working remote (Tony’s), sightseeing, and enjoying long lazy hours on the beach. Nix the near constant specter of possible death, it was a lot like home. Well, Tony allowed, it was a lot more comfortable here. The weather was perfect. It was easy to get lost in it.

He believed that the catastrophe was behind them, that Steve had found peace with the disaster that had brought them here.

. o . 

It was the middle of the night. Tony didn’t know why he awoke, but he was glad he did. The bed was empty, and he knew, instantly, that something was wrong. The answer was in front of him.

Steve sat on the floor next to the bed, eyes glassy, a thousand miles away. Tony got up, crouched beside him. Reaching out to cup his cheek—bruise-free, at last, but still tender—he asked, “You wanna come back to bed?”

“No.”

“It’s more comfortable than the floor. You don’t have to sleep.”

“Tony. . . .” Tony sank down beside him. Steve shook his head. “They’re dead.” Tony reached over, took his hand intertwined their fingers. Steve was shaking. His voice was distant, not there. “Why’m I here?”

“I brought you here.” Simple, firm, normal. Grounding.

“I shouldn’t be here.” Tony squeezed his hand. Steve breathed heavily. “I’m the reason they’re dead.” Stroking his knuckles, Tony could only listen as Steve continued slowly, “I can see them.”

“They’re not here, Steve.”

“I tried . . . I _tried_. . . .” He reached up with his free hand, clutching his throat. “I couldn’t save them.”

“Shh.”

“I _tried_.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

Steve shivered. “I couldn’t save them—”

“It’s okay.”

Steve pressed his hand to his mouth. “My comms, I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t—” 

Tony shuffled closer. Steve moaned in despair. “Took me too long. Thought my jaw was gonna fall off an’ I’d never talk again.” He gasped, and Tony slid his arm around Steve’s back, releasing his hand. Steve put his head in his hands, fisting his hair, shaking. “Fuck, Tony . . . I should’ve run. I should’ve run.”

“C’mere,” Tony urged, tugging on him. Steve sniffed but didn’t budge.

“He died in the _plane_ ,” he croaked miserable. “I held his hand.”

Tony shut his own eyes, unable to bear the image. 

“I was so slow, Tony, you gotta . . . you gotta believe me, I was tryin’.”

“I know. I know, buddy, you always do, always try.” Tony got his arms around Steve, hugging him. Steve was a wall, shaking, lost in his own thoughts, curled up as tightly as he could go.

“I carried him,” Steve whimpered. “I should’ve run, should’ve left the body. . . .” Another groan. “God, I should’ve left the body. Why didn’t I leave the body, Tony, what was I thinkin’?

“He’s dead because of me. I went in too soon, I. . . .” With a desperate gasp, he said, “Oh, God, Tony, they’re dead because of me.

“They’re dead because I _went in_ ,” he repeated, a tear dripping down his face. It was silver in the moonlight. “I shouldn’t have gone.” He sobbed, burying his face in his hands. “I killed them. I killed them.”

Tony swallowed hard, trying to drag Steve as close as he could. “No, no, you didn’t. You did everything you could, Steve, _no one_ could have done what you did, you—you brought them back. You brought them back. That means something.” He was shaking with the force of Steve’s trembles. He held on. _Hurricane in human form_. It seemed a distant thing. “I know it doesn’t feel like anything, but God dammit, Steve, you tried, and no one could’ve done better. It was impossible. Okay? There was no way to win. There was no way to win.”

Tony rested his cheek against the back of his bowed shoulder, suddenly crushingly tired. “Just breathe, buddy,” he entreated, wrapping his arms more loosely around Steve, breathing in deeply, exhaling slowly. “That’s what I want, okay? Breathe.” He pushed closer, trying gently but desperately to unfurl him. Steve was hyperventilating, and frustration got his arms underneath Steve’s, _dragging_ him closer. “Breathe. Don’t go there, just breathe.”

Tony held him to his own chest, and when Steve finally inhaled sharply, he felt relief shiver in his own bones. “There you go. Take it easy, big guy. I can’t lose you.” The words were soft, honest, more than he’d expected. He meant them completely. Kissing Steve’s temple firmly, he felt Steve’s chest rise and fall against his own. The arc reactor was digging into Steve’s side, but if he cared, it didn’t show. “Got you, Steve, I’m right here.”

Steve scrabbled weakly at his shirt, clutching it when he got a hold of it. Tony sighed, fond and heartbroken. “It’s okay. It’s okay now. Everything’s okay. You trust me, don’t you?” Another slow, steady breath. It was the best sound Tony had ever heard. He closed his eyes, relief washing over him. “Yeah, you do. I know you do.” He shifted, and all but fell to the floor. Steve slid down with him. He was heavy, but it was a reassuring heaviness. Secure. “Stay with me.

“Stay with me, Steve.”

. o . 

They took a walk in the dark.

Tony couldn’t see a damn thing, could barely make out the ocean from the shore, but Steve moved confidently, and Tony held onto his wrist. It felt ethereal, walking in the perfect darkness, the wash of the waves mixing with their footsteps, Steve’s movements in front of him muffled by the darkness. Tony followed him, trusting him to pick the right path. They walked a long way, the shore melting away, the villa long at their back, but Steve showed no fear, no hesitation. Tony tugged on his arm gently, halting him, and drew up beside him. He found with hesitating fingers Steve’s face, framed it.

Steve’s breath tickled his wrist. Tony couldn’t make out his expression, could barely tell he was _there_ , but he could feel him. He pulled Steve’s head down and pressed a kiss to his forehead. He felt Steve’s soft exhale, and he wanted to kiss him, wanted to, but he let Steve go, sliding his hand down his arm, intertwining their fingers. He wanted to _see_ Steve’s face, to know that he wanted it, too. He could feel it in the way Steve squeezed his hand gently, tugged him closer, nuzzled his way to the safe space between Tony’s neck and collarbone. Tony looked at the stars over his shoulder, stroking Steve’s back, and thought, _I got the best one_.

. o . 

“You good?”

Tony nodded, standing at the water’s edge. He had the special tape over the arc reactor, but it still unnerved him, even now. Steve was calf-deep but watching him, waiting for him. Tony took a step forward, water lapping over his feet. He approached Steve, and Steve walked backwards a few steps, knee-deep, thigh-deep. Tony followed him, and he was almost neck-deep before he even realized that the arc reactor was submerged, and he startled but Steve was right there, holding him. “I gotcha,” he promised. “You’re okay.”

Tony nodded, wrapping his arms around Steve’s neck, pressing against him for support. He’d never been in over his head in water without a border, but Steve eased backwards and Tony felt his feet slide away. Steve tread water like it was nothing, reassuringly powerful kicks, utterly unconcerned. “You good, chief?” he asked, one arm around Tony’s back, the other keeping them balanced.

Tony nodded again, face against his shoulder. They didn’t go much farther, barely over an edge, but there was something thrilling about it. Tony had the absent thought that this was what it was like to fly as a passenger with the Iron Man suit. It should have been terrifying, but there was no wobble, no breathlessness, no tremor or hint of unease. He felt safer than he ever had on his own two feet on land, because nothing bad could happen to him with Captain America.

Steve drifted along, moving down the shore before returning an indeterminate time later to shallower water. He didn’t seem weary at all. Tony felt sorry to feel his own feet graze the shallow seafloor, but he put his weight on them. He didn’t let go of Steve, who walked him backward until they were neck-deep, shoulder-deep, chest-deep.

“How was that, Tony?” he asked in a throaty murmur.

Tony kissed his bare shoulder just to feel him shiver. “Perfect.”

. o . 

They found a delicious routine, sleeping in late—it turned out you _could_ breed the soldier out of the soldier, if you had the right incentives, and dozing in bed with Tony seemed to be enough for Steve to forsake his arbitrarily early run—and eating brunch. Steve would then take his run and Tony would get some work done, and after they’d explore the villa, hang out in the pool, sunbathe and eat lunch and head out in the rental car to sightsee. Tony loved their beach walks, even though he would have to stop Steve after what to him must have seemed a short time to turn around. Steve didn’t complain, tucking an arm low around Tony’s hips as they walked back.

When it rained, they’d sit on the deck and listen to it come down, occasionally stepping into the downpour just to feel it on their skin. Shirts were optional, and Tony knew he would hate returning to civilization if for no other reason than being denied 24/7 access to a shirtless Steve Rogers. Tony grew more lackadaisical by the day, eating dessert before dinner with boyish smiles, going for midnight swims—ostensibly clothed downstairs, mostly because Tony was irrationally terrified of losing precious property in the dark to un-see menaces—and lounging on the beach for hours at a time. 

After a particularly long stretch, Steve limped back into the villa with his back a spectacular shade of red. Tony dug out the Aloe Vera and covered his back. The heat radiating from his back was staggering, but Steve laid placidly on the couch while Tony covered him in lotion. 

He left him to marinate, conjuring up a light snack for himself while Steve dozed and healed, almost before Tony’s eyes. He himself was far less fortunate when he burned his arms, moving gingerly to get the shirt off his back, closing his eyes as Steve got Aloe on him with barely-there fingers. The burns on him didn’t heal for days, but at least Steve applied fresh coats of Aloe and it was bearable.

They had gone full bush in the facial hair department, and Tony caught himself grabbing Steve’s face just to marvel at the thickening stubble. Self-consciously, Steve shaved it off, but Tony assured him that he could rock the beard, and Steve smiled like all he wanted was to earn Tony’s approval. It was pretty damn flattering, having Captain America so eager to please you. 

He teased him, then, about other improbable outcomes, piercings and tattoos, dyed hair, the like. Steve was too wholesome to jump on them, but it was fun to speculate, and Tony caught himself imagining the swoop of golden hair with a streak of blue, ink on that delightfully exposed collarbone. He didn’t know if Steve _could_ have a tattoo, but it was a fun thought experiment.

There was a borderline laughable amount of square footage for them to occupy, more bedrooms than they could need. It didn’t matter, anyway: they gravitated towards each other every night, making no pretenses, huddling together against the world. Something sharp and broken inside Tony seemed to be healing over, and even Steve seemed more at ease, carrying himself with a nonchalance that made Tony see how much tension he held back home. Once, he’d wondered why Steve was always in uniform. Seeing him sleeping on his belly, arms crossed under his head, naked but for a pair of blue briefs, revealed to Tony it wasn’t discomfort with his own skin. It was armor. His suit of armor.

Here, he could be vulnerable. Love ached in Tony’s chest.

. o . 

Nothing lasted forever, no matter how good.

In the final week, Tony surprised himself with his leisurely attitude— _we can come back—_ while Steve seemed increasingly agitated. He kept pacing, waking in the middle of the night for no other reason than he couldn’t sleep. He abandoned the outback appearance and went back to prim and proper, which Tony found a disappointment. He also started waking up obscenely early and slipping out of Tony’s grip without waking him for his morning runs, even if they’d been out the night before until four in the morning. He reminded Tony in every way of a caged animal, pent-up frustration and a certain vanishing desperation for freedom. He knew that it couldn’t last but couldn’t accept it.

They were in the ocean, and it was getting late but not dark yet, and Tony was holding Steve—Steve was holding him up, but Steve had his head against Tony’s shoulder, hiding there—and he spoke reassuringly. “’S the matter, big guy?” he preluded, rubbing circles against Steve’s shoulders under the water. “Huh? What’s got you down, tiger? We’re okay. This, right here . . . this is us, got it?” Steve sighed against his shoulder, an unhappy sound, treading water more out of reflex than conscious thought. “I’m serious. This doesn’t evaporate the second we leave. It’s still gonna be us, okay? I know it’s gonna be sad, but we’ll be okay. I’ll help you.” He pressed a kiss to Steve’s cheek, insisting, “It’ll be okay.”

Steve guided them back towards the shallows, but he didn’t push Tony to walk all the way back to shore. They stood elbow deep in the water, Steve’s face still tucked against his neck and shoulder. Tony thought he could feel dampness that had nothing to do with the water there, and he crooned, sliding a hand into Steve’s hair, scratching lightly. “Aw, sweetheart. Don’t let it hurt you. It’ll be okay. We’ll get home and we’ll make it okay. Whatever we need. Anything we want. And, hey, if we need to, we’ll go somewhere else. The Tower’s a place. Not a prison.”

Steve didn’t make a sound, didn’t tremor, but Tony could feel the heat, unmistakable now. He wasn’t a crier, and Tony knew he was in silent agony to be crying now. Tony squeezed him tightly, affection and sympathy welling up inside him. “Shh, hey, stay with me. You trust me, right?” A tiny nod. Tony squeezed the back of Steve’s neck. “Good. Because you should. I brought you here, remember?” Another little nod. He hadn’t meant for it to be anything more than rhetorical, but his heart ached with love. “It’s gonna be okay. I know it sucks. I’m sad, too. But we’regonna be okay. You and me, we’re gonna be just fine.”

Tony tugged him back towards shore, and Steve went, lifting his head, looking right at him. His face was red, and he looked at Tony like Tony was going to _die_ , and Tony cupped his face in his hands and crooned, “Hey, no, I’m not going anywhere, buddy. We’re a team. You and me.” He brushed Steve’s cheekbones even though the tears were gone, soothing the hurt. “Just trust me. Don’t think about it. Thinking about it makes it hurt.” 

Steve closed his eyes, nodding once. “We’ve still got today,” he reminded. “Let’s enjoy it.” Steve looked at him, soft eyes, trusting eyes. He shook Steve’s head back and forth, gentle, slow, just a few times, just to show him how much he _loved_ him. “Big lovable guy. Anyone would love you, you know. I’m pretty sure everyone does.” Steve looked at him like he couldn’t quite believe Tony was saying these things.

In a way, Tony couldn’t either, but that didn’t stop him from talking. _One more night_. The sun was setting, and he wanted his words to matter. “I’m not talking about Captain America, either. I’m talking about _you_.” Steve closed his eyes, and Tony slid his hands down, clasping them behind his neck. “You are so goddamn lovable. I can’t stand it sometimes. How sweet you are. How much you _care_. You would die in a _fire_ for the chance to save someone you’d never met. You’re—you’re the kind of good people want to believe exists. You’re something real. Something special.

“That’s not gonna go away when this does. And neither are we. You and me. We’re invincible.”

Tony expected Steve to nod, to look understanding, to murmur agreement, but Steve didn’t do any of those things.

He looked at Tony like he’d hung the stars and kissed him like he meant to prove it.

Tony melted, sliding his hands into Steve’s hair, holding him, eyes shut, world completely quiet. He kissed back, bringing only softness and assurance, _yes, yes, yes_ , trailing away from his lips to kiss his cheek, his temple, his closed eyelid, affection, joy, all of it mingling into one emotion. He kissed Steve on the mouth firmly, unhesitatingly, not a drop of doubt in his consciousness. Steve made a soft, relieved sound as he kissed back. And Tony’s mind stayed pleasantly quiet.

There was no panic, no fear, no uncertainty.

It was simply, absolutely right, and Tony savored every second of it.


	6. HOME AWAY FROM HOME

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy goddamn birthday, America. <3

Tony couldn’t get enough of him.

“Fuck,” Tony laughed, half-dragging, half-leading Steve out of the water. “God, c’mere.” He grasped at Steve’s shoulders, leaning up to kiss him, firmly enough to make him grunt in surprise. Steve slung his arms around Tony’s waist, holding him in place and humming in wordless satisfaction. “Yeah, me too,” Tony told his cheek, sighing against him. Steve shivered. “I should’ve been kissing you more. A lot more.”

Steve found his voice, surprisingly soft. “’m not goin’ anywhere, Tony.” Steve walked them out of the water, the sand warm under their toes despite the darkening sky. “You can kiss me all you wan—”

Tony cut him off with a kiss. Tony didn’t know what had gotten into him—other than the general high of having _one last day_ on vacation _and_ the overpowering joy of loving Steve Rogers—but he had already decided that surprising Steve was one of the best feelings in the world. “Shut up,” he said fondly.

Steve smiled, starry-eyed. “Okay, Tony.”

Tony ruffled his hair and leaned up to kiss his cheek. “God, you’re sweet.”

Steve flushed, ears, neck, and upper chest. It was pretty. Tony put a hand boldly on Steve’s bare chest, but he didn’t move it anywhere, holding it over the spot where the arc reactor glow reflected. Steve placed his own hand on top of Tony’s. “You okay?” Steve asked softly.

Steve was disappearing in the darkness. Not literally, but it was getting harder to see those bright baby blues, and Tony leaned up, kissing him so fervently he drove him back a few steps without fully meaning to. Steve looked at him in shock, but his expression was melting into amusement, delight. “Here I thought you didn’t like to fight,” he said affectionately.

Tony made an irked sound, longing for a tie, something around his neck to yank his head down so he didn’t have to do all the fucking _work_ around here, goddammit, but he settled for leaning up and kissing Steve silent. Kissing wasn’t passive in Tony’s experience, and even though Steve was plainly and rather cheerfully caught off-guard by it, he was proving himself more than worthy.

 _I’ve been spending too much time with Thor_.

Tony didn’t want to think about Thor now, letting Steve go and looking him in the eyes in the fading light. He was becoming more of an outline than a distinct person, an assemblage of shadows in the dark, but Tony could still see his pupils were blown. Tony knew from a scientific standpoint that it was mostly due to the fading light, but he gave himself some of the credit. _Twelve percent of the credit._

He snickered at himself, feeling giddy, and Steve looked at him curiously, but Tony didn’t explain, leaning up and putting his arms around Steve’s neck, dragging him down. He pulled hard, leaning earthward, and Steve picked up on the message, albeit carefully, clumsily. For the dancer-fighter that Steve was, it was charming to see him fumbling to fall gracefully, Tony’s laughter muffled but irresistible.

The sand was grainy, nowhere near as soft as the bed or even the hardwood floors—sand was great for making castles and burying people, less in the soothing-to-lie-down-on department—but Tony didn’t give a fuck as he laid back, pulling Steve close to kiss him. This was better, he decided immediately, much better. He was proud of himself for thinking of something so creative and original. Horizontal kissing. You could make a business out of it. He snickered in spite of himself, which made kissing Steve impossible.

“Mm?” Steve pulled back and looked at him, cocking his head to one side. “Tony?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Tony lied smoothly, using the grip around his shoulders to pull him back down. “C’mere. I owe you kisses.”

“Don’t owe me anything, Tony.” But Steve leaned down in acquiescence, a sigh escaping him as they kissed. “Mmm.” He kept his weight off Tony, trying not to crush him, but that was also stupid, because Tony didn’t invent horizontal kissing for Steve to _not_ get down on his level. He slid his grip from Steve’s shoulders to his waist, trying to use physics to communicate what he wanted without being forced to break the kiss. Steve didn’t budge, at least not meaningfully; he scooted closer but kept his weight off Tony completely.

Tony let go, letting his arms fall to his sides, and Steve paused, curiosity clear in the smooth lines of his body. Soft, relaxed, at ease. “Tony?” he murmured, grazing his lips along Tony’s cheek, his throat. “Y’okay?” He nosed along the column of his throat, kissing the underside of his jaw. “I break you?” he teased.

Tony growled, but he didn’t make a counter-move, so maybe he had overdosed on kissing Steve Rogers. What a way to _go_. He hoped he could reincarnate and do it all over again. Another snicker, and it was definitely the endorphins talking but he didn’t care, tipping his head to the side at Steve’s gentle, wordless suggestion and moaning when Steve kissed under his ear.

“I’m gonna literally die if you keep doing that.”

“Doin’ what?” Steve asked, very lightly sinking his teeth into Tony’s skin, not even a bite, just an _impression_.

It still made him groan pathetically. “Listen to me. Listen to me, you beautiful buffoon. You lovable bastard. You do not get that knowledge on the _first date_.”

A pause. “S’this a date?” Steve asked, amused, thankfully moving towards his mouth instead of his dangerously sensitive ear. Tony exhaled in relief. “Mm.” Tony didn’t say anything, listening to the waves and Steve’s breathing against his skin as he kissed along Tony’s skin. He moved slowly, not quite tentative in his exploration but far from earned experience. He startled like a colt when Tony settled his hands on his hips again.

“Jumpy,” Tony mused, dozing in la-la land. “Need to unwind.”

“I’m pretty unwound,” Steve said lazily, kissing his brow. “We should go inside.”

“Why?” Tony hadn’t meant to whine, but getting up was the worst idea Steve had ever had, and Steve had had a lot of them. “There is nothing the inside has that the outside does not have.”

Steve let out an amused sigh, then leaned down more, resting his weight on Tony, just a touch, enough to push him more into the sand, and oh. Okay. Yeah. He was pretty sure he made some affirmative sound aloud, but his brain checked out completely when Steve resumed kissing under his ear. Fuck.

Finally, desperate for breath—not in the literal, _I’m going to suffocate_ way, although Tony was reasonably sure he’d stopped breathing somewhere along the way, gasping frantically—he pushed Steve away, hard enough to get the message. “Jackass.”

Steve hummed sweetly. “Language.” He kissed Tony quiet, which was unfair of him, because that was _Tony’s_ tactic, but he couldn’t complain too loudly or Steve would stop kissing him, and that was worse.

He’d read once that love hormones and drunk hormones were virtually indistinguishable, but he was too love-drunk to remember exactly where the line was between them. All he knew was that they both made people irrational and sappy, and if he wasn’t already deep in both territories, he might have been embarrassed at his behavior. As it was, he embraced it. “I have said the fuck word a dozen times in your presence, but _jackass_ is what tips you over?”

Steve nosed at his collarbone. “Mm-hm.”

Tony sighed, buried his hands in Steve’s hair, and said, “You’re such a goddamn nerd, Rogers.”

“’m hurt. You don’t use my last name anymore.”

Tony couldn’t make out Steve’s expression well, but Tony leaned up to kiss the corner of his mouth. “You rarely give me reason to use your last name anymore.”

Steve made an unreadable sound before sliding his hands down along Tony’s sides, making him shiver. Rather than sensuously continuing, however, Steve sat back, pulling Tony up with him. Tony thought about pushing _him_ into the sand, had decided this was in fact the best outcome, but Steve was faster, up on his feet and tugging Tony effortlessly after him.

Steve moved deliberately towards the villa, leading Tony with a hand, which was good because Tony could barely see him, let alone any obstacles. They reached the patio and Steve beat him to the gate, holding it open. Tony considered being defiant and pushing Steve through first, but that would mean more time wasted _not_ kissing, and that was stupid. And Tony Stark was _not_ stupid.

Steve dusted him off, painless and very efficient. Military. Military guy, through and through. “My guy,” he told Steve who, in the full light of the dimly lit pool deck, flushed. “That’s you.”

Steve brushed himself off, but he wasn’t nearly as sandy as Tony had been, so it took him even less time. In no time at all, they were inside, and the brightly-lit villa had Tony squinting before Steve thwacked the light switch off. The room was instantly, reassuringly dark, still lit by the outdoor lights and a few nightlights here and there, strategically placed for nighttime escapades.

Tony didn’t want to go to their room, their room was _final_ , they might fall asleep and _miss_ this in their room, so he caught Steve’s wrist and hauled him into the living room instead. The hardwood floors didn’t beckon him, but there was a couch, and that was more than good enough. He gave Steve a little shove, making an exasperated noise in his throat when Steve stood uncomprehending for a beat. “Sit. Lay down.”

Smoothly, Steve obeyed, looking up at him with amusement. “Now I know why you like me calling you _boss_.”

“I like you calling me anything,” Tony retorted, which sounded at least twice as witty in his head as it did out loud. He didn’t print retractions, instead clambering onto the couch, Steve helpfully canting one leg off to the side to give him room. That was . . . _cozy_ , to say the least, and Tony flushed, lying on top of him and feeling his heart _pounding_. “I really like when you call me by name.”

“Tony.” Just like that, soft, sweet, and Tony was melting again, leaning up, kissing Steve like he was never going to get a night like this again. He moved slowly, luxuriously, and Steve wrapped an arm around his back, tugging, trying to get him to lie flat.

“Mm, easy, tiger, ’m right here,” Tony teased, keeping his own chest above Steve’s with an effort. It wasn’t easy, and Steve’s arm was _heavy_ , but he didn’t want the little metal reactor shining its blue light onto Steve’s chest to imprint a similar tattoo. He hadn’t had time to think about this particular quandary since he’d been unceremoniously _given_ the reactor. Steve lying on top of him would solve nothing. A pillow might work, but that would make kissing him harder, and the whole arrangement somewhat awkward.

A frustrated sound escaped him, but Steve urged him downward. “It’s okay,” he assured. “Trust me?”

Tentatively, Tony lowered himself, chest-to-chest. The arc reactor pressed against his own skin, not quite painfully but very _present_ , but he was more concerned about the metal digging into Steve’s skin. He needn’t have worried: it wasn’t sinking in very much at all, and Steve seemed to sense his question because he cupped Tony’s cheek, drew him in for a kiss, and gently bit his lower lip with the same amount of pressure.

That, or he’d wanted to bite Tony’s lower lip, which Tony decided was an equally valid reason. Tony moaned with shameless, reckless, beautiful enjoyment, and for a moment he understood Steve’s earlier devastation because _God_ , they could never do this again, not at home. They’d have to run away again. _Then we’ll run away again_ , Tony resolved, blinking slowly when Steve released him. “What’re you thinkin’ about?” Steve murmured, interrupting him, a hand running up and down his back idly. “I’m not the sharpest stick in the pile, but I know that look.”

“It’s _tool in the shed_ ,” Tony corrected. “And I’m thinking about you. What’re you thinking about?”

“You.”

He said it with such honesty that it kind of knocked Tony’s socks off. “Oh.” He rested his weight more fully on top of Steve, not holding himself up at all anymore, and Steve breathed evenly, accommodating him with easy movements until Tony was as flat as he could be, pressed against as much bare skin as possible. It was addictive, and he thought, _I’m the luckiest guy in the world_ because _he_ was lying on top of Steve Rogers. Nobody else.

Maybe it should have surprised him that Steve was hard—and not in the _muscles for days_ way, although he absolutely had those—but Tony wasn’t surprised, and he couldn’t help his own scientific curiosity, shifting against him. Steve’s hands found his hips in an instant, holding on, stilling him, and Tony froze. “Sorry.”

“S’okay.” Steve breathed in and out slowly for a few moments, silent. Still hard. Tony wasn’t anywhere as fired up and he still wanted to ravish Steve; his evaluation of Steve’s self-control shot through the roof. Like he was calming himself, Steve stroked Tony’s hipbones. “Just—don’t. Move.”

“Okay.” A beat. “Do you want me to go—?”

“No.”

Tony sighed, pillowing his cheek on Steve’s shoulder. “Okay,” he repeated. Calmingly, he added, “I’m here.”

Steve exhaled and kissed the top of his head. His hips shifted, and Tony wanted to say so much but couldn’t make himself say anything. It was too much. Besides, Steve was clearly making a herculean effort to simultaneously keep the mood _and_ find his inner place of calm, so it was the least Tony could do _not_ to goad him. “I’m here,” he said again. Repetition helped. Steve exhaled deeply. His fingers flexed against Tony’s hips, holding them, grounding himself.

They were silent for so long that Tony dozed, barely aware of Steve’s hands grazing comfortingly up and down his bare back. They still were in their swimming trunks, which left little to the imagination, but Tony knew things were okay, because Steve was touching him and kissing his hair. Tony turned his head, shuffled the distance to get to Steve’s mouth properly, and kissed him deeply enough that Steve pushed him away, flushed. “You’re making this really hard,” Steve grunted.

“. . . Is that a pun?”

Steve scowled. He shifted uncomfortably, and Tony felt bad, but he was also, admittedly, a curious bastard by nature. “So, can you just—is it like—?”

Steve sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Not talkin’ about it, Tony.”

“Okay.” A longer pause. “But is it on command?”

A low, feral growl in Steve’s throat made Tony shiver. “Not. Talking.”

“Okay.”

Tony was saying that a lot lately, _okay_ , but he wasn’t sure it was okay. He was absolutely not going to push Steve twelve steps farther than he wanted to go— _it’s like two steps, if that,_ his unhelpful inner wingman pointed out; he stuffed it inside the closet alongside “repressed feelings for Steve Rogers,” because they both needed to sit in a corner while he enjoyed not-repressing his feelings for Steve Rogers _and_ totally respecting his boundaries—but he couldn’t deny that the possibilities were tempting. He wouldn’t mind, actually, helping Steve figure this all out, and he didn’t know when he’d gone from _don’t even look at him_ to _I wonder what his O face looks like_.

 _Stop. Talking_.

“I could talk about bagpipes,” Tony offered suddenly, constructively. “Those aren’t even a little sexy.”

Steve grunted.

“The history of trampolines? The evolution of bananas?” A beat. “Maybe not bananas.”

Steve covered Tony’s mouth with a hand. Tony pouted and made an affronted noise behind it. Tony moved to sit up more, unintentionally dragging his lower half against Steve’s belly, and Steve _moaned_. Tony froze, heart beating very fast. Steve released him, using his newly freed hand to grasp his own hair. “Fuck.” Tony had heard him swear maybe five times in his entire life, and none of those other occasions were even remotely as hot as this one.

 _Not hot. Don’t be a dick_. 

He really needed a better internal monologue coach.

“If you want,” Tony said, striving for delicacy even though his mouth was dry and he was starting to get an inkling, a quite strong inkling, of what Steve was going through, “I can go. There’s a whole lotta ocean out there. And a pool. I could take a dip in the pool. Just say the word.”

Steve exhaled. “No,” he said.

Tony felt more relieved than disappointed—he was absolutely never going to be disappointed watching a hot-and-flustered Steve Rogers try desperately to keep it in his pants—but he still felt a touch like he was causing more harm than good. Which compelled him to stay, “I could leave, you know, this place is fuckin’ huge, I’m sure I could entertain myself.”

Steve covered his eyes with a hand. Tony started to sit up again, carefully, and Steve let him go this time. Standing, staring unabashedly for several long seconds, Tony flushed when Steve lowered his hand and caught him staring. “I’ll, um, I’ll be over, elsewhere, doing other things.” He winced, because really, Tony, _really_ , can’t hold it together for two goddamn seconds. To be fair, Steve was flushed and sweating— _sweating_ , goddamn—and looking at him with the kind of dazed look that said Tony had caused it. Which he had. He was quite proud of that, actually—

Tony slammed the door shut on that voice and almost did the same for the literal door he found between himself and Steve. He didn’t know what to do, frozen in place, tingling all over. What was there _to_ do? He could climb out the window, that was always an option, make a brilliant escape. That was actually a really good idea, and he might have done it if it weren’t for the muffled moan he heard, freezing him rather effectively in place.

He tried to block it out—of his memory; the room was utterly silent—but it wasn’t easy. Fuck. Damn. He wished more than anything that he was in the other room, but he was a respectful person, and so he busied himself stripping and remaking the bed. He did it compulsively, twice, tidying up the remainder of the room, really, they’d made a mess of it, getting comfortable, leaving shit everywhere—

He jumped when Steve set a hand on his hip, pulling back like he’d been burned when Tony whirled around. Steve blinked, looking owlish and sheepish and Tony needed better adjectives because Captain goddamn America was none of those things, both of those things, wide-eyed but shy, like he was trying to process something. 

Normally, Tony would think it was the mental equivalent of having too many tabs open, but right then he decided it was more likely to do with the opposite problem. Steve seemed a little buzzed, a little concerned, inching towards Tony after a moment. “Tony?” Tony didn’t know when, but he’d changed into fresh clothes while Tony was busy compulsively cleaning.

Blinking at him, realizing all at once that _Steve’s back_ , Tony nearly threw himself at the man, who grunted and caught him, tucked his chin over Tony’s shoulder and rumbled. Honest-to-God rumbled, a hum so deep it seemed to shiver in Tony’s chest. “I’m—sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

Steve buried his face further in Tony’s neck. Tony could feel how hot his face was, shame heating it. “I have to grow a beard. Assume a new name. Move to a different country.”

Tony sighed, reaching up to bury a hand in his hair. It was still sweat-damp, and he had to shove any feelings about that aside real quick. Thankfully, he managed it. “Somehow, I feel like I’ve heard that speech before,” he said, his voice reassuringly normal. “Just, randomly. On the street.”

Steve didn’t move, keeping their hips apart but pressing his chest against Tony’s, his face against his skin. Tony’s expression softened, hand scritching at Steve’s neck. “Y’okay, bud?” he asked, because somehow amid all of the _holy fuck this is happening_ thoughts, he’d forgotten to ask, which probably made him some kind of jackass.

Steve grunted. “I don’t speak Neanderthal,” Tony supplied helpfully.

Leaning back with a sigh, Steve scrubbed at his face with both hands. “I might actually throw up, but otherwise I’m fine.”

Tony stroked his arm near the elbow reassuringly. “I mean, if you have to throw up, you have to throw up,” he said philosophically.

Steve snorted. He didn’t move his hands, now covering most of his face. “I can’t look at you. I don’t know if I can even look at another human being again.”

“If it makes you feel any better—”

“I’m sure it won’t—”

“I’m flattered.”

“I was right.”

Tony reached up, tugging at his hands, but Steve was iron. He moaned in despair, and Tony felt a twist in his stomach even though the cadence was wrong. He was misery personified, and nothing about this, Tony told himself sternly, was remotely sexual. 

“Honestly, I don’t care,” Tony said, and it was mostly truthful. Mostly, because he wasn’t appalled or disturbed or disgusted or whatever negative emotion was kicking around in Steve’s head. Really. The only catch was that he _did_ care, very much in fact, on a completely unrelated, totally irrelevant—

“I don’t,” Tony insisted, talking over the voice in his head. “What, you want me to feed you to the sharks?” He tapped Steve’s hand, and he finally dropped both of them. He looked even worse than before, face splotchy with embarrassment. Tony sighed and cupped his cheek, stroking his thumb over it. Steve looked at him like a kicked puppy. “What’d I tell you about pouting?” Tony said, casually hooking his thumb in Steve’s down-turned mouth, giving it a gentle upward push, a mock-smile. “Stop it.”

Steve frowned harder, if anything, and Tony couldn’t stand it. Cupping his face in both hands, he kissed Steve, keeping it soft, sweet. Nothing pushy or teasing or over-the-top, just a kiss, a nice, sweet, innocent kiss. Steve tensed for a moment, like he was bracing himself, but Tony held him gently, kissed him softly, and he melted. “Yeah,” Tony murmured, breath ghosting over Steve’s lips. “S’gettin’ late, big guy. We should go to bed.”

Steve’s gaze flickered to him, but the initial apprehension and some of the wretched misery was gone. He nodded. Tony didn’t let him go for a moment, yearning with every fiber of his being to make him _happy_.

Tony was surprised at how _tired_ he was by the time he’d forced himself to go through the motions of shirking his still-dripping swimming trunks— _not_ for any nefarious reasons, he was swift to berate his internal dialogue coach—and putting on a shirt and shorts, something comfy to sleep in. He felt better with the arc reactor covered, anyway, and it seemed safer with Steve, who had opted for the same degree of decorum.

It was getting late, good and proper now. Tony yawned as he finished getting ready for bed. Steve waited near the dressers looking like he was waiting for Tony to tell him he was about to be ejected into the sun. It was his _am I in trouble?_ look that Tony couldn’t believe he could actually put a name to. Tony considered his approach for a moment before climbing into the newly made bed (newly- _newly_ made bed, twice-made, because he was efficient and totally-not-killing-time). Steve hesitated. With iron in his voice, Tony told him, “Come.”

Steve was fuzzy enough he didn’t even flush, sliding in next to Tony with ease and speed. He was like a sea otter, Tony mused, watching him disappear under the covers, his arms around Tony’s middle, face pressed against his belly. “Hey,” Tony said, tapping the tuft of hair sticking out from the covers pointedly. Steve didn’t twitch. “Come back here, I wanna talk to you.” Steve ignored him, clinging tighter when Tony lifted the blanket. “Steve.” Ignoring him extravagantly, Steve almost flailed off the bed when Tony dug his fingers into his armpit, tickling him. Now on the very edge of the bed, Steve looked at Tony like he’d betrayed him, frowning.

“I don’t wanna talk,” Steve grunted. “Talking is bad.”

“I’m on your side, bud.” Steve looked at him with untrusting eyes, like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. “I’m serious. I don’t care. I don’t.” Tony shrugged. _I do care. I care a lot, actually, and—_ “Don’t be sad. Okay? I don’t like it when you’re sad, and I _really_ don’t like it when you’re sad because of me.”

Tentatively, Steve shuffled closer. He didn’t curl around Tony again, but he rested on his side in arm’s reach. His eyelids kept sinking down, and Tony knew it would be unfair to drag this out, even if he was reasonably confident Steve would stay up all night if Tony demanded it. Steve gave everything he didn’t have, every last shred of himself, and expected none of it back.

Tony exhaled, reaching out and wrapping an arm around Steve’s waist. “We are adults,” Tony said in the most rational, bolstering tone he possessed. Steve watched him, mesmerized. “We can have adult conversations.” Steve nodded agreeably, albeit a touch warily. “I’m proud of you.” Steve closed his eyes, then, like he couldn’t bear to hear it, but Tony insisted, “I am. It’s good to say what you need, even if— _especially_ if—that thing is space. Okay?”

Steve didn’t look at him. Tony slid closer to him and nudged his nose with his own. “Hey.” Steve blinked, went a little cross-eyed when he saw how close Tony was. Tony kissed him and he shut his eyes, muscles loose under Tony’s hand. “We’re invincible,” Tony reminded him. “You and me, we make it through.”

“Invincible,” Steve agreed, more of a parroted mumble than conscious agreement. Steve scooted closer, no hesitation, and tucked himself under Tony’s chin, wrapping an arm around his back and curling one leg over both of Tony’s. He was still hard—not as obviously, but enough that Tony couldn’t quite miss it—but he was breathing slowly, steadily against Tony’s collarbone. 

Tony scratched patterns against his back through the thin fabric of his t-shirt, so many questions he didn’t dare ask. He supposed maybe everything moved fast in Steve’s life, whether it was war or peace, and savoring these slow, sweet moments was the thing that kept him sane.

Closing his eyes, Tony rubbed his back for a long time, only reluctantly succumbing to his own dreams.

. o . 

Steve was asleep when Tony awoke. 

Tony rolled over automatically to swat for his phone alarm and check the time, neither of which mattered in Oahu—their sense of time had been skewed—but. . . . He sighed unhappily. Today was departure day. They’d foregone the more reasonable proposition of packing the night before, and they needed to be out by noon. It was almost ten. Sitting up, stretching and yawning loudly, Tony asked automatically, “J.A.R.V.I.S.?” But there was no response. Just Steve’s even breathing.

Tony looked down at Steve, hating that he had to break the peace, but they couldn’t linger much longer. “Hey, Steve,” he murmured, reaching out, scratching the top of Steve’s head. His hair was soft, gold, fuzzy. “Rise and shine, tiger.” When that didn’t work, he trailed his hand down to Steve’s shoulders, applying a bit more pressure. “C’mon, Cap, we gotta go.” A flicker of movement, but Steve didn’t open his eyes. “Cap,” Tony repeated, and it was the magic word. Bleary blue eyes met his. He smiled reassuringly. “Hi. Up and at ’em.”

Steve exhaled deeply, seemed fit to fall back asleep, and admitted in an unhappy voice, “I don’t wanna go.”

Tony scratched his head again, light, rhythmic, and Steve closed his eyes. “I know. Don’t worry. We’ll be back in my bed tonight. It’s even better.” It was—objectively, it was nicer, no matter how well-appointed the villa was—but . . . well. It didn’t come with a beachfront view. It also had the darkness of New York City enshrouding it. Tony had nothing against NYC itself—he’d _built_ Stark Tower there for a reason—but ever since the Chitauri attack and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s increasingly obvious involvement in their lives. . . .

Yeah, five thousand miles away and completely untouchable was appealing. But it couldn’t last forever.

Steve seemed to come to the same conclusion at the same time, vaulting out of bed and stretching his arms so his shirt rode up around his belly. Tony lingered, enjoying the view, before Steve shuffled away to get ready.

Despite the slow start, Steve was his usual Energizer Bunny self in no time. He packed his things, tided up, made breakfast, and even helped Tony chase down the personal artifacts that had managed to end up seemingly everywhere and anywhere.

They made one last stop at the beach after breakfast, and Tony stared sadly out at the water while Steve lingered next to him, sliding an arm around his waist comfortingly. When Tony didn’t respond, Steve pulled him closer, pressed a kiss to his temple, and Tony was struck by how much had changed in so little time—and how much hadn’t.

Then they left, and they returned to the cold, dark world beyond Hawaii’s idyllic shores.

. o . 

Bed was an immensely comforting proposition after the flight.

Even in the well-appointed Stark Industries jet, it was a long flight, and Tony felt thick and a bit fuzzy by the time they landed. He wanted a drink and a backrub, not necessarily in that order, but most of all he wanted to lie down and keep the dream alive a little longer. 

They’d landed close to midnight Hawaii time, which was _six_ in the goddamn morning in New York. Steve had slept on the plane, good soldier that he was, and Tony was reasonably sure he could sleep on a box of poisonous spiders if asked without complaint. Probably liked spiders, the nut.

Still, with Steve lively and the team enthusiastically assailing them at the door, eager to help with bags—they had two apiece, all four of which Steve had insisted on carrying—it was hard to keep his mind from drifting to full wakefulness, the blazing morning light tricking it into thinking _daytime, daytime. Up, up, up!_

It was unfair and unkind and generally stupid of New York to exist in a different temporal plane from Hawaii, Tony thought, mutely accepting the cup of coffee Bruce handed him. He slugged it down, but it did little more than throw the fuzziness into sharper contrast, like a badly-edited photograph. 

He wasn’t more awake; he was just more aware of how tired he was. Two more cups finally tricked the body if not the soul that being alive was not, in fact, the worst, but being conscious wasn’t going to be winning any awards in Tony’s book.

Steve was a tour de force of grace under pressure, or maybe he could thrive on four hours of airplane sleep. (He’d had the kindness to keep Tony company for most of the flight, but he’d admitted he wanted to catch some shuteye and Tony had waved him off, hating how heavy his heart was again.) One way or another, Steve steered the party into the kitchen, whipped up some omelets like he’d flown back to New York for the sole purpose of making them, and answered questions from the peanut gallery about his time on the shore.

He framed it in the wholesome American family light that Tony knew was part of his DNA, metaphorically if not literally. Steve and he had taken the time to sightsee, and Tony was grateful for it if for no other reason than it gave Steve a lot of conversational fodder. Steve glanced over their time at the villa, carefully omitting his time with Tony in anything more than an “Is that right, Tony?” light. Tony was surprised at the lack of _tell me more, tell me more_ details. Clint shot him suspicious looks whenever Steve’s back was turned, and Tony had the distinct impression Natasha had figured out the ghost as soon as they stepped through the door, but they didn’t bring it up with Steve.

Leaning against the counter, listening to Steve talk, Tony started to understand why. It was like the sun had come out in Steve’s life for the first time in a long time, and he was effortlessly engaging, grabbing Clint’s head and knuckling it affectionately, passing Bruce a second helping of omelets without being asked, smiling at Natasha. Thor was off-world again—presumably, anyway; Tony couldn’t actually guarantee he wasn’t somewhere remote on Earth—but the rest of the family was here, and they were soaking up Steve’s sunshine.

 _Shore leave_ , Tony mused, wondering when the Army realized it needed to give its soldiers a taste of real sunshine and relaxation at least once in a miserable while to keep them sane. Tony looked up it later, the different accommodations for soldiers to gather with their families and enjoy themselves. He almost berated himself for not thinking of it sooner—Steve Rogers wouldn’t have taken a day off if he could help it, not without reason—but he was more grateful that he’d finally gotten Steve off the home front than disappointed it had taken so long.

Steve seemed _happy_ , and Tony made himself scarce so he wouldn’t make puppy eyes at him, sitting on the couch in his Iron Man suit and talking to J.A.R.V.I.S. 

“Welcome home, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. said warmly. “Did you have a good trip?” Tony hadn’t realized until that moment just how long it had been since he’d put on the suit—weeks; the longest period since he’d first built it—and reeled at the realization. Iron Man was his life, first and foremost, but it had felt almost normal, leaving the suit behind. Just for a bit.

“Always do, buddy,” Tony replied, kicking up his feet. “Wanna fill me in on what I missed?”

“Of course, sir.”

. o . 

Tony realized, too late, that Steve had drifted away from the Tower. 

The others had dispersed earlier to attend their own day-to-day lives, but Tony had been dozing in the suit on the couch when he discovered, with a start, that he was alone. He sat up creakily, groaning as J.A.R.V.I.S. asked solicitously, “Are you all right, sir?”

“I’m fine.” Looking around, he bit out a curse. “Goddammit, Steve.”

Tony knew where to go. S.H.I.E.L.D. was predictably bustling. Landing in his suit, Tony ignored the people in the main atrium, stepping out of the suit and carrying its compressed form like a backpack across his shoulders. Nobody looked twice at him, even though he knew they were definitely _aware_ he was there. Iron Man was still a big deal just about anywhere you went these days, but they were a hardened black-ops organization. You didn’t fawn over superheroes that you worked alongside.

He stepped into the conference room without even knocking.

Captain America was seated at the head of the table, talking to Commander Hill and two other agents Tony didn’t recognize. He paused mid-sentence and fixed Tony with an unreadable expression. He didn’t straighten his shoulders because he was already straight-backed, at attention, a soldier in every line of his body. “Tony,” he greeted neutrally. Then, looking down at the folder, he flicked it across the table. It rested in front of Tony, but Tony stood back from it, like it would burn him if he touched it.

Commander Hill picked up on his hesitation and stood. The other agents followed wordlessly. “You know where to reach me,” she told Steve, who nodded once. He was the picture of strength, dignity, and stalwart belief in a storm. Tony saw, with something like fury, that the other agents looked relaxed, shaking Cap’s hand before departing. Tony stepped aside to let them, then moved around the table, ignoring the folder. Steve watched him, leaning back in his chair. His shield was on his back.

Tony stopped right in front of him. Steve tilted his head, but his expression was still schooled into complete neutrality. It wasn’t bored or hostile; just attentive, passive. 

Tony suddenly knew why Steve liked to fight: the pony routine, being nothing more than a dull placid animal touted around for a few hours before being shut in, had to get under his skin, make him itch for an outlet. It made sense that Steve craved it, the feeling of being turned loose. He ran like a racehorse, went as far as he could before nearly dropping dead, and got right back up to do it again as soon as he possibly could.

That was what S.H.I.E.L.D. loved about him: he was a good soldier.

Tony cupped his face and stared down at him. Steve blinked once, utterly unreadable. No easy smiles or laughter here; this was work, the thing he loved and that tore him into pieces. Tony had once seen it as a mask, a shield hiding the truth, but the reality was somehow more painful. Steve wasn’t here, in this place: this was Captain America, the force of nature, the one people would lay down their lives for, the hero without a drop of steel in his bones but iron in his veins. Tony unconsciously brushed a hand through Steve’s hair.

“I’m sure it doesn’t make sense to you.” Steve’s voice was calm, not accusatory. He turned his head away, and Tony released him. “But I need you to understand.” Looking back at Tony, he said, “This is mine. My life. My choices.”

_Is it?_

Tony sat in the chair next to him where Commander Hill had been. Steve seemed to relax a fraction, but he tensed right back up as Tony said, “I’m literally begging you.”

Steve closed his eyes. His jaw tensed. Tony reached for, found, and held his hand. It was cold. He squeezed it, but Steve didn’t squeeze back. “This will not bring them back,” he said, and Steve looked at him. There was no anger, but the grief in Steve’s eyes was a punch in the stomach. Steve pulled his hand away. Tony felt sick, but he held Steve’s gaze, said as firmly as he could, “We’re not _Avengers_ , Steve. We can’t save everyone, and we can’t bring them back, either.”

“I can’t not try.” He spoke deliberately, firmly. A speech he had for every occasion.

Tony wondered if he’d said it to Fury, all those nights ago, begging to be sent in: _I can’t not try_.

“I’m not sitting back and letting you run suicide missions until you atone for your guilt.” Tony hadn’t meant the words to sound so harsh, but he couldn’t soften the edges, couldn’t make it any gentler. He needed Steve to _hear_ him, and if the fires stoking in his eyes were any indication, Steve was listening, intently. “You’re _done_ , Steve, you got that? You’re fucking done.”

“You don’t own me.”

Tony narrowed his eyes. “No, I don’t,” he agreed. “Neither does S.H.I.E.L.D. I know this feels like your choice, Steve, but this is enabling, this is handing a desperate man a gun and expecting him to keep the muzzle pointed in the right direction.” Steve’s fingers flexed on the table. Digging in. Anger flashed in Steve’s eyes, real anger. “I know you’re the best goddamn soldier the world’s ever seen, but I also know that even the best people can be eaten alive by their own demons.” Steve’s expression flattened, mellowed out, revealing nothing again. He looked bored, like he’d given up on persuading Tony and was weathering a storm. It was a lie, and Tony reached for his hand again. Steve retracted it, keeping out of reach. “Maybe no one here sees it, Steve, but I do. This desperation, it’s gonna kill you. Period.”

Steve worked his jaw, like he would talk, and Tony forced himself to pause. To listen. It would have been easy, to keep going, to get _angry_ and draw it out of Steve by force. That was how he’d worked in the past, but he wasn’t going to hurt Steve to get him to react. It wasn’t good enough anymore. _It was never good enough_. Slowly, Steve said, “I wouldn’t shoot myself.”

Hearing him say the words aloud made it painfully real, and Tony couldn’t breathe, imagining it. Fuck. “I’m not gonna. . . .” Steve trailed off, rubbed his hands against the table, searching for something. Stranded. His eyes glazed, losing focus, and Tony reached for him, resting a hand on his forearm. He couldn’t feel the warmth of Steve’s skin through the fabric, but he could feel the tremble. “I wouldn’t do that.”

Tony scooted closer, resting more of his weight on Steve’s arm. “I know you think you have to do this alone.” Steve didn’t look at him. Tony slid close enough his knee bumped into Steve’s thigh. Steve was shaking so finely it would have been impossible to see, three feet away. Tony was glad he wasn’t that far. “I know, sweetheart.” Steve’s shoulders lowered a bit. “But—listen to me.” Steve looked at him, giving him what he wanted. “You don’t have to do this alone. You’ve got people, Steve. Maybe you didn’t want us, but you’ve got us, and none of us are gonna sit here and watch you drown. Okay? You’re not alone anymore. You never were.”

Tony shifted as close as he could get, wrapping his arms around Steve tightly, hugging him from the side. Steve lifted his hand to stroke Tony’s arm, wrapped around his chest. “I have people,” Tony reminded. “All of us do. We _need_ people. This stuff—it’s too heavy to carry alone.” Steve squeezed his arm and Tony could _feel_ his shuddering breath, silent as it was. He had a sudden visceral image of Steve dragging a body through the wilderness, a dying man strung across his shoulders, and held Steve tightly, trying to keep him away from that. _Don’t look. Don’t look, buddy. It’s over now. It’s over_.

“And, you know, there are people, who can help. With the fallout.” Steve stroked his arm slowly, sweeping circles with his thumb, his air of indifference gone. He still didn’t speak, but Tony could feel how close he was to shattering. Tony held on, tightly. “Who can help you. No one should have to deal with this alone, and I am _here_ for you, I’m not gonna let you fall, but maybe someone to talk to, outside the family, would be good for you. An alternative. When you wanna run away but don’t wanna pick up a gun.” 

He pressed his cheek against Steve’s shoulder, and there was a thin layer of armor between him and skin, but it was still Steve underneath. “I’ve been seeing someone, you know, for a while now. He’s . . . he’s helped me. It’s not crazy, it’s just like sitting down for a cup of coffee, minus the coffee. You’re not gonna get a scratch on your record because you tell someone you’re bleeding out. And I wanna hold you together, Steve, I wanna take away the pain, but . . . I don’t know enough. This isn’t my area. I only know you, and I wanna help you. I wanna help you so badly.”

Steve inhaled deeply, his hand pausing on Tony’s arm. “I won’t force you,” Tony assured, “and it changes nothing between us if you don’t go.” Steve relaxed, stroking Tony’s arm again. Tony hadn’t realized how much he’d needed the hug until he paid attention. 

“It’s your choice, bud. I’ll still help you. But this . . . _this_ is not gonna help you. Maybe it makes it more bearable, but you shouldn’t have to leap back into the fray the second your feet hit the ground. The world’ll keep spinning. It did fine when you weren’t here to fight every battle for her.” Tony inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly. Steve, perhaps unconsciously, mirrored him. “Let’s go home. Okay? Let’s just go home. We’ll process it later. I just wanna hold you.”

. o . 

J.A.R.V.I.S. kept the room comfortably cool, and the nearly soundproof walls muffled the city. The door was locked; everything felt safe. Tony was so tired his teeth ached, but he didn’t want to fall asleep. He gripped Steve’s arms, his shoulders, his hips, trying to find an anchor point. Trying to simultaneously convey _I’m here_ and _don’t go_. 

After a few minutes of anxious attempts, he felt Steve drag him until Tony was lying on top of him, covering him. They were still clothed, more layers between them, but Steve wasn’t wearing his armor and neither was Tony, and he could hear Steve’s heartbeat under his ear. He became aware of the reactor pressing against Steve’s chest, but it was less of a problem than Tony had assumed it would be.

He’d been too out of it to notice the very first time he’d laid with Steve like this, feverish and tired and thoroughly miserable, but it wasn’t bad: it was a gentle pressure, hard edges but not painful. Tony thought, delirious with sleep, that it probably complimented the ubiquitous shield-on-his-back feeling Steve lived with on a daily basis, discomforts you came to think of as okay, because they were reminders that all was well. And the arc reactor was Tony’s heart, as much as the living, beating one in his chest, so maybe it reassured Steve, too.

Tony didn’t know, didn’t ask him, listening as he breathed deeply, arms tucked around Tony’s waist. He rested his cheek against Steve’s shoulder and exhaled warm across his collarbone, making him shiver. Steve tucked his thumbs under Tony’s shirt, stroking bare skin above his hips, but Tony could hear the unspoken tease: _I’m not feelin’ you up, I just wanna feel you_.

Tony didn’t say anything, tempting as it was to tease, to hear Steve talk against him. He didn’t want to break the spell, so he let his own eyelids slide shut, grateful to be somewhere softer and warmer than reality. Steve’s embrace felt like the safest place in the world.

. o .

Tony awoke at half past one in the morning, panicking—the warm surface underneath him wasn’t right, wasn’t breathing—before he heard Steve inhale deeply nearby. He was hugging a pillow, and Tony couldn’t say when that had happened, but Tony reached for it, pulling on it. Steve’s grip was strong, but Tony shuffled closer, nudged Steve’s calf with his foot, _it’s me, sweetheart_ , and after a long moment he felt Steve’s grip loosen. He relinquished the pillow, blinking at Tony fuzzily.

Tony slid into his embrace, kissing him under the chin. Steve sighed against him, settling his arm heavily around Tony’s back. Holding him. “Mm. ’m here,” he mumbled reassuringly.

“I know.” Tony squeezed his hip. “Go back to sleep.”

“I’m here, Tony.”

“Yeah, you are, tough guy.” Tony rubbed his side, feeling his muscles ripple, like a shiver. “It’s okay. I won’t go anywhere.”

“’m up.”

“Shh.”

Steve kissed the top of his head. “I don’t wanna go,” he admitted softly.

“I’ll be here,” Tony promised, kissing his neck, a gentle press, a silent affirmation. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Steve nodded, exhaled again, out like a light. Tony held him for a long time, no longer tired but languid, enjoying the closeness, the warmth, the simple joy of being near him, uninterrupted.

Maybe the world could share Captain America—he certainly had a heart big enough to go around—but only _Tony_ got this. Steve Rogers.

And he vowed to keep the world from taking that from him.


	7. THE DOOR IS STILL LOCKED

It wasn’t like they _didn’t_ know.

They had to at least suspect that something had changed between Steve and Tony. Well. Thor probably had no idea, but he also spent enough time with Steve that Tony would have been surprised if he hadn’t picked up on _any_ change in his vibe. It wasn’t like Steve was a liar capable of outwitting two master assassins, one perceptive nerd, and a Norse _god_.

But Tony had underestimated how stubborn he was, how utterly unflappable he could be. He didn’t want anything to change with the family, so nothing did. To their credit, they respected his stance for about forty-eight hours.

And then it started.

“You know, I’m happy for you.” Tony slanted Bruce a look, tablet in hand, sitting in a comfy chair that amounted to a high-tech bean bag. Breezily, Bruce explained, “Really. You just. . . . Well, you seem happy now.” Tony didn’t say anything, forcing him to confront his own speculation, and Bruce reached up to rub the back of his neck. “So . . . how long?”

Calmly, Tony said, “I have literally no idea what you’re talking about.”

Bruce snorted. “Really? You’re gonna play it cool?”

Tony shrugged and then, to establish his dominance in the ribbing department, he said flatly: “The rumors are true. I’m fucking Thor.”

Bruce choked. Tony almost laughed, but he kept it together, looking down at his tablet instead. “Any other questions?”

Stunningly, Bruce was speechless for the rest of the night.

Natasha wasn’t as easily deterred, taking a seat across from him at breakfast. “So. You and Rogers.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Et tu, Natalia?”

She glowered at him. “Don’t call me that.”

“Then don’t speculate.”

“I’m way past speculation.” She looked him over, then mused, “So, do you spoon him, or—?”

Tony stuffed a piece of French toast moodily into his mouth, not deigning that with a reply.

At lunch, Clint came home, made himself a sandwich, and told Tony casually, “I called it.”

“I picked up a bag of fire ants this morning,” Tony lied smoothly, reading on his tablet, taking a bite of his own sandwich. “You wanna know whose bed they’re gonna be in tonight?”

Wisely, Clint declined to comment.

In a rather spectacularly bad mood—he wasn’t supposed to be on the receiving end of the ribbing; he was supposed to be mercilessly teasing his friends about _their_ love lives—he was relieved when Steve showed up around dinner, just for the solidarity. Steve, though, looked tired, and there was soot all over the uniform, too, smudged on his face. “You climb up a chimney?” Tony asked, earning himself a glare. Somehow, he had the feeling he hadn’t been the only one ribbed today, and that almost made him feel better, except Steve ignored him, refusing the wisest course of action: alliance. 

_Dumb guy_.

He was still, emphatically, _Tony’s_ dumb guy, which was why Tony glared as Clint solicitously came up to Steve and took some of his weight, an arm around his waist. Steve would’ve shrugged him off forcefully three months ago—hell, he never would’ve let Clint close enough to touch him, because he let _no one_ near enough to touch him—but he just stood, leaning into it. Tony fumed. Clint meant nothing of it, he was sure, but it still made Tony want to get in a fight. Thankfully, Steve squeezed Clint’s shoulders and slipped out of his hold. He moved with obvious discomfort, even though his gait was relatively smooth.

_What’d you do, tough guy?_

Tony would’ve lofted the question from his seat on the couch, but with Clint, Natasha, _and_ Bruce all in earshot, he didn’t dare. So he sat apparently engrossed in the evening news until he felt the couch near him dip. Steve couldn’t have sat farther away if he tried and he chewed his own sandwich silently, watching the news with unreadable detachment. 

Tony finally got tired of the _let’s ignore each other_ routine and strategically nudged Steve’s calf with a foot. Steve ignored him. He pressed harder. _Stop ignoring me_. Steve ignored him. Tony thought about kicking him, not hard, mind you, just enough to show he was prepared to duke this out if need be, but Steve was already up, somehow hooking his foot around Tony’s in the same fluid motion and yanking him hard enough Tony fell off the couch.

Without looking back, Steve sauntered off.

Clint had the decency to wait until the door slid shut behind him before cackling. Tony scowled at him and pulled himself onto the couch, fuming. Fine. _Fine_.

He knew exactly where the fire ants he had yet to procure were going.

Stalking out of the room—he couldn’t stand Clint’s smugness, Natasha’s knowing look, Bruce’s tentative amusement—Tony made it two steps towards the elevator before being yanked forcefully aside.

Yelping in surprise, he was silenced by a hand over his mouth.

He lashed out, driving an elbow into his adversary, because he was being _kidnapped_ , how the _fuck_ , and then Steve whispered, “Hey, calm down. It’s just me.”

“Why are you _kidnapping_ me?” Tony snapped.

Steve sighed emphatically. “I’m not kidnappin’ you.” Releasing Tony demonstratively, he added, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“We gotta work on your surprises.”

Steve ruffled his own hair in frustration. Tony, taking advantage of his momentary distraction, latched onto him, all lemur limbs. “Okay, now that I’ve captured you, _what_ in the _actual—_ ” He paused, very pointedly, because now that he was pressed all against Steve, he could feel everything. Through the _suit_. He grinned wolfishly. “Well fuck-damn.” Steve covered Tony’s mouth with his hand again, then released him with a muted growl when Tony licked his palm.

“Don’t lick my hand.”

“Don’t cover my _mouth_ ,” Tony retorted shortly, keeping his voice down. “I get it, you’re a prude—”

“I’m not a _prude—_ ”

“Who doesn’t like my goddamn language.”

Steve growled, and then, still ostensibly in Tony’s grip, _Tony_ had captured him, he wanted the record to show that, he backed Tony against the wall and kissed him firmly. Tony was more than happy to participate, but he was also a curious bastard, so he slid a leg, ever so slightly, between Steve’s. Steve didn’t even notice, or he’d decided not to care, a delicious sound pressed against Tony’s throat. But then Tony got cocky, rubbing once, and Steve was off him in an instant.

Tony pouted, mouth running before he could stop it. “Is it the danger, or the adrenaline? Or are you secretly into voyeurism?” Once, he had silenced the little voice that had such delightfully _unhelpful_ advice. He let it free now, watching Steve’s face flush scarlet. “Thought of bein’ caught gets you going? Or am I just that irresistible?”

Steve looked like he was going to cover Tony’s mouth again, just to get him to stop talking, before sighing deeply, frustrated. “You’re incorrigible.”

“That’s my line.”

Steve glared at him, then looked back at the door, the elevator. The suit did a reasonable job of hiding his problem, Tony thought in scientific amusement, letting his gaze slide pointedly downward. Steve glared daggers. Tony deepened his pout. Rolling his eyes, Steve turned and stalked off. Tony followed quickly, not wanting to be left behind. Besides, the elevator was a _much_ better idea, he thought, hitting the full stop the second the doors were shut. “ _Tony_ ,” Steve growled.

“Hm?” he asked, sliding his hands into Steve’s belt, holding him. “You pulled me off the couch. This is your fault.”

Steve huffed. “Right. This is _my_ fault.”

“It is,” Tony said, steel suddenly in his voice. “They already know, you know.”

A flush of anger dusted Steve’s soot-covered face. “I know,” he said moodily. “I. . . .” He sighed, then, and slipped a hand strategically around Tony, removing the full stop and pressing their floor. _Their_ floor. “I don’t wanna know,” he finished. _Dumb guy,_ Tony thought, more affectionate than exasperated. “You know? I get some things to myself.”

Tony blinked, tilting his head, surprised. “What d’you—?” The elevator was faster than he was, pinging lightly as it reached the floor. Despite his hold on Steve’s belt, Steve was out the door before Tony could tighten his grip. He quickly reclaimed it, tackling Steve against the wall. He snickered to himself, but Steve growled, pushing him off. He wished, just once, Steve wasn’t stronger than the average bull, because Steve shrugged him off like he wasn’t there. He expected Steve to bolt, but Steve hooked a hand in his shirt and dragged him to his own room down the hall. The door slid shut behind them and Steve hit the lock button.

Tony grinned lasciviously. “I really like you when you’re turned on.”

Steve narrowed his eyes, like he wasn’t quite sure how to counter _that_ , before crowding Tony against the door, careful not to touch him, but very present. Tony smiled sweetly at him, tucking a hand in his belt, tugging lightly. “Don’t worry, I, too, find you _devastatingly_ handsome, I just don’t have your metabolism. Or youthfulness. Is it the serum, or—?”

Steve pressed against him. It was surprisingly effective: Tony shut up. Steve was heavy, and the suit was thick and warm and pressed against every inch of Tony. He wasn’t even hard and he was almost drooling with it. Steve was the virtuous symbol of America, because he held himself still against Tony. Like he couldn’t decide. Tony tugged his belt closer, helpfully. He was a helpful guy like that. Steve actually let him. Very slowly, he framed one of Tony’s legs. He rocked deliciously against Tony’s thigh, and Tony’s brain checked out completely, but he had three fully operational internal life coaches for precisely situations like this.

“Mm, yeah, just like that, big guy.” He sighed against Steve’s mouth. Steve shivered. “Go on, c’mon, I want it, I want _you_.” He bit Steve’s lower lip gently, and Steve moaned. He didn’t change his pace at all, grinding almost painfully slowly against Tony’s. It was dizzying. _Amazing_. “My sweet guy. You’re so goddamn hot.” He wished, not for the first time, that he didn’t have the goddamn arc reactor, because he was more than action ready, but biology had other plans. At least, unlike him if you even _breathed_ on Steve hotly, he’d get hard, and Tony couldn’t help but test his theory, trailing away from his mouth, kissing along his throat, open-mouthed, panting. It wasn’t all for show, either, but Steve pressed against him a lot more firmly, almost painfully. He picked up the pace, groaning softly in response.

“Yeah, you’re mine, you hear me? _Mine_.” He bit Steve on the throat, not hard. Steve shivered, slid his hands into Tony’s hair, messing it up in one stroke, but Tony didn’t care. He could barely breathe, he was so turned on, hardly able to believe _this_ was his goddamn life, holy _shit_.

Steve let him go and Tony stared, bleary-eyed with wonder, at Steve’s bowed head, his arm above Tony’s shoulder, trembling. Tony held onto his belt as Steve rutted against him, feeling his hot breath against his own throat as Steve pressed his face into Tony’s shoulder. Steve groaned, pressing hard enough against Tony’s leg that he couldn’t move if he’d wanted to, and then shivered, a full body thing that left Tony shivering in response, slumping forward.

He grunted against Tony’s throat, a satisfied sound, and Tony exhaled sharply, reaching up to fist his now sweaty hair. Steve let him, languorous, _heavy_. He was still holding himself up, but his weight pinned Tony very firmly to the wall. He shivered, and Tony raked his hands up and down the back of the suit, once, but it wasn’t as satisfying, because there was too much cloth between him and the skin underneath. He cupped Steve’s face, pulled him back to look at him. “Fuck,” he breathed, because Steve’s eyes were half-lidded and hazy and watching him with pure adoration. “You’re gonna be the end of me, you know that?” Steve made an agreeing sound, leaning into him, and Tony let him, feeling his weight. 

With a noisy inhale, Steve leaned back, blinking at him slowly. Steve glanced him over once, then flushed. Tony cupped his face, rubbing the soot away, feeling the heat underneath. “Hey,” he said, voice soft but serious. “Don’t you dare.” Steve frowned at him in confusion. “That? Was fucking awesome.” Steve looked away. Tony gently turned his head back, insisting, “I’m serious.”

Steve exhaled deeply. His voice was lower, scratchier. “I—I didn’t plan that.”

Tony couldn’t help it—he laughed, leaning forward to press a kiss to Steve’s pouting lips. “I don’t need a formal invitation,” he assured, kissing his temple. Steve closed his eyes. “No RSVP required.” Steve groaned, slanted an exasperated look at him. “I live for surprises.”

Steve made an annoyed sound, but he wasn’t up for an argument. “Lemme go,” he mumbled, rather stupidly. After all, _he_ was leaning on Tony. Still, Tony let his hands fall to his side. Steve slumped into him, and Tony grunted.

“Heavy.”

“Mm.”

“You gonna get up, soldier?”

Steve hummed, stepping back, tripping over his own feet. Tony caught him by the belt, smiling. “Yeah, ’m up,” Steve said. Then, with shameless ease, Steve reached for the zip on the jacket of his suit. Tony grabbed it, and Steve lowered his hands, letting him unzip it. He got it off Steve’s shoulders, wincing at the sight of bruises along his rib cage, a diagonal line that ran from his left hip to his right shoulder. “Should see the other guy,” Steve mumbled, catching Tony’s gaze with a wry smile. Tony rested a hand gently on the bruises, drawing another soft sound, this one pained, and let him go. “S’broken. It’ll heal.”

Tony cupped his face again, waiting until sleepy eyes focused on him. “You are a danger to yourself,” he said, but he kept his voice kind. “Do you want anything?”

“You.”

Tony rolled his eyes fondly, leaning up to kiss him. “Okay, tiger.” Then, reaching for the belt again, he paused when Steve rested his hands over Tony’s, stopping him. “That’s gonna be uncomfy,” he pointed out.

Steve exhaled. “Ask me if I care,” he murmured, crowding Tony against the wall again, this time bare-chested. Without the suit, Steve whimpered at the pressure on all that black and blue, and Tony pushed him back, laying his hands on unbruised skin, keeping him at bay. “I don’t care.”

“ _I_ care,” Tony supplied. He guided Steve back to the bed, nudging him until he sat down. He looked up at Tony, hair wild, eyes soft, and slid his arms around Tony’s waist. “Only you could consider broken ribs a _minor_ problem,” he muttered.

Steve smiled lazily up at him. “You mad?”

Tony huffed. “You’re actually twelve.”

“I hope not.”

Pushing on his shoulder, Tony ordered, “Lay down.”

“Mm-hm.” Steve was a study in contrasts, soot-covered face, dark pants, bare chest with the line of bruises. Tony had the impression he’d either fallen on a beam or been trapped under one. Idly, he wondered what the other guy looked like, before deciding he didn’t care. This was _his_ guy. Steve moved gingerly, reaching for his boots.

Tony snorted to himself, crouching in front of him and pushing his hands away. “Lemme.”

“Okay.”

Tony took his time, even though he knew he could yank them off in less than six seconds, if need be. Steve idly rested his hands in Tony’s hair, petting it. Tony slowed down, lingering, but it still didn’t last. Besides, laying down? Best idea he’d ever had. He exhaled a breath, somehow riled up and exhausted. Steve mumbled, “Tony?”

“Mmhm?”

A beat. “I’m sorry.”

Tony sighed, scooting up, kneeling over Steve, who looked up at him in quiet wonder. “If you apologize one more time, I’m going to stuff fire ants in your pants.”

Steve blinked. “No, you won’t,” he decided, running his hands up and down Tony’s sides once, sliding his hands under Tony’s shirt. Tony shivered. Steve smiled. “You’re beautiful.”

Tony huffed, reached up with a thumb to brush Steve’s cheekbone. “You’re sooty.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, nodding against the pillow. “Fire.”

Tony stared. “I can’t leave you alone.”

“Small fire.”

“What fell on you?”

Steve murmured, “Small beam.”

“You went into a burning building.”

“Small . . . burning building.” Steve trailed off, opened his mouth to say, _I’m sorry_ , but Tony covered his mouth with a hand.

“I’m gonna be mad at you when it’s actually fair.”

“S’fair,” Steve mumbled.

Tony settled on his side next to him, wrapping an arm around his chest, careful to not touch the bruising. As much as he could; it wasn’t easy. Steve stroked his arm against the grain, breathing calmly. “You mad, Tony?”

“Why would I be mad?”

“Small fire.”

Tony sighed, flicked Steve’s skin gently. “Go to sleep.”

“Really small.”

Tony lifted his hand, covered Steve’s eyes. “Good night.”

“G’night, Tony.”

. o . 

Tony didn’t know when he fell asleep.

He did know that when he opened his eyes Steve smelled like his shampoo, freshly showered and curled around a pillow. Tony wondered if he always slept like that, hugging something. 

It was silly, though, because Tony was right there, incredibly huggable. He scooted closer, prepared to take the pillow from him before getting inspired. Carefully—and it wasn’t easy, Steve was a big guy—he climbed over him, melted into the sheet behind him, wrapping an arm around his belly, spooning him. Steve breathed steadily against him, big and warm and forever comforting.

Tony closed his eyes and fell asleep, cheek pillowed against the back of his bare shoulder.

. o . 

Tony awoke, alone, in Steve’s bed.

He yawned and stretched broadly. He could still see the place where Steve had been, and he sighed, reaching up to rub his face. The clock nearby said it was just after 5 AM.

 _Morning people_ , he thought, closing his eyes, trying to enjoy himself. Steve’s bed wasn’t better than Tony’s—if anything, it was probably worse, because Tony always got the best things—but it was Steve’s bed, and there was something quite enamoring about that. Tony wanted to mess it up, make it _his_ , as much as its missing occupant. Which finally got his neurons interested enough to drag him out of bed.

Steve was standing on the balcony. He wasn’t in uniform, just normal down-day wear. Tony hoped it would be a down-day for him. Steve was allergic to not working, but occasionally he suffered through inactivity for the sake of taking care of himself. He had a cup of coffee in hand and was looking out at the city, suffused in predawn light. Tony yawned as he stepped up beside him, taking and gulping down his coffee. He passed the empty mug back to Steve, who grunted in amusement and set it on the ground. “Sleep well?” Steve asked, neutral-positive.

Tony exhaled. “I had a really good dream.”

Steve was quiet for a moment. “I don’t think it was a dream.”

Tony rested his cheek against Steve’s shoulder. “Me neither.” Exhaling happily, he added, “When’d you get up?”

“Three.”

“Why so early?”

Steve sighed. “I dunno. I just wanted to be up.”

“You could’ve stayed.”

A beat. “Yeah.”

“You okay?”

A longer pause. “I mean, I don’t regret it. I think.”

Tony slid an arm around his waist, holding on. “I’m kinda pushy.”

“You didn’t push me.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.” He tilted his head, kissed the top of Tony’s. “It was really nice.”

“Really nice,” Tony parroted, amused. Steve nodded, completely sincere. “You’re something else.”

“Good somethin’?”

Tony squeezed him. “Best somethin’.”

. o . 

Tony still felt warm and fuzzy midmorning, rebuffing Natasha and Clint, who, unlike poor, sweet Bruce, refused to take a hint. Steve lounged on the couch, absorbed in the book he was reading, looking for all the world like he was unaware of his team’s rampant speculations. He was blinking sleepily, not really reading, and Tony thought he would doze off—as he so rarely did anymore, and not for the first time he wished they had the Tower to themselves again, even if nine nights out of ten he _did_ like the family—but he stayed up. Even after they were gone, he didn’t shut his eyes, staring at the tablet.

Tony finally came over, took the tablet from him, and kissed the top of his head. “Dumb guy,” he said affectionately. “You know this is your own home, right? You don’t have to be Captain America here. I’m not gonna call you Captain America.” He kept his voice light enough that Steve wouldn’t interpret it as anger. “If they’re causing too much trouble, I’d be happy to kick them out. I’m serious.”

Steve looked at him, dumbfounded. “They live here,” he said. “We can’t kick ’em out.”

“It’s still my Tower,” Tony said with a nonchalant shrug.

Steve’s expression was unreadable. “They’re fine.”

“You—”

“I’m sure.” A pause. “You ever want your own place again, Tony?”

Tony’s heart skipped a beat. “Um.”

Steve looked at him, smiling. “No, yeah, I get it. This is home.” Nodding, he added, “It wasn’t really empty before me.”

 _It was_. But Tony nodded. “Still, you ever just. . . .” Steve slid down, lying on his back, looking up at Tony with fondness and sadness. “You ever want your own place?”

Tony cocked his head. “You wanna move out?” It hurt to say, because he didn’t want Steve to move out, but Steve’s expression was oddly flat.

“I dunno. I. . . .” He covered his face with a hand. “I’m tired. I can’t focus here, not with. . . .” He paused, looking at Tony.

“Focusing isn’t usually a mandatory part of sleeping,” Tony said lamely. He didn’t know how to define the hurt in his chest, but he felt—dammit, he _felt_ hurt. He’d given Steve a home, and Steve didn’t want it anymore. Where did that leave Tony? “No, yeah, you’re free to come and go. I get it.”

“It’s not you.”

 _It’s me_. 

“Mm-hm.”

“Tony. . . .”

“I get it,” he repeated firmly. “Scram.” He hadn’t meant for it to sound so harsh, but he was frustrated. “You got what you wanted.”

Steve stared at him, and the look on his face made Tony want to take it back immediately, but it was too late.

“I didn’t—I didn’t mean that.”

Steve shifted, trying to sit up without making his discomfort obvious. “Yeah, no, yeah. I know you didn’t.” He sat up and flashed an award-winning smile. Comforting. Warm, friendly. _Wrong_. “I know what you meant. I get it.”

“Steve—”

“I get it,” he assured, honey-smooth. “Don’t worry.”

Tony worried. “Please don’t leave.”

Steve stood. “I just want some air,” he said lightly. “I’ll be back.”

“I don’t want you to go.”

“I’ll be back.”

He wasn’t.

. o . 

Steve vanished.

He didn’t come to the Tower. He was nowhere to be found in the city. (Tony didn’t scan his usual running route in the suit. That would be stupid, and childish, and sad, and he was none of those things.) He wasn’t even at S.H.I.E.L.D., or at least no one saw fit to answer him honestly. Fury, when Tony confronted him in exasperation, just said that he was fine. Nothing more, nothing less.

Fury probably thought he was fine. Steve kept his heart on his sleeve, but with the shield up, you’d never see it. He was an earnest liar, because he believed his own bullshit. _I’m fine_.

Tony wanted to throttle him, but first he had to _find_ him.

Days passed. He cornered Natasha, cornered Clint, but they were both cagey. In furious anger, Tony told them both to scram. Bruce, poor, sweet Bruce, got caught in the crossfire. Thor, thank everything, was off-world, or Tony would have kicked him out too, and he wasn’t sure he could stand up to the human equivalent of a Golden Retriever.

Then the Tower was empty, at least in the living quarters, and Tony relaxed into it, into being _alone_ with J.A.R.V.I.S. He drank a shot of pure poison—the good stuff, too, and it still knocked his socks off that Everclear was over 90% alcohol—to clear his head, firm his resolve, and declared, “Just you and me, J.A.R.V.I.S. That’s all we ever needed.”

“I am always here for you, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied.

“Yeah. You are. You’re the only one that matters. You and Rhodey and Pepper. Should’ve invited _them_.”

“Would you like me to—?”

“No.” Tony huffed a laugh. “We rule this roost.”

“We do indeed, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir. Call me Tony.”

“. . . Yes, Tony.”

It was strange, and he retracted it. “I changed my mind.”

“I understand, sir.”

Nodding to himself—it sounded far too human, his name, in J.A.R.V.I.S.’ friendly robotic tone—he said, “That’s better.”

“Is there anything you need, sir?”

“Yeah.” Tony reached up to scrub his eyes. “Hack S.H.I.E.L.D. I want out of their database. Get me out.”

“I’m afraid that level of security has proven beyond our ability, sir.”

“Try harder, J.A.R.V.I.S.” A long silence. Tony lay on his back on the couch, feet slung over the arm.

“I’m afraid I can only access the readable version, sir.”

“Read it to me.”

A pause. “Stark, Anthony, alias IRON MAN. Date of Birth, 05-29-1970. Security Level 7. Field Class O.”

That made Tony sit up. “Level 7?”

“Yes, sir.”

Phil Coulson had been Level 7. “What’s Steve’s?”

“Sir?”

“Steve Rogers,” Tony said impatiently.

“Security Level 4.”

Tony stared at the ceiling in silent disbelief. “He was Level 7,” J.A.R.V.I.S. narrated. “He was demoted a month ago.”

 _Kunar_. “Level 4,” Tony repeated incredulously.

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s barely field worthy. What’s his field classification?”

“Field Class A.”

Tony saw red. “They’re sending him in _blind_ on Alpha missions?”

“It would appear so, sir.”

“Alpha level missions.” Stonily, Tony said, “I’m Level 7 and cleared for _Omega_ missions.” He chose not to read into that, at all, which was easy: his brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders, and he was pissed off. 

“If I had to hazard a guess, sir, I would say the Omega designation reflects personal choice. You have agreed to be mobilized but have expressed an interest in not being called in for anything other than dire emergencies.” _Accurate_. “Mr. Rogers is in the active pool of high-risk missions. I assume it is also his choice.”

“Why would he accept Level _4_?”

“I believe that was not his choice.”

“No shit,” Tony snarked. “God. He’s a fucking idiot. I’m in love with a suicidal moron. Level 4.” You had to be a Level 5 agent to have access to a _gun_. Level 4 was respectable for most agents who would never need to be field-ready, but Alpha agents were supposed to have lethal means. “ _Level 4_ ,” he shouted, like that would make it more plausible. “What the fuck is Fury thinking?”

“According to the database, Mr. Rogers is the sole Level 4 agent cleared for active missions.”

Tony nearly spat in disgust, “He’s not an agent.”

“My apologies, sir.” A pause. “He has zero access to weapons,” J.A.R.V.I.S. narrated, sifting through data, talking in his methodical, mechanical voice. “Zero access to information regarding Field Missions classified O through A. I can only assume he must rely on higher-clearance teammates for information.”

“They don’t even debrief him.” It wasn’t a question.

“No, sir.”

Tony tried to imagine it. _You can’t have a gun. You can’t even carry a knife. We won’t provide you any information in advance or any information you don’t need to know on the ground. You’ll be support, and your partners will know the full mission and share at their discretion. You are backup. Is that clear?_ And Steve would just nod, shield on his back, the only weapon he needed. Of course he went. He’d been a soldier in the army, a pawn in every sense of the word. This was no different.

It still made Tony angry. They gave soldiers guns.

He poured himself another glass, declared with a growl, “Fuck S.H.I.E.L.D.,” and downed it.

. o .

Tony tried to put it from his mind. After two days of mourning, he’d come to the conclusion that S.H.I.E.L.D. was a bastard organization trying to kill off the best person in its ranks and he wanted nothing to do with them. And he wanted nothing to do with the idiot that would go on _Alpha_ missions with a Level 4 clearance. Steve would literally die not knowing who had killed him.

Sure, it made a sick sort of sense. S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t dare give him any unauthorized access to information. He’d use it against them. No more aliases, no more access to safe house information, no more weapons. Nada. Zilch. Nothing.

It didn’t make it any better, and he spoke plainly to a stone-faced Fury. “I want out. I’m not going to be a part of this.”

Fury didn’t say anything immediately. “Why the change of heart?”

Tony sneered. “Sorry, that’s Level 11 clearance information. You’re not qualified.”

Fury’s expression turned understanding. To his credit, he looked unhappy. Or maybe he disliked being talked back to. “You read the files.”

“The important bits.” Tony shook his head. “I know I’m cleared to hear when he dies. I don’t want to fucking hear it. I don’t want it. I don’t _need_ it. He’s the only one who needs the clearances. Give him my clearances.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Fury said coolly.

“I don’t _care_. I want my name off the records. I want it burned, Fury, and if you think I won’t find a way, you’ll be damn sorry.”

A hint of anger passed across Fury’s expression, but he suppressed the bite in his voice. “You want out?” he said, voice glacial.

“Today.”

Fury nodded once. “All right.” He picked up the tablet in front of him, tapped it a few times, and set it back on the table. “Congratulations. You’re no longer authorized to our facilities, our information, our weapons, our planes, our agents.” A beat. “Or the Avengers Initiative.”

Tony stared at him, rocked to his core. “That easy?”

Fury nodded again. “That easy.” Then, looking at the door, he added, “As a courtesy, my personal number is still at your disposal, should you have a change of heart. But as of right now, you are no longer, in any way, shape or form, associated with this organization. You can still be Iron Man.

“Let me know if you choose to be an Avenger again.”

Tony let the door slam on the way out.

. o . 

Tony changed the locks. 

It wasn’t hard. Everything was automatic. A few words, and it was all secure again. Everyone who worked below still had access to their levels, but no one could enter the top levels without his permission.

He drank until he couldn’t remember what security level Steve had.

. o . 

“Sir?”

Tony didn’t look up from the gauntlet. “A little busy, J.A.R.V.I.S.”

“Mr. Rogers is requesting permission to come to the balcony level.”

Tony kept working on the gauntlet. “Tell him to fuck off.”

“. . . Yes, sir.”

. o . 

Pepper was the only person who had access to the balcony level and up, even after Tony changed the locks. He wasn’t sure how he hadn’t thought of it, but when he saw her in his kitchen, drinking a glass of water, he stumbled back out the door. He didn’t want to see her—this was his _sanctum sanctorum_ , his safe space—but she was there. “Tony,” she said.

He took a step back. “Why’re you here?”

She looked guilty. “J.A.R.V.I.S.”

Tony closed his eyes. He could disconnect J.A.R.V.I.S. It wouldn’t even be that hard.

Then he would be alone.

“What’s going on, Tony?” she asked. So understanding. So simple. She was the only simple thing in his life. She leaned a hip on the counter, adding, “You’ve been here for days.”

 _Has it been days already?_ He hadn’t paid attention, alternating between working in the windowless lab and prowling restlessly. “I hadn’t noticed,” he said, wanting it to come across as sharp rather than sad. He wasn’t sure he succeeded. She took a step towards him, another, and he stood still until she was right in front of him. “If you’re here to judge me—”

She hugged him. He sniffed once, hard, didn’t move his arms an inch. “I changed my mind, this is worse.”

“I’m sorry, Tony.”

“Don’t apologize. It was my fault.”

She sighed, rested her cheek on his shoulder. She was very soft. Steve was a rock wall. No steel in his bones, but iron in his veins. _Just like everybody else_. Tony wrapped his arms around Pepper. “Why don’t we talk?” she suggested. “I can order pizza.”

He sighed. _I prefer to have awkward conversations over food_. “Okay,” he said softly.

He didn’t consciously resolve to tell her everything. He just did. Face hidden behind his hand, he told her how scared he was. How goddamn terrified he was of the world he lived in, a world where he could be sure of nothing, where the staples fell flat and the things he’d hoped would last were tenuous, fragile.

He kept one thing to himself, Steve’s weight against him like an entreaty, _this is ours, only ours_.

The rest, he told her, tears slipping down his face. They didn’t even touch the food, just sat and talked for hours. “He’s gonna die,” he croaked. “He’s gonna die and I’m gonna get a goddamn voicemail from Fury, and I can’t. . . .” He swallowed. “I can’t stand the thought that it’s my fault.”

“It’s not your fault, Tony.” He sniffed again. He didn’t even know why he was trying to be quiet, the pain as clear as day in his voice, but he was. Pride was a fragile thing. “There’s only so much you can do. People live their lives. We just—have to watch, sometimes.” She squeezed the hand he still had on the table. “We watch and we wait and we hope, until they come back.”

Tony’s heart twisted. “He did come back.” He didn’t know how long ago it was now. “I didn’t. . . .” He trailed off.

Pepper stroked her thumb over his knuckles. “You’re in pain. Anyone can see that. It’s okay, Tony.”

He sniffed again, sliding his hand to pinch his nose, like he could hold back the tears that way. God, he hated himself for crying over it all. Over _them_. The goddamn Avengers.

“I’m not an Avenger,” he said shakily. “I’m not. I don’t want to be. I never wanted to be an _Avenger_.”

Pepper’s voice was so soft, so sincere. “I know, honey. I know.”

“I didn’t ask for this,” he gasped. “I didn’t _want_ this.”

“It’s okay, Tony.” She squeezed his hand. He grabbed the arc reactor with his free hand, the metal hot against his fingers. Not quite burning, but warm. Alive. If he yanked it hard enough—

Pepper took his hand, held both of them in her own.

He bowed his head and sobbed. She stood, wrapped her arms around him, and held him.

. o . 

There was a knock on the window. A beaming, Golden Retriever in human form stood there, smile shining through the glass. Thor lifted a hand in a wave, then indicated the locked door.

Tony stared at him, the scene so surreal he half-thought he was dreaming.

Cupping his hands around his mouth, Thor shouted, “ _The door is locked!_ ”

 _I know_.

Tony stared blankly. Thor, not understanding, tried to pull on the door, then made a sheepish expression. “ _Still locked!_ ”

God, it would’ve been funny, if Tony didn’t feel like crying.

Finally, something in his expression, his stance, his silence must have given it away. Thor’s shoulders dropped, the smile fading from his face. He shouted through the glass, “ _Are you okay?_ ”

_No._

Tony didn’t unlock the door.

. o . 

Thor was still there as evening fell, now chewing benevolently on a sandwich he’d scrounged up while Tony was away. He seemed rather at ease with the whole thing, sitting on the ground, back to the wall, looking up at the sky. “ _Rather beautiful!_ ” he called. “ _I like your stars!_ ”

Tony understood, all at once, why Steve adored him. There was something charming about him. Tony was sliding the door open manually without even realizing he wanted to, stepping out into the warm night. Thor’s laughter was genuine, sweet. “My friend! I’m so glad to see you again.” He rose and embraced Tony with such genuine warmth, such earnest love it broke Tony’s heart.

Closing his eyes, he clung to Thor’s armor and admitted, “Me too, buddy. Me too.”

. o . 

Poor, sweet Bruce looked at him with utmost apology in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Nope.” He frowned, but Tony repeated, “Nope, I’m not accepting your apology.” When Bruce looked sad, he grabbed his sleeve, hauled him into the main room, and added, “I just want you back. You’re family.”

Thor laughed from the couch. Pepper sat near him, also smiling, and Bruce relaxed visibly. “Oh, thank God, Tony,” he said, clasping Tony’s shoulders and giving them a shake. “I swear I’ll be better. I am completely reformed.”

Tony huffed, brushing out of his hold and waving a hand. “I’m terrified to find out what your definition of reformed is.”

“It’s amazing,” Bruce said. He looked at Tony with such relief, such genuine kindness, it ached. _I don’t deserve you_. He didn’t know if he deserved anyone half as kind as Bruce, or Thor, or Pepper. But he had them.

He breathed deeply, trying to accept it, and announced without the slightest bit of irony, “I hope you like _Legally Blonde_ , because it’s the least sad movie I could find and it’s on Netflix.”

Bruce blinked, but he said with genuine conviction, “I’m sure I’ll love it.” 

And, to Tony’s surprise, they both did. 

Thor definitely loved it the most.

. o . 

Tony slept in his own bed, aware of three other people in the levels below him. He couldn’t hear them, could only know they were there because they’d dispersed, but it still put his mind at ease. He was safe. They were there. His family.

 _It’s small. And broken. But still good_.

He needed to thank Clint for choosing _Lilo and Stitch_. The Disney movies were growing on him.

. o . 

Clint was surprisingly easy to win back. Tony texted him _Aladdin?_

 _I’m there_.

He brought Natasha. Tony half-thought he’d feel angry once he saw them.

He was just grateful to have people to share the popcorn with, and Thor ate the bag that caught fire, and they were a family.

. o . 

Fury answered on the fourth ring. “ _Hello?_ ”

“Hi.” Tony paused. “I wanna talk to him.”

A sigh. “ _Now?_ ”

Tony was aware it was three in the morning. “He’s up.”

“ _Hold on_.”

Tony waited. It took eight minutes. He timed it on the glowing green clock beside him.

“ _ **Tony**_.”

Tony shut his eyes, even though Steve couldn’t see it, because the burn of tears was so sudden it caught him off guard. Sounding frantic, Steve said, “ _Are you okay? What’s wrong? Talk to me, please_.”

Tony swallowed. “Hi,” he said quietly. “Hi, buddy.”

A pause. “ _Hey_ ,” Steve replied. “ _I’m—_ ” He hesitated. Tony couldn’t open his eyes, afraid to face him, any form of reality, even over the phone. “ _God, Tony, I missed you_.” He heard shuffling, Steve getting up from wherever he’d been sitting. It didn’t sound like a bed, or maybe it was and S.H.I.E.L.D. had utilitarian chairs for beds. It wouldn’t surprise him. “ _What’s—what’s on your mind?”_

Honesty. “You.”

Steve exhaled. “ _I shouldn’t have left_.”

“It’s okay.”

“ _I made a mistake_.”

“Me, too.”

A pause. “ _Can I come over?_ ”

“Fury want his phone back?” Tony asked, unable to bare his soul, drawing in a silent, centering breath. Calm. He was calm.

“ _No, I just wanna see you_.” Then, Steve amended, “ _Okay, Fury wants his phone back, too_.”

“Door’s unlocked,” was all Tony said.

Forty minutes. It took forty minutes to drive to S.H.I.E.L.D. Longer, in traffic, but even with clear roads and perfect timing, it was twenty miles out.

Steve was there in less than half the time, like he was afraid Tony would change his mind if it took him more than twenty minutes. He was panting like a racehorse, and Tony did the mental math later, when he could spare the change. He’d run almost seventy miles an hour, for eighteen minutes, to make sure he was _there_.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Steve panted, red-faced and hunched over as he appeared at the end of the hall, the stairwell door banging open behind him. He looked like he might keel over dead, but Tony had seen Rhodey in even more dire straits after a morning run and recover, so he wasn’t altogether surprised when Steve pushed himself upright using the wall, saw Tony at the end of the hall, and said, “Lotta stairs.”

Tony spared him the last twenty feet, crossing the distance and wrapping his arms around Steve, utterly unconcerned that he was soaked in sweat. “You gotta put in less stairs,” he entreated breathlessly, big hands flattening across Tony’s back. “I’m gonna die.”

“Please don’t.” Tony’s voice was soft, but Steve still heard it, gulping air.

“I didn’t wanna—I had to—I had to.”

Tony shut his eyes, holding him tightly. “I don’t deserve you.”

“Course you do.” Steve pulled back, holding him at arm’s length, brow furrowing. “Wish I could run faster.”

Tony planted his forehead against Steve’s chest. He’d need a shower, and it was three in the morning. He didn’t care. “I missed you so much.” He closed his eyes, adding, “I get scared. I think I’m gonna lose you, this, _us—_ ”

“Never.” Steve cupped his face, still shaking, heart pounding in his chest. He looked at Tony with utmost adoration. “I’d come back. I’d always come back for you.”

“I’m sorry.” 

He brushed his thumb over Tony’s cheekbone. “Hush,” he said, soft, sincere. “I’m here. It’s okay.”

“It’s okay,” Tony agreed, turning his head to kiss his thumb. “Thank you.”

Steve’s brow furrowed. “For what?”

“Running.”

Closing his eyes, Steve leaned forward and kissed his forehead. “Of course. Always. Always, Tony.”

 _Always_.

. o . 

They didn’t shower.

They just hauled the sheets off Tony’s bed, and Tony told J.A.R.V.I.S. to drop the temperature a couple more degrees, and he crawled into bed next to Steve, laying his head on his shoulder. His heart was still racing. “Don’t die,” he said. “I’d miss you.”

“I’m not gonna die,” Steve assured, voice reassuringly calm. He kissed the top of Tony’s head, gathering him closer in his arms. “I’m right here.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you are.”

“’m not going anywhere.”

Tony closed his eyes. “It’s okay, you know? If you want space. I know I need it, sometimes.”

Steve inhaled slowly. Exhaled deeply. It was soothing to listen to, the way he breathed. Proof-of-life. Tangible. “I don’t wanna go.”

Tony stroked his bare hip. “We’ll take it slow,” he promised. “I can be slow. Patient.”

Steve huffed, but his voice was gentle, grateful. “I love you so much it drives me crazy.”

Tony exhaled slowly. “Yeah?”

Steve nodded. “So much.”

Tony said softly, “I love you, too.”

And he meant it. Completely. Utterly.

. o .

He fell asleep.

And he awoke in Steve’s arms.

Steve’s breath was soft against the back of his shoulder. The room was cool, but Steve was warm enough for both of them. He didn’t stir when Tony stroked his arm. He just shifted, one leg wrapped around both of his, embracing him.

This was, Tony thought, shutting his eyes, enjoying the moment, absolutely the safest place in the world.


	8. RADIATION POISONING

The arc reactor burned in Tony’s chest.

Flat on his back and covered in a fine sheet of sweat, Tony stared at the ceiling. He’d already asked J.A.R.V.I.S. to drop the temperature. His extremities were going numb, but the arc reactor was still _burning._ Tony laid a hand on it, feeling the edges. They weren’t scorching like he expected them to be. It didn’t put his mind at ease. 

He’d felt pain in the past, but the constant _burn_ was almost unbearable in its duration. Usually the reactor flared up for a few moments, like his body was recognizing anew the invader and trying to reject it. It rarely lasted more than ten minutes.

He’d been up all night, the arc reactor sizzling inside him.

“J.A.R.V.I.S.,” he gasped, “what’s going on?”

In a dauntless tone, J.A.R.V.I.S. replied, “I believe it is the arc reactor, sir.”

Tony closed his eyes in silent aggravation. J.A.R.V.I.S. couldn’t offer more than the obvious without his suit. 

Tony forced himself to get up, holding his chest. He didn’t need to be silent, but he still moved slowly. He didn’t bother with a shirt, but he did pull on a pair of pants. Wearing pants gave him a tentative grasp of normalcy. He was just going for a midnight snack. Or, in this case, a lab run. 

It was probably unhealthy, he realized, to _live_ at your workplace. There was an off-switch for the lights, but he had the key to get back in the door. He was never free of the Iron Man work.

Right then, he was grateful he only had to walk a few dozen steps from his bed to his lab. He stumbled gracelessly through the doors, lurching towards the nearest bench. He grabbed a metal Iron Man bracelet and shoved it around his wrist. At once, J.A.R.V.I.S. began reassuringly, “Running diagnostics.”

Tony sank into his favorite bean bag chair as he waited. He was still flushed but no longer clutching at his chest. Eyes closed, he could almost sleep in the comfort of his lab, the bracelet cool against his wrist. 

After two minutes, J.A.R.V.I.S. announced, “Delta scan complete. Vital signs within the normal range. No abnormality detected.”

“It’s all in my head?” Tony croaked.

“Given the present data, I cannot detect an abnormality, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied. “Further data is required.”

Tony put on the suit. Inside, it was almost claustrophobic before it hummed to life, responding to his movements with reassuring readiness. There was no delay between his Iron hands and his desire to move them. Aloud, he ordered, “Run ’em again.”

“Of course, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. obliged. 

Tony distracted himself by staring at his own vitals in the mask, the same values J.A.R.V.I.S. had assessed using the bracelet alone. 

It was strange, being quantified, _x_ number of heartbeats, _y_ number of many breaths. In reality, it was how J.A.R.V.I.S. saw him: a series of numbers indicating height, weight, and position in space, among other things. He filed the thought away. He wanted to believe he was human to J.A.R.V.I.S.; he was willing to ignore reality a little. 

“Scan complete,” J.A.R.V.I.S. said a second time. “Extremity temperatures below the normal range.” _Cold_ _hands,_ Tony thought, _warm h_ _eart_. “I have detected an above-average temperature value in the arc reactor.” The finding was normal—it was nothing to bother him, as consequential as a ray of sun on the back of his neck—but tonight, it felt damning. “Casing corrosion has caused the core to burn through surrounding tissues. I would strongly advise replacing both the core and the casing, sir.”

Coldness swept over Tony. He declared in a hushed voice, “I can patch holes.”

“With all due respect, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. began, “it would be more effective to—”

“I’m not gonna remove my goddamn chest plate, J.A.R.V.I.S.,” Tony snapped. “I’ll patch it. That’ll alleviate symptoms?”

“It should, sir.”

“Terrific.” Freeing himself from the suit, Tony announced, “Then let’s get started.”

. o .

It wouldn’t stop _burning_.

Tony worked as quickly as he could without being sloppy, a desperate man fumbling for a cure. The pain itself wasn’t extraordinary, but the panic it inspired was paralyzed. He wanted to curl up under a table and wait for the attack to end, but he knew it wouldn’t end. 

The reaction was continuous, oblivious to his human body. As long as the palladium chip was still there as a fuel source, it would carry on. All he could do was prevent it from hurting him in the process, by either removing the reactor or cushioning its contact with his skin.

Despite his logical brain’s best attempts to keep the situation under control, his animal desire for reprieve won out twice. He fucked up the formula, creating cement instead of glue. Cursing his mistakes, he had ditched the botched solution each time and started anew, vowing to pay closer attention the next time.

The super-glue was easy enough to use. It could be used to patch Iron Man suits between models, helping him get more life out of each one. He’d made the sealant more than a dozen times for expressly that purpose. It was almost second nature to him; in his right mind, he could have alchemized a beaker-full in less than half an hour. 

It took him four times as long to get what he needed.

But he was persistent. At last, he prevailed.

For a moment, he let himself lean against the table, shaking with relief. The sealant sat on the countertop, ready for use, while his hair stuck to his scalp, his muscles aching where the arc reactor sizzled against them.

The most delicate part of the operation was removing the arc reactor. It was snug enough that it was not designed to pop free under ordinary stressors. But like a childproof medicine cap, it could be twisted and unlocked easily with the right handling. 

The idea was still daunting. His fingers shook as he caged the metal reactor in his left hand. Breathing rapidly, he forced himself to turn it and press down at the same time. 

He felt the gentle displacement and exhaled in relief. He almost couldn’t do it wrong—it would take tremendous brute force to _rip_ the arc reactor out of his chest—but it was still reassuring to get it right on the first try. 

Closing his eyes, he drew in a fortifying breath and tugged on it hard.

It burned unexpectedly and he cursed, letting go and pressing a hand over it like he could alleviate the pain with his cool palm. J.A.R.V.I.S., ever solicitous, suggested, “Sir, it might be easier if you enlisted—”

“ _Quiet_ ,” Tony snapped.

J.A.R.V.I.S. fell silent. Leaning on the table for support, Tony breathed raggedly. Darkness fuzzed the corners of his vision.

Determined not to pass out before he succeeded, Tony grasped the reactor and tugged it free in one firm motion. As soon as it came loose and resided in his open palm, he retreated into the of his mind that could look at terrors and compartmentalize them. His breathed leveled out. 

With aplomb, he picked up a cloth and rubbed the arc reactor against it, a complementary solution that could be stored and kept the glue from sticking to the reactor itself. It was no different than cleaning a camera: water was the enemy of technology, but an impression of it was fine. The reactor wasn’t suspended in the solution, just covered in a thin film. 

Satisfied, he set the cloth aside and reached for the super-glue beaker.

Then he poured the solution fearlessly into the cavity in his chest. 

The relief was breathtaking. He reeled and forced himself to keep pouring without passing out. The sealant worked marvelously, filling in every macro- and microscopic gap, leaving a smooth surface behind.

When it was empty, he eased the reactor back in. In the process, it would displace some of the solution, but he wanted it to. It would ensure that the entire casing was covered, top to bottom. The reactor fit snugly. He kept a hand over it, drawing in deep breaths to steady himself. The relief was overpowering in the wake of fear and misery. 

Without conscious decision, he slid to the floor, still clutching his chest, not in pain but in sheer, breathless gratitude.

The solution was only a temporary fix because the reactor would keep trying to eat the metal away without intervention. He didn’t care. He was too intoxicated with relief to think of the future right then. 

He’d have sawed off his own arm if that had been what it had taken. He would have done anything to alleviate the burn, the pain. Above all else, he would have done anything to subdue the animal panic. 

There was something in his chest and it was killing him. He could not rest until he struck it down.

It was tame underneath his fingertips now, warm but not burning.

Without deciding to do so, Tony found himself standing in his suit and staring out at the dreamy landscape in front of him. The world was safe here, surrounded by his armor shell that contained the reactor. It didn’t burn. It was just there, as it always was. 

He walked around in the suit, feeling its power, its indomitable resilience. It was a work of art and a tour de force, an experience like swimming and walking at the same time. He had designed the suits, all of them, spent thousands of hours pouring his soul into this grand overarching project. It was a testament to his capabilities that the end result was so iconic, so spectacular.

Iron Man.

Despite its verified success, the suit would not have won his father’s capricious acclaim. The heir of Stark Industries was supposed to herald the future, not focus the lion’s share of his attention on a single project. It was the antithesis of Howard’s approach to multifaceted business.

But the suits were beyond Howard’s empirical imagination: they were magnetic, electrifying. All of Tony’s formidable prowess had gone into them, and it showed. They were, by any account, masterpieces. People raved about them; people _wanted_ them. Still, Howard would have insisted, there was more to the world than automated flying suits. Tony knew that he would have seen the suits as worthy of being called his life’s work.

Walking out of the lab and into the nearest elevator, Tony decided that he did not care. To hell with Howard Stark. He hadn’t cared about pleasing his father in years, and _he_ , Tony Stark, was proud of his own work. That was all that mattered, so long as he was the one above ground while Howard was below.

He stepped out on the balcony room level, unoccupied this late at night. The suit moved effortlessly through space, almost of its own volition as he set his sights on the doors leading to the actual balcony. Stepping through them, he saw the temperature reading shift, the scene transform from interior and sedate to cosmopolitan and alive.

Standing at the railing in the suit, he looked up the midnight-blue sky and its three hundred million visible stars. Then he looked down at the firefly city, also augmented by the suit’s HUD, its own sea of light.

He drew in a deep breath, flexing his shivering fingers on the railing, gripping it for support.

And then he took a flying leap.

. o . 

Being up in the air was pure ecstasy.

Tony loved the feeling when his feet left the ground. It lasted an age, a snapshot stretched out into a breathless forever. As he leaped into nothingness, he felt the rush of adrenaline as he waited for the suit to catch him. It was the ultimate trust test, that split second between first launch and ignition. If the latter failed, he would not fly.

The suit did not fail. He shot towards the roof of the world.

In seconds, the highest building slid beneath his feet, leaving him alone in a big, deep blue sea above them, alone, untouchable. 

Almost as exhilarating as the flight itself was the solitude. No one below could do what he could do; no one could even _imagine_ what it was like to hover hundreds of feet off the ground without a tether. It was not an exercise one became used to over time; rather, it was an environment Tony only grew fonder of inhabiting, sweeping ground-hours under the rug to be up top, unstoppable.

Confident in his own abilities to fly blind, he drifted with his back to the floor of the world, his eyes on the ceiling. The suit swept away the city light-noise automatically. It was a feature Tony had designed specifically for such adventures.

 _Kill the noise, turn up the stars_.

If anyone else knew of his ecstasy, he would have to fight bitterly to keep his hands on his suits, lest others covet too dearly. The suits were many things on a technical level, marvels of modern engineering, wonders of human ingenuity, but their most compelling qualities weren’t their mechanical high points. 

Their real selling points were flight-worthiness. Nothing could beat the _view_ , or the euphoria of swimming in liquefied air. What made the suits great was not that they were beautiful, although they were, but that they could unlock whole new sensory experiences.

He loved climbing and rolling and pitching and diving. He loved the childlike confidence of grabbing onto rooftops and propelling himself off of them like inverted diving boards, skyrocketing into space. He loved the howling, harrowing euphoria of falling backwards before pulling himself up in a great parabolic arc, whooping in irrepressible delight all the while.

The ecstasy of flight, the execution of extraordinary _power_ , ruled above all else. The Iron Man suits had dozens of advantages, but flight was king: it alone captured a certain raw, unbridled _joy_ unknown to the world at large. 

Autonomous flight was a taste of another, better world, a world where humans weren’t as fragile as they were on Earth, where they could warp gravity. No emotion existed to describe the raw wonder of holding onto the Earth before choosing to leap up into the sky forever. It was indescribable; it was life.

Like an albatross, Tony glided across the night sky. He used only gentle thrust to stay aloft, floating like a wing-glider above the Earth’s surface. Unlike the frantic roar of a plane taking off or the fight-or-flight terror of cliff-diving, his flight was supremely controlled, sublimely smooth. 

It was pure magic, no-strings-attached flight. Lift-off without ropes or engines, only an armored second skin and breathless trust. For centuries, humans had coveted the skies, longing to leap higher than they could go. Nature had created from the rubble and rock and biological roam a homesick creature that longed to launch itself headfirst into the unknown. Without a tether or even a promise of return, it was a total gamble, a true cosmic risk—but it was a risk nearly everyone wanted to take.

Tony became the first to do it. 

He captured the magic of truly autonomous flight, ecstasy that came with no technicalities. Flying an Iron Man suit was a boundless experience, huge in its scope and nearly limitless in its duration, so long as he packed away enough fuel in the storage tanks. There were no tethers; there were no safety nets. There were only miles and miles to climb, whole realms untouched to explore.

Zipping across the city until the lights blurred into strobes, he immersed himself in the experience, alone in an artificial universe. He kept the communications offline and even the lights on the head-up display. The only sound in the nearly soundproof suit was the hum of the thrusters and his own breathless gasps. For dizzying seconds, he forsook air entirely, focusing on the streamlined experienced of pitching to one side, yawing to the next, up and down, rolling and steady. Without external considerations he felt closed off from the world, alone in his own universe.

He was no longer on Earth but drifting through space, an astronaut howling in ecstatic wonder.

Flying was a head-rush, an addiction. He could give up fame, prestige, money, even access to many of the world’s other wonders so long as he could keep this feeling.

But there was a duality to Iron Man that, even hovering in the false space above the city, he could not shake off. It was not enough to possess the world’s most effective body armor and only use it for flight. He trembled at the thought of needing to fight forever, at the thought that there was no escape. He could not in good conscience shirk his responsibilities, nor did he entirely want to: if Iron Man could make the world safer, so be it. He would fight for peace, but it was a long fight without an end in sight. The reminder triggered a wave of exhaustion that shredded his ecstasy into quiet, blank-space sobriety.

He wanted peace, time to up here, but the world was at war, eager to tear itself to shreds. He was part of that front.

Down there, he was a soldier. Up here, he was only human. It was magical.

He could stay up here for a grand total of 29.4 hours, according to the HUD display. Already, he had plans to extend the suit’s flight time. If he could accomplish the impossible twice, then someday he would never need to land, devising a perpetual motion machine that could stay airborne for good. It was thrilling to imagine, being aloft forever, safe with the stars above him and the world at his feet. 

Some people climbed mountains to get closer to the stars above them, but they would never know his own personal ecstasy of floating in space. Someday they might understand it, experiencing it for themselves. But at that moment, he was alone, the first human to ever fly freely, needing no ground underneath him to move higher and higher.

It was a privilege he savored above any other. And even with his bleeding heart and wounded soul, he still felt lucky to do what he did, to _be_ Iron Man. It was tenuous, precious. He vowed to enjoy it. He would enjoy every moment up top before the Universe took it all away from him.

Alone and unnoticed, he flew. Finally, finally free.

. o .

Sitting on the wire framework wrapped around the balcony level, Steve let his legs dangle into space. He was almost invisible in the predawn light. Tony could make out a faint crooked smile and the edges of his uniform as he arched inquisitively underneath the balcony he had planned to land on. With unflinching cheeriness, Steve said, “Mornin’, chief.”

Hovering in front of him, Tony gawked at the precariousness of his position, stating in a metallic drone, “You know that’s a ninety-story drop, right?”

Steve’s benign smile did not change. “I’m not gonna fall.”

“That’s ninety _stories_ , Steve,” Tony reminded, because clearly, he was in love with a moron. “A thousand feet ring a bell?”

Benignly, Steve glanced down through the gaps in the metal bars next to him. “I won’t fall,” he assured confidently. Tony had the feeling he’d done this a few times as Steve flung himself, suddenly and unexpectedly, right over the edge, holding onto the railing above him with both hands. Dangling in space like he was holding onto monkey bars at the playground, he asked conversationally, “How was your flight?”

Tony blinked at him, floored. Steve couldn’t see his expression behind the Iron mask, but Tony knew he could feel his incredulity as he warbled, “I can’t tell if you’re _actually_ hellbent on dying a horrible death or just that stupid, but either way, get back on that railing or _so help me_.”

Defiantly, Steve released a hand, now dangling half as securely.

Like an anxious mother hen, Tony had drifted closer until he was right in front of Steve, gauntlets unconsciously extended towards him, ready to break his fall. Steve dangled serenely, eyes shining with amusement, almost silver-blue in the predawn light. 

To any observer, Tony knew they would be a sight to see, but they were too high up to be easily spotted from the ground. Even those in skyscrapers wouldn’t have a good view of this side of the Tower. Add to that the early morning light, and they were almost invisible.

With unrepentant direction, Steve extended his free hand towards Tony, swinging just a little in the process. Reflexively, Tony met the challenge, easing closer until Steve’s hand rested on his left shoulder. Steve then pulled Tony— _Iron Man—_ closer to himself, hiking his arm more firmly around a broad-plated shoulder and wrapping his legs around Iron Man’s waist with presumptuous ease. 

Almost unconsciously, Tony slid an arm under Steve’s right arm, curving it around his back. He increased the thrust on his feet by pressing downward against the soles, providing resistance as Steve let go of the railing altogether, grabbing onto him with both arms and legs. Miraculously, they stayed level, thrusters adjusting automatically to the added weight.

Hovering a thousand feet off the ground with Captain America plastered against him, Tony tried to vocalize a dry remark about their position, but he couldn’t make himself speak. He felt weightless, balanced. He was aware, in his firm hold, of Steve’s rhythmic breath. His weight was heavy and comforting, easy for the suit to handle. _I_ _gotcha_ , he thought.

He found a better grip with one arm underneath Steve’s backside, ostensibly for a better grip but also because it was available. Steve grunted in amusement and leaned back to regard him, blinking silver-blue eyes in the reflected glow from the suit. Tony firmed his hold, disappointed that he couldn’t fully enjoy the grip with the suit. To be fair, he consoled himself, Steve had his suit, too, which would also have diminished the value.

It was amazing how much Steve needed him to stay aloft, _alive_. Steve could charge through walls and bull through nearly any challenge, but he couldn’t take the flying leap himself. Not for very long, at least. 

Improbable as it sounded, Tony was reasonably confident that Steve _could_ survive a fall from this height, so long as he had the suit ( _check_ ) and shield ( _uncheck_ ). Even so, his luck would likely remain at the level extended to a pile of twigs in the same position. Yet even with doom beneath him, Steve showed no fear, his grip secure but not tight, almost leisurely. He wasn’t afraid. He wouldn’t fall.

Easing slowly away from the railing, Tony leaned his weight back to guide the suit, drawing out their invisible safety line. In a pinch, Steve could still jump from the suit to the railing and have a reasonable chance of making it, but he didn’t abandon ship, holding on and breathing steadily. When Tony reached the point of no return, he paused for a moment. Then he kept going, venturing into the liquid air deep enough to drown in.

His thrusters were working double-time to compensate for the extra passenger, so he didn’t push his luck with quick movements, getting used to the feeling. With the suit’s artificial strength, Steve was nothing more than a heavy jacket. It could handle far greater weights and did. 

Still, it was satisfying to carry a person like this, to know that he could do it comfortably. He’d flown Steve once before, but that flight was a blur, focused entirely on other things as he let J.A.R.V.I.S. pilot the suit so he could focus on keeping Steve airborne. 

Knowing that Tony was the one keeping them up in the air was dazzling.

“If you wanted to fly with me,” he found himself saying, “you could have just _asked_.”

Steve leaned back to look at him, moving slowly enough that Tony was able to compensate for his new position easily without tipping. The suit was a technological wonder, but even it could be unbalanced. Steve respected that fine line. Amusement still danced in his eyes as he held onto Iron Man’s shoulders and admitted, “I didn’t plan it.”

“You don’t plan anything, do you?”

Steve’s smile was soft, almost rueful. He shrugged. “I don’t like to plan things,” he admitted. “Life’s too—unpredictable.”

“If you planned more, maybe it wouldn’t seem so unpredictable,” Tony felt compelled to mention. Idly, he drifted more into the shadow of a skyscraper as dawn swept sleepily over the city.

Steve’s easy smile faded. “Sometimes you can’t see what’s coming,” he pointed out quietly.

“Can’t you?” Tony hovered, reaffirming his grip on Steve. “I can see why you might think that,” he added, too quickly. Not quite stuttering, but not the suave and kempt negotiator that he was used to being. It was strange to actually have a conversation with someone, face-to-face, in space. “I just . . . don’t,” he allowed, not wanting to fight him. Not here. Not in this sacred space.

Steve exhaled deeply. Tony’s heart twisted, but Steve’s tone was resigned, not angry. “I don’t like to plan things,” he husked, huddling closer so he could bury his face back in the nook between Tony’s neck and right shoulder, visibly letting go of the argument. “It ain’t worth it to get your heart broken,” he added softly.

“Mm. S’one way of looking at it.” Tony freed one hand to pat Steve’s back with a heavy hand. “Don’t lose sleep over it, Cap. As long as one of us is a planner, I think that’s good enough.” Getting both arms around Steve’s back firmly, he added, “You got a good grip on me?”

In response, Steve squeezed; the metal creaked. “Okay, all right, you made your point,” Tony huffed. Steve’s lips were curled up in a grin, just visible to the right of the visor. Metallically, Tony warned him, “If you break it, you buy it.”

“Costs, what, a quarter-billion dollars?” Steve said dryly. Tony could hear from his tone of voice that wasn’t even a real number in his mind. He wasn’t even sure it was a real number in _his_ mind. Calmly, Steve allotted, “Sure thing, chief. _If_ I break it, I will buy it.”

“Bribery doesn’t count as payment,” Tony warned, squeezing his shoulders gently.

With the hint of a Brooklyn drawl, Steve said fondly, “You just gotta have the last word, don’tcha?”

Tony did not pout, oh no: he scowled, firmly. Even if it somehow _was_ classifiable as a pout, at least Steve couldn’t confirm it. Peevishly, Tony grunted, “Shut it.”

Denying the opportunity for a repartee, Tony launched them upwards with a simple press his heels against the metal boots. 

They shot skyward, not quite as fast as Tony went on his truly terrifying flights but fast enough to make Steve grip him more tightly. Tony went for altitude over distance, flying almost vertically. Steve flattened against him, unfolding his legs and lowering his arms, holding onto the gaps in the plate near Tony’s hips instead of his shoulders for balance. For his part, Tony kept one arm around Steve’s back and the other at his side for balance as the city melted away beneath them.

The altimeter on his panel approached 7,000 feet, and they climbed through a sea of fluffy blue clouds. In an instant, it seemed, they were free, surrounded by a quiet, empty world of blue and white. Without a word, he leveled out, hovering high above the ground with his thrusters stabilizing them.

Slowly, Steve leaned back as far as Tony would let him, looking around with dew in his hair and wonder on his face. 

They weren’t high enough to cause any real trouble, the air cold and thin but not too damaging and certainly not for a super-soldier like Captain America. A mere mortal, Tony was grateful that the suit automatically mimicked the seafloor far below, keeping him warm and dry and air-full in the leaner atmosphere.

For a moment, he wondered if he’d come up to too fast as Steve breathed heavily against him, nostrils flaring as he gulped down air. When Tony gave him a questioning squeeze, _you all right?_ , Steve looked at the faceplate and assured, “S’incredible, Tony.”

“I can fly up to 60,000 feet,” Tony admitted, a quiet tinge of pride in his voice. Steve shivered, but he didn’t squeeze harder, just holding on, trusting completely. “I could, but I won’t.”

“You people went to space,” Steve reminded in a hushed tone, curling forward so that he was leaning into the suit, soaking in the metal’s false warmth. It was a cool thirty-four degrees Fahrenheit up top, just above freezing. The dew in Steve’s hair was almost ice. 

Graciously, Tony vented steam from the suit to help ground his wish in reality. Ventilation in the suit still meant letting cold air _in_ , but at least it gave him Steve something to cling to. And cling to him Steve did, not frantically but firmly. To Tony’s shoulder, he mused, “Shoulda called you _Rocket Man_.”

“Name’s taken,” Tony breezed, drifting upwards gently to get above a passing cloud. With a metallic breath, he reminded, “Besides: I’m Iron Man.” He chafed one metal hand up and down Steve’s back gently, wishing it were warmer as he added quietly, “Sorry. Forgot you don’t have an oxygen mask.”

“S’okay. I don’t need one.” Hugging Tony, Steve said with less breathlessness, “Just a shock. Like cold.”

Seven thousand feet _was_ a shock, but Steve was already acclimatizing, breathing steadier, heart rate calmer. Amazed, Tony idled, “Bet you could climb Everest in a day.” When Steve made a questioning noise near his armor-covered ear, he elaborated, “Most people couldn’t, altitude poisoning being what it is, but you could.” A beat. “On second thought, changed my mind. I don’t want you to die on a mountain. I don’t want you to die, period.”

“’m not going anywhere, Tony.”

“I’m gonna make you bulletproof,” Tony declared emphatically, talking more to himself than Steve. “Make you an armored suit like mine. Don’t worry, I’ll let you pick any colors you want on it, make it as spangly as your heart desires.”

Softly, Steve told his shoulder, “I don’t need a new suit, Tony.”

“It’d be fun, though,” Tony insisted. “We could fly to 50,000 feet. The world’s so beautiful at 50,000 feet. Maybe I’ll let you have this suit, once Mark VIII is up.”

“No, Tony—it’s your suit, I could never—”

“Could be _our_ suit,” Tony wheedled persistently, never one to quit easily.

Steve huffed. Shifting so he could look right at the faceplate, he murmured, “S’okay, Tony.” Putting a hand over the mouth-plate, he added, “Shh.”

“You know that doesn’t work with the suit, right?” Tony said lightly, giddy, leaning back in the suit lazily, drawing Steve back into his embrace.

Evidently not in a mood to argue, Steve settled against him, a contented little smile making its way to his face. He shut his eyes, one hand flat on Iron Man’s chest, the other curved around his lower back, while Tony held onto him with both arms, firmly.

It was actually difficult to hover for long, let alone with two people, so Tony allowed the thrusters to carry them upward, glacially slowly. Steve said nothing, basking, pressed up against the armor like there was nowhere else he’d rather be. Inspired, Tony arched backwards more, and drifted instead on a horizontal plane.

Up top, it was beautiful, early pink clouds laced with gold. The silence was easy between them. Tony drifted like a man at sea with Steve on top of his suit, lying almost flat on his back midair. It surprised Tony how easy it was to align, how natural it felt to fly together, but he figured he shouldn’t have been too surprised. The suit was substantial enough that Steve could rest his feet on top of Tony’s own easily, and Tony was very good at holding Steve.

After a good long while and yet not long enough, Steve finally leaned up enough to get his message across. Obligingly, Tony shifted until he could push himself on beds of gentle thrust upright. Pressed tightly against him, Steve admitted, “Okay, s’a little chilly.”

The dew in his hair had solidified to ice, Tony noticed in a vague, almost wondering way. Gently, Tony brushed the gauntlet over his hair, wiping the ice away, one arm still curved around his back. Nodding once, he assured, “I can fix that.”

If he were alone, he would have rolled and plunged earthward like a meteor, heedless of the change in pressure or temperature, even more oblivious to the forces the suit absorbed. 

With company, he cut the thrusters down by easing his toes against the front of the boots, and they slowly descended back into a world of white. Steve gripped him more tightly, radiating discomfort. Getting the message, Tony eased off the thrusters, accelerating their descent. It wasn’t breakneck, but it still put them on the underside of the clouds in a matter of seconds. 

He eased back as soon as they were clear, slowing their descent again. The city was still a vertical mile below them. Steve leaned back to look at him, cheeks wind-burnt but smile real. “S’a helluva view,” he added admiringly, grip loose on Tony’s shoulders.

“You’re not half bad yourself,” Tony replied. Steve pressed his face against Tony’s shoulder, ears pink.

He was rarely bashful. At least, Tony was realizing with something like delight, he was not around other people; _Tony_ was special, Tony got to see it all, and he loved that. The rarity made it oddly sweet to see him cowed by something as simple as a cheeky compliment. Tony wished for a moment that there wasn’t metal between them so he could kiss the top of Steve’s head, but he waited until they were hovering above the balcony to do so. Steve’s skin was ice under his lips. Tony made an apologetic sound against his temple.

“S’okay, Tony,” Steve murmured, reaching up to cup the back of his neck with an icy hand. The summer day on the floor was set to be a scorcher, upwards of ninety degrees Fahrenheit, but Steve was cool to the touch, almost glazed over with ice. Slowly, Tony descended the final steps, setting Steve down first—he didn’t trust himself to pull off a synchronized landing—and then joining him, getting out of the suit with a few brisk movements.

“C’mere,” he told Steve. He didn’t care that they were in plain view; nobody could see ’em, they were a thousand feet in the air. Pulling Steve’s head down, Tony kissed his cheeks, then his closed eyelids, cold, cold skin against warm lips. In a murmur, Tony admonished, “Don’t be stupid, tell me sooner. I don’t wanna have another Capsicle on my hands.”

“’m not stupid,” Steve muttered, smiling. “Shaddup.” He gave Tony a gentle shove, remonstrance and deep warmth in his eyes, ice melting in his hair, cheeks red. The melting ice was the warm weather; the blush wasn’t.

With a cheeky little grin of his own, Tony nodded once and then ruffled Steve’s hair.

. o . 

A closeup would have been devastating, but the image of Iron Man holding Captain America in a tender embrace mid-flight still set Twitter into mild hysterics. 

It started when Steve came back from his morning run looking far more harried than he had when he’d left, which was exactly the opposite of the run’s usual effect on his demeanor. Picking over an orange, Tony watched him linger in the doorway for a moment before running a hand through his hair in silent agitation. He stalked moodily over to the table, picked up Tony’s tablet without even a how-do-you-do, and skittered his fingers across the screen, brow furrowed in concentration. All at once, he froze.

Intrigued, Tony sauntered over to him, discarding his orange peel along the way. He was grateful he’d opted out of bringing the orange with him, because he knew he would have crushed it in hand the second he saw the image. 

Swiping the tablet from Steve, who still hadn’t moved, Tony stared at the page for a long, furious moment, then let his anger go. With an exasperated sigh, he set the tablet down. Steve didn’t make a sound. “Okay,” Tony said quietly. When Steve looked at him warily, like he expected anger, Tony shrugged. “Give you two options.” He held up one finger. “One: we change our names and move to another continent.” Second finger. “Two: we own it.”

Steve frowned. “Tony. . . .”

“It’s not a big deal. Really. I’ve dated almost three hundred people in print,” Tony said, waving a hand lackadaisically. Steve’s eyes flashed with something, maybe anger or sadness, but Tony continued before he could decide. “Someone drew up a count for me, wasn’t that nice of them? Point is—the point is, this is no different. Bruce and I went to brunch, and #IronHulk was trending by noon. This is my life. This is almost normal.”

Steve still looked unhappy. He looked at Tony, then the tablet, then firmed his jaw. “This is ours,” he said in a low voice, real anger in his tone. “They don’t get to have it.”

“No,” Tony agreed unflinchingly, “they don’t. But they do have something.” Steve worked his jaw like he would argue, but Tony stepped forward, both meanings. He wrapped his arms around Steve’s shoulders and half-argued, half-hushed, “Hey. Listen to me. This was inevitable. Okay? It was bound to happen. There are cameras everywhere. You’ve seen that.” Steve winced. It was amazing, Tony thought, how Steve could take a bullet without flinching but winced at the thought of being on camera. 

His sense of things to actually be concerned about was decidedly tangled, but he also hadn’t been accused of dating 298 different people, including—memorably—Iron Man himself. Maybe he just needed more practice. 

Leaning into him companionably, Tony insisted, “This is fine. All we have to do is take control of it. We can either let them create their own narrative, which they will do, Steve, there’s no stopping that—or we can create our own narrative and head them off at the pass.”

Steve still didn’t look happy, but he did lean into Tony. “How?”

Tony shrugged, resting his chin on Steve’s head, partially to be supportive and partially for support. “I don’t have nor want a Twitter, but people are always trying to get me to spill my secrets on TV. Let’s just give them a story. It doesn’t have to be real,” he added levelly, feeling the fight bunch in Steve’s shoulders. “Just _a_ story.”

With the grim marching-into-battle expression painted on his face, Steve exhaled deeply, straightened his shoulders, and murmured, “What _kind_ of story?”

. o . 

“My goal is an even 300,” Tony announced, leaning on the arm of the chair. The host grinned at him, an energetic man with eager, give-me-more eyes. Tony usually avoided these kinds of interviews for precisely that reason, but he smiled brightly now, the picture of charm. “Actually, I don’t know why I’d stop there. Why limit yourself?”

“So, the rumors are true?” the host asked eagerly.

Tony leaned back in his chair, opening his chest to the audience. _Look at me. Look at the dancing monkey_. “Which ones? That I’m back from Mars, where my space-base is coming along rather nicely? You’ve probably heard, cat’s outta the bag, some cutting-edge speculators figured out that ‘Mark VIII’ isn’t code for a new suit. It’s going well, actually. We’re hoping to populate the base by 2030.”

The host looked at him, captivated. “Tell me something absurd, I need to recalibrate my inner lie detector.”

Tony smiled toothily. “I’m a werewolf.”

“I wanna believe you!” the host laughed, shaking his head in amazement. “That’s plausible, isn’t it?”

“You know,” Tony began, folding his arms and canting one leg over the other, the picture of thoughtful contemplation, “everyone asks me, _Tony, what’s it like being beautiful, well-endowed,_ and _the world’s most iconic superhero?_ And just once, I wished they would ask me how I feel about lycanthropy. It’s a burden.”

“I can imagine,” the host simpered, eating it up. “What’s it like?”

Tony waved a hand theatrically. “A burden,” he repeated. “Probably my heaviest. I hope to publish my autobiography, _My Inner Wolf_ , by 2014. That way if any aliens try to take a potshot at Earth, they’ll be impressed that a wolf-man kicked them back to space. That always makes a good legend.”

“A good legend,” the host mused. Tony saw the segue and did nothing to stop it as the host added cheerfully, “So, how is the living legend these days, anyway?”

Tony sighed in apparent disappointment. “I gotta be honest with you: he’s real sad.”

“Sad?” the host said, frowning. “What’s got Captain America down?”

Shaking his head and rubbing his mouth, Tony admitted, “You know, in his time . . . milk was delivered to your door.”

The host oozed solicitous concern. “I imagine it’s been hard.”

“Devastating, really.” Shaking his head, Tony said emotionally, “I have hope. One day, I truly believe, he will fetch his own milk. Go outside. Use a shopping cart. Experience the finest things life has to offer.”

The host smiled. “Captain America in a grocery store. That’s something I’d love to see.”

Tony shrugged. “We’ll get there. After all, he can’t eat dry cereal forever. Every man breaks. I just hope the nation will be there for him when it happens.”

“And you?” the host pressed, keeping his tone light. “Will you be there for him?”

Tony smiled, leaned forward, and rested a hand on the host’s desk. With utmost sincerity, he delivered, “You know, we can’t _all_ be my 300th conquest, but I’m a gracious man. I’ll be sure to be there for 299.”

. o .

As expected, the nation rallied alongside their hero. 

In the first three hours alone, three dozen jugs of milk were deposited at the front desk of the Avengers Tower, along with earnest expressions from the donors that they’d be more than happy to help bring Cap out of his rumored funk with more, if needed. Tony almost wished he had chosen a nonperishable item as he tried to confound another bottle into the overflowing fridge, but he was only so sharp on his feet. Besides, he could hardly do better: milkman was an obsolete occupation that conjured up images of the idyllic American dream. People ate that stuff up.

Tony wasn’t sure if “milk poisoning” was a thing, but Steve was trying to find out: he drank the ever-growing stock of milk (Tony had the front desk turn away anyone brandishing a bottle after the sixtieth jug, but they still came). He even allowed Clint to film a short video of him.

Taking a seat alone at a table, Captain America went through the motions of pouring himself a bowl of cereal. Then he grabbed an empty old-fashioned milk jug and made a show of pouring air into the bowl until he was satisfied, setting the bottle down. He took a big bite of dry cereal, gaze locked on a printed newspaper in front of him, crunching loudly. 

Swallowing, he reached offscreen and produced a modern gallon of milk, which he uncapped and used to fill the bowl. Then he ate the whole bowl down, folding up the newspaper when he was finished and taking the empty bowl with him off-camera. Clint uploaded it to a random account ( _Tony_ didn’t have a Twitter, but improbably, Clint did; he assured it was part of the job, scouting the web, but Tony knew he followed birdwatchers, which he found amusing) and it quickly garnered a large amount of attention.

Thankfully, the attached caption—“Guess who got milk”—seemed to placate the well-meaning masses who wanted to keep Captain America milk-full. Tony snickered over the memes, mostly because he couldn’t believe how the whole thing had exploded. He’d thought he’d be beating back paps with a stick, but they only wanted to know about Cap’s modern-day adventures. 

And, well, Tony artfully guided the uniformed Captain America into the modern world. Always as Iron Man. Pictures circulated of Captain America feeding pigeons, Captain America checking out Times Square, Captain America eating a churro. Tony had gotten good at taking pictures in the suit. While he kept 99% of the images to himself, he let Clint upload the occasional immaculate image to his burner account, to great fanfare.

Doing his part for the cause, Tony kissed the empty Iron Man mask, uploaded the image to Twitter under a newly made account, and tagged it #300.

Then he kissed lowly 299 off-camera, his lips still faintly metallic.

. o .

They flew only in perfect darkness. Tony met him somewhere outside town, not wearing his suit, just the under-armor. The suit was better for high-altitude flight, but the under-armor kept him from freezing. For all the fanfare online and on the silver screen, people were slow to pick up on Iron Man’s nightly escapades. A particularly nosy journalist could have figured it out, but they didn’t meet at the same place or time, just indicated a good rendezvous point. And then they flew.

Sometimes, not unlike the moment Tony had grabbed him from the Tower, Steve dangled by one hand, gaze fixed on the landscape far below, satisfaction in every line of his body. He’d looked up at Tony every now and then to grin wolfishly. Tony could see him fine in the suit, even though it was pitch-black without it. Steve had fantastic night vision, able to navigate under moonlight, although he admitted he was as blind as most in a pitch-black room without natural light. He needed light, however minimal. The city glowed beneath them. 

Tony flew them as far from New York City as he could to put distance between them and the rest of the world. Sometimes he flew over water, felt Steve haul himself up with surprising force, clinging to the suit like he was afraid it’d fall apart under him. Tony avoided water after that, although occasionally he’d still pass over a river or lake. Steve stayed close just for the feeling of being close. Being held.

They talked, Tony about the Mark VIII, Steve about his S.H.I.E.L.D. missions. Tony didn’t mention the arc reactor. There were opportunities, but it was behaving. He wanted to embrace his time worry-free. If it flared up again, he’d deal with it then. For now, he wanted to enjoy these nights. 

Once, hovering almost a thousand feet above an empty field, he lowered the faceplate, gasped a breath of night-air. It was pitch-black, but Steve was right there. The arc reactor glowed benignly between them, illuminating Steve’s soft smile, his dancing eyes. Tony flattened his feet inside the boots, the Iron Man equivalent of letting J.A.R.V.I.S. take the wheel, and kissed him.

Steve wrapped a hand around his helmet, unable to sink searching fingers in Tony’s hair, holding him close, a breathless sort of wonder to it all. This was what it was like to be in space, Tony thought. Not the hell he’d experienced, dying, terrified. This gentle, liquid peace, like floating in a fathomless ocean. Untethered. _Free_.

He knew why Steve could dangle by one hand, why he never so much as flinched in alarm when Tony took off or twisted, turned, rose, fell. He trusted him. Absolutely. If he fell, he would die, but Tony wouldn’t let him fall. 

Tony was sure the danger of it all appealed to the burning animal core inside of Steve, too. He was the super soldier who could stand to be ponied around for a time but needed, absolutely _needed_ like most people needed air, an outlet. 

He found it at S.H.I.E.L.D., on high-risk missions where every second was characterized by the possibility of being spotted, shot, forced to fight for his life from a corner. He found it by picking playful fights with the family, mostly Thor but occasionally Natasha and Clint, enjoying any opportunity to test what he could do against worthy opponents. 

He was burning to be alive, to run as fast and as far as he could, to leap as high and punch as hard as possible, to roll out of a fall that would’ve killed someone else, to feel the reverberation of a blow against his shield. Tony didn’t know what, exactly, appealed to Steve. Maybe it was the pounding heart, the shivering adrenaline, the feeling of being _alive_ that came from being forced to earn the next breath.

He didn’t explicitly find the danger of it all appealing, but he was electrifying in motion, clearly in his element. It was impressive to watch—Tony had caught him leaping down the staircases, not stairs, _staircases_ , one level to the next, until Tony flew down in the Iron Man suit and caught him mid-jump, grateful for the suit’s now instinctive familiarity with Steve’s weight as it handled the challenge admirably. Steve had smiled sheepishly, admitted that he was trying to see if he could beat the elevator, and Tony had sighed behind the mask before lowering it and kissing him. 

He was always, always looking for a way to be in motion, itching to feel something. Danger was a drug to him, a pacifier and a stimulant, keeping him peaceable with the strange world he’d been thrust into while simultaneously riling him up, inspiring a search for the next challenge.

He was a great soldier. 

Tony? Tony was happy to have these moments of quiet ecstasy. He loved flying alone. He loved flying with Steve. In a reflective moment, he wondered why he wasn’t jealous, in some way, that Steve was enjoying this sacred thing, this thing that _belonged_ to Tony. He was Iron Man. Maybe it was the sheer enjoyment in Steve’s expression, the way he listened to Tony ramble about his projects. They were starting to lose sleep over it all—daytime jobs, nighttime escapades—but Tony didn’t care. All he wanted was to take off and disappear. Steve went with him, trusted him, _believed_ in Iron Man.

And that was what made the difference, Tony decided. Steve believed in what he did and appreciated it not because he coveted it—far from it; Tony never got farther than _let me make you a suit_ before Steve shook his head—but because he thought it was simply wonderful. He looked at Tony and the suit with the pure starry-eyed admiration. It was a marvel, and he marveled it. There was no one alive, Tony realized, who thought as highly of him as Steve. Steve, who thought of him not as Tony Stark, genius, playboy, billionaire, philanthropist—just Tony. 

A man who made beautiful things. A man who wanted to share them.

 _Share this life with me_.

He didn’t know how long it’d last, but he hoped in a quiet, untiring corner of his soul, that it’d last forever.

What he embraced, what he held onto, was the present: holding Steve, kissing him, too high for the world to reach them. Untouchable.

Invincible.

. o . 

The core was burning him.

Tony squeezed his eyes shut, breathing shallowly through his mouth, trying to keep panic at bay. He was out of bed in an instant, surging to his feet, crashing into the wall. Bare-chested, the arc reactor was a brilliant blue-white light in the dark room. He was out the door before J.A.R.V.I.S. could ask if he was all right. He moved on shaking limbs towards the door. It wasn’t even locked, and he wrenched it open manually. Steve looked at him in surprise, looking oddly domestic in his pajamas with an open paperback in hand, lying on top of the single sheet on his bed, but he was on his feet, catching Tony as he stumbled forward, making worried sounds, "Tony, Tony, what’s going on, talk to me."

Tony couldn’t, scrambling feebly for his shirt, shaking. It didn’t hurt, not yet—it was heartburn, literally. He wanted to laugh, but it bubbled out of him as a sob. Steve cradled the back of his head and pressed it to his own shoulder, safety, crooning, " _Shh. Shh._ " He couldn’t know.

Tony couldn’t find his voice, couldn’t speak at all, paralyzed. He didn’t want to die. They hadn’t killed him in Afghanistan and hehadn’t died, either, hadn’t collapsed under the weight of the world, hadn’t vanished into nothingness in a nuclear fireball, he’d _survived_ this, this terrible everything, this suffocating everything. He clawed at Steve’s back and gasped like he was drowning. Steve walked backwards, sitting on the bed and pulling Tony into his lap, enveloping him in his arms, shushing softly. “Tony, it's okay,” he soothed. “I’m here. It’s okay.”

He hiccupped, shivering and curling up tighter, desperate to disappear in Steve’s embrace. Then the arc reactor couldn’t touch him. It couldn’t kill him. _It’s not killing me_ , he tried to argue, but he knew what it all meant, was too canny not to know what happened when you played with fire. He’d made something beautiful, something indescribable—with Yinsen, at first, and his father, in spirit—but it came with a terrible price. He was Iron Man—the _only_ Iron Man—for a reason. The price was too steep.

He shivered in Steve’s arms, desperate, absolutely desperate to be anyone other than Tony Stark, just once, just so he could be okay. It wasn’t the intensity of the pain—there was little pain, just the burn, the strong, unmistakable _burn_ —but the presence of that made him sob. Steve held him and crooned, “Shh, I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

Tony stayed in the safe huddle of his arms, long enough his limbs cramped up, but he didn’t move. Steve shielded him, keeping a wall between the rest of the world and Tony. Tony forced himself to take a breath, a gasping thing, feeling Steve’s chest rising and falling, slow, deep. He deep-breathed naturally. Tony focused on it, slowly releasing his white-knuckled grip on Steve’s shirt. He flattened his hands against his back, inhaled sharply, and let it out shakily. “It’s okay,” Steve promised, rubbing his back in broad, sweeping strokes. “’m here, Tony.”

Swallowing hard, Tony emerged from the huddle to look at him. Steve met his gaze with a soft expression. “What do you need?”

Tony stared at him helplessly. Reaching forward, he rested a palm flat against the center of Steve’s chest. The arc reactor reflected against Steve’s shirt, he noticed. Steve covered Tony’s hand with his own and squeezed it. He knew that Steve would rip his own heart out if he could give it to Tony. He cupped Tony’s face and kissed him.

Tony rested a hand in his hair, scruffing it lightly, just to feel something warm and soft. He still couldn’t find his voice and briefly entertained the idea that it was gone forever. He knew he would lament the loss, eventually, but not long—not as long as he could still _fly_.

He pulled at Steve. Steve was too heavy for him to drag around but he went as effortlessly as if he had no choice, couldn’t fathom _not_ following Tony. He probably thought Tony was going to take them back to Tony’s room, but Tony dragged him instead into the main room. It was empty and dark—Steve shouldn’t have even been awake, but it was three AM, and sometimes he was—and Tony stumbled towards the balcony, knowing how frantic he must appear, jerking Steve’s shirt, pulling him along. He all but shoved him to the railing, kicking the briefcase with his suit, pulling it on with familiar ease, gasping for breath inside the mask.

Steve cupped his face, stared at unblinking eyes, and said, “Okay, Tony.” He wrapped his arms around the Iron Man shoulders, holding on tightly, because Tony wasn’t sure he could hold him. He lifted off slowly, the ground melting away, panicked breath quickening. “I’ve got you,” Steve reminded, sensing his trembling hesitation, pressed close to his shoulder. “You’re okay.”

Tony rose, flew high above the city and reached up, hands free, to retract the helmet. The air was cool but not cold, only slightly thinner than below. He gasped in full breaths, feeling comfort sink into his bones. He was safe, up here. He was safe. Steve was holding him so tightly he could _feel_ it, not out of fear but simple need to convey what he insisted: _It’s okay. I’m here_.

He stopped gulping air and hovered trembling in the abyss. Steve held onto him, _held_ him. “I’ve got you.”

Tony closed his eyes, swallowed, breathed rich cool air far above the city but not above the clouds. The clouds were too high. This was high enough. This was safe. Tension melted out of him. He sighed, curling his arms around Steve, holding him up. Steve loosened his own grip so he could lean back and look Tony in the eyes. “Hey,” Steve murmured, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Hi, sweetheart.”

Tony shivered. He gasped for breath. His chest was burning, but it was so distant—too cold up here to notice it, too safe with Steve pressed against him, holding him. “I’ve got you,” Steve promised, framing Tony’s face with his hands so he could pull him close, kiss his brow. He no longer had _any_ grip on Tony, whatsoever, trusting the Iron arms wrapped around him not to give way. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Tony breathed against him, feeling his weight like nothing with Iron Man’s strength but still _there_ , still present. Steve stroked his thumbs over Tony’s cheeks, smoothing over tear tracks. “Whatever it is,” Steve promised, “we’ll fix it. Together.”

Tony’s arms relaxed, not enough to drop him but no longer a death grip, the terror finally melting into something like acceptance. _It’s not over. But we’re gonna fix it. We’re gonna fix it_.

If there was anyone who could do the impossible, he thought, sliding his arms under Steve’s haunches, holding him up, it was Captain America. “Okay,” he whispered. Steve wrapped his legs around Tony’s waist, holding on tightly, supporting himself as he cupped Tony’s face. “Okay,” Tony repeated, looking into deep blue eyes he could barely see and _believing_. “I trust you,” he said, voice shaking but sincere.

Steve kissed him on the cheek, held it there, let him feel the warmth of his words as he said, “I’ve got you.” A kiss to his temple. “I won’t let you fall.”

Tony closed his eyes, still shaking, still holding him, feeling his heart beat slow. Steve held him, breathing deeply, face tucked against Tony’s shoulder, breath warm on his neck. Tony fisted his hair in a gauntlet-covered hand. “I love you,” he said.

“I love you, too, Tony.”

He didn’t know how long they stayed airborne, but the suit held them up, and Steve held him.

Eventually, he stopped shaking, too.

. o . 

“I’m afraid the reactor is critically damaged, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. said, as gently as he could. Tony stood mutely in the suit. “It is essential that you replace the core before it causes more damage to the surrounding tissue.”

“What do you need to replace it?” Steve prompted at once, standing nearby, frowning at the wall like J.A.R.V.I.S. was standing there.

Tony swallowed bile. “Palladium.” His voice didn’t tremble. He was grateful for that.

Steve looked at him for a moment, floored. Then his expression firmed, suddenly stony. “Okay,” he said, turning around.

Tony didn’t catch him until he was at the doorway. “Where’re you going?”

Steve smiled tightly. “Don’t ask.” He kissed Tony’s brow. “I’ll be back in . . . ninety minutes.” He squeezed Tony’s gauntlet-covered hand. “Stay.”

He took off running. Tony thought of the relief he felt when Steve barreled breathlessly out of the staircase because a car was too _slow_ , and knew where he was going.

“J.A.R.V.I.S.,” he croaked.

“I’m here, sir.”

“He’s gonna do something stupid, isn’t he?”

A beat. “S.H.I.E.L.D. does carry a supply of palladium.”

Tony rested his gauntlet-covered hands on the table in front of him and rasped, “He’s so fuckin’ stupid.”

“Sir?”

“Gonna get himself killed doing this stuff.”

“. . . Everything will be all right, sir.”

Tony sighed, reaching up to rub his face. It was bad when J.A.R.V.I.S. was reassuring him. He knew he was too close to an edge, to panic.

Ninety minutes. He could survive ninety minutes.

Sitting by the wall, still in his suit of armor, he tried and failed not to watch the clock.

. o . 

At S.H.I.E.L.D., it was scarcely the pandemonium Tony envisioned, Captain America barreling in, a force of nature ready to mow down anything that stood in his way. No: though Tony couldn’t know it, Steve went straight to Fury. All he said was, “I’ll do anything you want for a pound of palladium.”

Fury raised his eyebrows, but he didn’t say anything. He stood from behind his desk and gestured for Steve to follow him.

Steve was back in forty-one minutes.

. o . 

Once again bright red and gasping for breath, he stumbled into the lab with his arms cradling the tube full of one pound of palladium. Tony watched him for a moment, unable to believe he wasn’t dreaming, head foggy enough for it. Steve saw him sitting against the wall and hurried over, crouching in front of him but sliding to the floor, gasping, almost laughing as he said, “Okay, I’ll take the elevator next time.”

Tony blinked at him, at the tube in his hands. “I got it,” Steve explained, holding up the tube. “How much do you need?”

His voice was hoarse. “0.15 grams.”

Steve looked at the tube like he didn’t know he was holding over four hundred and fifty grams of the stuff, more than 3,000 times the amount Tony needed to make a new chip, before he looked over at Tony hopefully. Tony closed his eyes, relief and agony washing over him because oh, God. Steve helped usher him to his feet, still drenched in sweat but breathing more normally, asking, “How can I help?”

Tony hugged him, iron between them, squeezing hard enough Steve grunted. Then he released him, took a breath. He asked J.A.R.V.I.S., “Can you cut it?”

“The laser cutter should be sufficient,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied.

Looking at Steve, still holding the tube of silver rock, Tony tapped his arc reactor and said, “The core is burning itself out.” Nodding at the rock, he explained, “That’s the replacement.”

“Is it enough?”

Tony closed his eyes. “Yeah, that’ll get me to my 110th birthday.”

Relieved, Steve said, “What do you need me to do?”

“J.A.R.V.I.S.’ll cut it. Then I. . . .” He trailed off, hand gripping the reactor protectively. “Replace it,” he said, hating how sick it made him feel. He didn’t want to touch the arc reactor. It made him uneasy. The thought of catastrophic failure crossed his mind. But he’d done it before. He could do it again. “It’s surprisingly simple.”

Steve nodded—simple was his element, brute force, the handyman’s way; Tony was the true scientist, the devastating footnote—and added, “Let’s get started.”

. o .

After, Tony dozed on Steve’s chest.

They were lying on the couch because they couldn’t bear either of their rooms. Tony was afraid the panic would make him despise his own space, but that was a worry for later, a problem for future Tony. Present Tony was tired, exhausted beyond words—he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept a full night—and Steve was soft and warm underneath him. Tony had pulled a shirt over his head so they could lounge chest to chest. His feet were up on Steve’s ankles, his entire body weight resting on top of him. Steve breathed easily, supporting his weight effortlessly, cheek tucked against the top of Tony’s head.

Tony mumbled, “Steve?” 

“Hm?”

Tony relaxed. “Just checkin’.” 

Steve exhaled a breath. “I’m here, Tony.”

Tony nodded against him, shut his eyes. “I know. I know, big guy.”

“’m not going anywhere.”

Tony inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly. “We’re okay.”

“We’re okay,” Steve echoed.

Tony nodded again, feeling sleep slip its arms around him, warm and irresistible. “Stay here,” he murmured.

Steve cupped the back of his head. “I will.”

He meant it. Tony, the newly-powered but still terrifyingly damaged arc reactor now painless in his chest, drifted off to the sound of Steve’s soft, reassuring hum underneath him.

. o .

_Tony flew in his dream, sleepless under the stars. Steve held him, and he was wearing the Iron Man suit. Maybe it was blue, Tony mused, like the rest of him. He held Tony, gliding on his back, expressionless behind the mask but radiating so much warmth and love it broke his heart._

_Tony knew in a vague way that he himself was wearing Captain America’s uniform. He could feel it, the press of cool air, the openness of movement, no iron wall between him and the world. Maybe that should have alarmed him, being up here, human and breakable._

_But he was safe. He was with Iron Man._

_It was the safest place in the world._


	9. MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As is now probably apparent, this story diverges from the canon MCU. While I am making every effort to retain key elements of the original story, I also want to explore new possibilities, so I've decided to retcon Iron Man 2. 
> 
> As we saw in the last chapter, palladium is still causing Tony problems as of this post-Avengers 1 environment. You'll soon see another major story shift in this chapter.

Market-value, one pound of pure palladium was worth almost $100,000.

Tony knew Steve didn’t know the true worth of the silvery metal, but his source had to. No one who had $100,000 of pure palladium didn’t know what they were sitting on. It was, roughly speaking, as valuable as gold but fourteen times rarer. There was always a price to pay for high-value stock like that. Only one organization had the kind of sway to keep palladium on hand and supply it on good faith alone.

The problem wasn’t cost: Tony earned $100,000 every hour, merely by existing. He’d invested a hundred times as much into the Sea Turtle Fund without hesitation, equal to a full five-day work week of income. Numbers to a billionaire were very different from numbers to even a millionaire, removed from the respectable echelons of society capable of batting upwards of $100,000 a year. Dropping $100k on a shady market dealer would have been nothing to Tony. He would have done it in a heartbeat to obtain the metal he needed, but palladium wasn’t shuttled by shady market dealers.

The problem wasn’t expense: it was _rarity_. There weren’t many companies who owned palladium. A few fancy car dealers used it in their plating; men’s jewelry had experienced a recent uptick in palladium popularity, but it was hardly the ubiquitous metal of the world. The esteemed dealers who _did_ handle palladium rarely kept a chunk of the stuff lying around. 

It was a rich man’s metal: the least business-savvy people imaginable could accumulate small mountains of gold, but locked doors and firm rebuffs awaited the fool who tried to part a company with its beloved platinum metal group member. It was rare. No amount of money could increase the supply. That meant it was worth more than market-value.

A lot more, actually. _No amount of money could increase the supply._ It was a mantra that kept Tony up at night, even though he knew he had enough in that tube to last upwards of 60 years, assuming the same rate of annual degradation of the chips. He was optimistic enough to believe he could perfect the chest plate, make it almost indestructible, but he would still age naturally. One pound of palladium could power his arc reactor for the rest of his life. _That_ was how potent it was.

There was only one organization capable of supplying Steve with a pound of the stuff on short notice.

Tony tried to corner Steve about it, but Steve was evasive. He never outright shrugged Tony off, but he found a way to avoid answering his questions, usually by stuffing a fist-sized chunk of food into his mouth. It was comical and infuriating.

Tony _knew_ where he had gotten the palladium. Steve knew it, too, but Steve was nothing if not loyal to his own missions. Even if Steve had sold his soul to the Devil, he wasn’t about to break that confidence, even for Tony. Maybe especially for Tony. 

In his oddly rigid sense of justice, Steve probably saw it as cruel to bring Tony into the loop, like it would put Tony in the immoral position of having to lie on a future occasion to protect himself. It was bullshit, in other words, but Steve was immovable on the matter.

So, Tony went to the big guy himself. “I know you gave it to him,” Tony prefaced. Fury sat behind his desk, utterly implacable. He was never surprised by Tony’s visits, no matter how unplanned they were. Tony knew _neurotic_ was part of his personal file and hated that S.H.I.E.L.D. had classified him as such; he was calm, collected, but also passionate, _alive_. The whole robotic routine was best left to the suits. People were spitfire. They were supposed to emote. 

The fact that S.H.I.E.L.D. treated anger as poison and disobedience as treason were just two reasons why Tony didn’t like them. But he needed them. “So, let’s cut to the part where you tell me _why_ you gave it to him so we don’t have to waste each other’s time.”

Fury looked down at the computer in front of him, typing away. He finished whatever Tony had interrupted. Steaming, Tony took a seat in the chair in front of him, pulled out a palladium chip and demanded, “ _Why did you give it to him?_ ”

A few more clicks. Fury finished whatever he was doing before turning to look at Tony coolly. “I know you think I’m a bad guy,” he began. Tony glared at him, impatient. “But I am a reasonable man. I’m willing to exchange goods for services and accept favors on good faith. No one’s faith is more reliable than Captain America’s.” Leaning back, opening his chest, he added, “I’m familiar with your father’s work. We’ve had a small supply of palladium on hand for decades.”

Tony was floored. The gears shifted into place. “You replicated the suit.”

Fury didn’t blink. “It’s merely a precaution,” he said. “We’ve never used it, and we have no intentions of using it at this time.”

Tony saw red. “You _stole_ my _suit_.”

Fury turned to the laptop and spun it around to face Tony. “It’s a nuclear deterrent,” he explained. Tony stared at the blueprint, speechless over what he was seeing. “We didn’t begin construction until Obadiah Stane debuted his own model. We weighed the pros and cons and decided it would be better to have it and never need it than to want it but not have it.”

Tony couldn’t speak, leaning forward, looking at the model. It was a true blueprint displaying the architecture of the suit, the statistics printed in an almost unreadable font near it. It was indubitably inspired by the Iron Man model—and basic human anatomy, Tony allowed—but it was bulkier. Tony’s suit wasn’t a combat thing, resembled a very fast car more than an armored tank, but _this_ , this was a war machine. Even without the hard model in front of him—he reeled at the thought that this suit _existed_ , right now, somewhere in the facility—he could feel the sleek power of it, the undeniable realness. He felt sick, gripping the chair in a hand.

“If it’s any consolation,” Fury said, turning the laptop back towards himself, “our power efficiency is less than 10% of the original.” He looked right at Tony, reading him. “It’s a powerful suit, but each chip only lasts a few days. They burn out.” He shrugged. “Given its purpose—as a deterrent, rather than a weapon—duration is not an essential property. So, we put the suit aside and kept enough palladium on hand for emergencies.”

Tony stared at him. “How much do you have?”

Fury regarded him with an unreadable expression. “That’s not information I’m inclined to share, Mr. Stark.”

Tony wanted to believe it was because they had a huge supply. As disarming as the thought was—they had an _Iron Man_ suit—it was better than the alternative: the palladium had been dear. If S.H.I.E.L.D. had only a few kilograms in their vaults. . . .

He’d walked in prepared to deal with the Devil himself, to forfeit as much palladium as he could spare to remove the ax over his head. But the idea of parting with a single ounce was suddenly too dear. They had a _suit_. Anything he gave them they could use against him. _They won’t._

 _They might_.

He inhaled deeply, centering himself. There was nothing he could do about their suit. He hadn’t patented Iron Man. Even if he _had_ patented it, S.H.I.E.L.D. was a black-ops organization. They operated outside the law: they would freely reverse-engineer the suit even with his open and stern denouncement and threat of legal repercussions. 

He could sue S.H.I.E.L.D. out of existence, but it would cost even him a lot. Anything less than total success was only likely to put pressure on the Avengers Initiative, to ruin his good name. He’d gone on the _record_ encouraging others to duplicate the suit, to take a stab at the technology. He had no plans to mass-market the suit—that would require the sort of capitalistic ruthlessness that didn’t allow for hands-on design control—and he’d nonchalantly given the public his blessing to try to catch up.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had. In less than a year. 

Tony felt dizzy. The only comforting thought was that S.H.I.E.L.D. had more information on Iron Man than any organization outside Stark Industries. The goddamn Avengers Initiative ensured that: he’d been in their system and they’d seen the suit. He’d foolishly allowed them to watch him operate the suit, collecting footage, analyzing data. Nothing so overt that he could see what they were up to, but enough information to give them a firm boost ahead of the competition. Short of having a defunct suit in their hands, it was the next best thing. A fully functional Iron Man in their midst.

Paranoia crept in, darkening the edges of Tony’s vision. He pushed it aside and said as calmly as he could, “Strangely enough, I wasn’t inclined to share my suit with you.”

Fury sighed. “I know.” Tony narrowed his eyes. “I never wanted to alienate you, Stark.”

“Did a damn good job of it anyway.”

“There is safety in being prepared. There may come a day when you are unable to respond to a call where only Iron Man can help.”

“So that’s it. Totally altruistic reasons. You’ll protect the city when I can’t.”

“Protect the _world_ ,” Fury agreed with a slight nod. “I know it feels personal. It’s not. You invented a new kind of gun. We replicated it.”

“It is _not_ a gun,” Tony said, suddenly caustic.

Fury’s expression was flat. “Call it what you will, every new technology has the capacity to be weaponized. Even old technologies can be turned into weapons: you’ve heard of how there are countless ways you can kill people using seemingly harmless items. We live in tumultuous times, Stark. Our world is one step away from nuclear disaster, one major city leveled from a human extinction level event. If you aren’t there to respond? Someone has to be.”

“I quit the Avengers,” Tony said slowly, suddenly understanding, “so you replaced me. You _cloned_ me.”

“We can’t clone you.”

“You cloned _Iron Man_.”

“I have given you,” Fury said, very calmly, very firmly, “everything you have asked for and more. Resources. Information. _Protection_.” Tony’s chest felt tight, anger trembling in his shoulders. “You wanted to be left alone, I left you alone. You wanted out, I let you out. And when Rogers asked for palladium, I knew why he needed it.” Without hesitation, Fury finished, “I gave it because I knew _you_ needed it.”

“Where’s your cut?” Tony asked, voice level. “What do you get out of all this?”

“I get the Avengers,” Fury said simply.

. o . 

“How loyal are you to S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

Sitting on his bed, still in uniform in the middle of the goddamn night, Steve looked up and frowned at Tony. “I’m serious,” Tony added, sensing his disbelief. “Where would you draw the line?”

Steve thought about it. At last, he said in a low voice, “What’s this about, Tony?”

Tony leaned against the open doorway. “I need you to destroy something for me.”

Steve’s body language shifted, all traces of ease removed. He stood straight-backed and regarded Tony skeptically. “I don’t sabotage,” he said slowly. “That’s not my style.”

“Make it your style.” He stepped inside, letting the door slide shut behind him. “I’m dead serious, Rogers. You like the greater good? This is for the greater good.”

Steve approached, slow, cautious steps. “The greater good,” he repeated. “Heard that a lot, back in my day. Not sure it always ended up being the best thing for everybody.”

“Sometimes you gotta burn bridges.”

“What’s this about, Tony?” he insisted.

Tony caught the edges of his uniform near the flanks. Steve breathed deeply, but Tony could feel the tension. “They have my suit,” he began, trying to push the paranoia out of his voice. “You don’t have to steal it. I don’t want it. I just want it gone. I’ve seen what you can do—you could rip it apart. Destroy it. Make it obsolete.” He stroked the material under his thumbs, more out of self-comfort than anything. “I just need you to destroy it.”

Steve exhaled slowly. He didn’t ask if Tony was sure. He didn’t even ask how Tony knew. He just said, “I can’t do that, Tony.”

Tony clenched the fabric in his fists, feeling heat and anger burning inside him. “Yes, you can,” he insisted stubbornly. “You’re Captain America. You can do anything.”

A muscle twitched in Steve’s jaw. “Y’ know how close they came to terminating me after Kunar? I can’t, Tony. They’ll never let me come back.”

“You don’t _need_ S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Tony said emphatically, tugging hard at his uniform. It didn’t give, at all. Steve narrowed his eyes. “You can work with the rest of us. We’re our _own_ team, Rogers. Barton, Romanoff, Banner, Thor, me and you. That’s all we need. We saved New York City. S.H.I.E.L.D.? They didn’t do a damn thing.” Pause. “They launched a fucking _nuke_ at the city, and you want to bat for their team?”

Slowly, like he didn’t want to say it but couldn’t resist, Steve pointed out, “If they hadn’t launched the nuke, Tony, the Chitauri—”

Tony shoved him back suddenly. “No,” he said forcefully. “They forced our hands. We could’ve held them back. We could’ve taken care of it.”

“Tony. . . .”

“ _Nuclear deterrents don’t work_ ,” Tony said through gritted teeth. His hands were clenched. He wanted to punch someone, but not Steve, so he kept them there. “You can’t claim to be peaceful and fire on your own nation the second you get scared. They’re going to _use_ my suit, Steve, don’t you get that? Maybe Fury has good intentions, but the people around him? The Council? They’ll hit _fire_. They’ll send Iron Man wherever they want him to go. It is a _weapon_ in their hands. I don’t want _that_.”

Steve said again, “Tony.” He sounded exasperated, tired, torn.

Tony pushed him hard without laying a hand on him. “I need you to understand something. Okay? Because somehow it hasn’t gotten through to you yet. They _weaponized_ you, Rogers. They turned you into their own pet super-soldier, they made you battle hungry, they told you there was a war, and then they sent you into battle whenever they wanted with nothing to keep you alive but that shield. I need you to _get_ that that is the life you _live_ , that you are choosing to live, but it is not the life _I_ want to live. I don’t want to fight their war, and I don’t want them using my suit as a goddamn _weapon_.”

For the first time, he caught a hint of steel in Steve’s eyes. Battle-ready.

Tony stared at him, desperation and regret warring for control. He settled on desperation. “This is never going to end well for you. You’re going to die at best and wish you were dead at worst. Get out while you still can. Leaving them? Is the best thing you can do for yourself.”

“I don’t do it for me.”

Six words stopped Tony in his tracks. 

In a surprisingly calm, steady, _Captain America_ voice, Steve went on, “I don’t fight for me. I fight because there are people dying, Tony, and I have a chance to save them. I could do it on my own, but it wouldn’t be effective. A one-man army can only work piecemeal, one step at a time. S.H.I.E.L.D. has the system; they’re prepared to fight a _war_. And you can be damn well sure that I’m not gonna shy away from it.” Steve drew in a deep, steadying breath, cooling off from the sudden bite of anger. “I get it. I know. I’m not stupid, I _know_ that I’m not gonna win every time, that someday I’m gonna go and not come back. I’m fine with that.” Looking at Tony, some of his stiff upright manner faded. He slouched. His next words were damning. “Dammit, Tony, I never wanted a reason to _live_ here, and I found one, and you want me to give it up?”

Tony felt very, very cold. He couldn’t speak, staring at Steve, suddenly seeing a darkness he hadn’t wanted to before. It was so subtle, he wasn’t even mad that he hadn’t noticed it. Even Steve’s admission seemed at odds with his indomitable strength. Steve was happy, well-adjusted, a part of their family, a part of _Tony’s_ life. He wasn’t passing time, wasn’t using these light distractions for what they were: brief moments of respite from the war. The war was over, but not to Steve Rogers. The war was still all he could see. 

Steve looked away, expression unfaltering. “I’m sorry, Tony.” He didn’t explain what for.

Tony found his own voice. “Me, too.” Steve didn’t look at him. Tony reached for his wrist, squeezed his gloved hand. A wall of armor. An iron shell. “I’m sorry,” he echoed. “I. . . .” He gripped the sleeve tightly, helplessly. “I just feel like I can’t breathe, knowing they have—”

“I’ll do it.”

Steve looked at him, unfaltering conviction in his eyes. “Just say the word, Tony. Tell me to go. I’ll go. I’ll destroy the suit. Damn the torpedoes.”

Tony stared at him, thunderstruck. He’d _wanted_ this, this was exactly the outcome he’d been hoping for, the sort of compliance he’d sought when he pushed Steve to the verbal edge, but all he could see was Steve’s back in the door, and three invisible letters painted across his shoulders. _MIA_. 

“I can do it,” Steve said with raw conviction, utmost confidence. No hesitation. Tony wasn’t forcing him to find courage in himself. He was _there_. He’d decided. _Damn the torpedoes_. “I can get in, I can get the suit, I can destroy it. Just say the word.” He looked down at Tony’s hand, clutching his suit with numb fingers. “Tell me to go,” he repeated softly, almost pleadingly.

 _Make the call_.

Tony’s heart beat very fast. For a moment he was terrified what word would come out of his mouth. _No retractions_.

“Don’t.”

Steve closed his eyes, shutting him out like he couldn’t bear to stand in front of him. “You want me to go,” he justified in a tight voice. “I know you do. C’mon, Tony. Tell me to _go—_ ”

“I don’t want you to go.” He tugged on Steve’s sleeve. “I don’t. I want you here. I want you with me. Okay? I don’t want you to go. I don’t want you to get hurt for me. I don’t want you to do _this_ for me.” He slid his hand up Steve’s shivering arm, cupped Steve’s face in both hands. “Stay with me,” he entreated. “Please.”

Steve broke away from him, not for the door but for the other side of the bed, a wall between them. He paced like a caged animal. He radiated agitation, like he couldn’t bear the duality of it all. 

He was panicking, Tony realized, even if it looked nothing like he thought of panic: none of the breathlessness, (he was panting faintly, close-mouthed), none of the shaking (shivering, invisibly, you had to touch him to feel it), and none of the silent screaming terror. Steve snapped with unexpected ferocity, “I didn’t want this! I didn’t want any of this!”

Tony didn’t dare approach him, knowing how much raw power was locked up in his muscles. He could hurt Tony without even trying. _Stay back_. Steve fisted a hand in his own hair, seethed aloud, “Goddammit, I didn’t want this. I didn’t want any of this, I didn’t want the war, I didn’t _ask for it_.” He sank to his knees, curling into a ball, pressing back against the bed. “I—I can't breathe.”

Tony took a step closer. Steve shivered, pressed as small as he could go. His voice was muffled against his knees. “I don’t wanna live here, I’m not _from_ here, don’t you get that, Tony? I’m not from here, I’m never gonna be from here.” Tony crouched beside him, keeping his distance. “I can’t breathe,” Steve gasped, and Tony shifted closer and wrapped his arms around him, squeezing so tightly it would’ve hurt anyone else. “I can’t breathe.”

Tony rested his cheek on the back of Steve’s trembling shoulder. “S’okay.” Steve gasped like he couldn’t get enough air in his lungs, filling them desperately. “Easy. Easy, big guy.” Hauling him as close as he could, Tony insisted, “I’ve gotcha, buddy, I’m here. I’m not gonna let you drown.” He inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly. Centering himself. “I’ve never let you drown. Okay? Not gonna happen here. I’m here. I’m here. It's okay.”

Steve shook, uncurling enough to sink his hands into Tony’s shirt, clutching it. “Yeah, I’m here,” Tony promised him. He breathed in again deeply, feeling Steve’s fingers rise with the motion. “It’s okay. I’ve gotcha.” Steve shifted, huddling against him, shaking like he was freezing to death. “Hey, hey.” Tony rubbed his back. “Shh, it’s okay. Not gonna let you drown.”

He wondered, in a terribly curious corner of his mind, if it was like this, on that dark, solitary morning. Steve had wiped out the Cell in maybe an hour. It had taken the Quinjet five hours to rendezvous with him. 

Tony could see him staggering around, lost, in an empty battlefield, the sole combatant left standing. He may have sunk to the dirt, curled up like he was now, for all the world like he was in a shallow foxhole trying not to get blown to pieces. It made his heart burn. He pushed the thought aside. He would never know, didn’t want to ask Steve and verify his own terrible suspicions.

He inhaled slowly, filled his own lungs. Steve deep-breathed naturally. It was strange, almost unnatural, because most people lived frantic lives, trying to _go_ as much as possible, sleep as little as possible, do as little as possible. The idea of pausing long enough to draw _breath_ , the very essence of being alive, was abhorrent, unfamiliar. 

People didn’t do it anymore, maybe never had. But Steve did. He deep-breathed. He did it unconsciously, Tony was sure. He knew that the gasping breaths he drew now were doubly painful because of it. Tony had been there, trembling in silent agony, had watched Steve huddle against the wall in unadulterated terror because _oh, God, Tony, they’re all dead._

Shutting his own eyes, he waited out the storm, rubbing Steve’s back and focusing on breathing. The right way: not gasping for breath but lingering for a beat, _inhale deep, exhale slow_. It was calming, made it possible to weather the panic without succumbing to animal terror, because Captain America didn’t fall to pieces, didn’t shake with dead terror, he was invulnerable, but Captain America was a mask. Underneath it, Steve Rogers shook and screamed silently for breath.

Sitting there, feeling his legs going numb and not caring at all, he felt calm descend over his own shoulders. The blind fear _he’d_ felt, listening to Fury talk about _their_ suit, _my suit_ , was dissipating. It couldn’t stand up to his own place of calm, his inner peace. 

Steve was his rock, his shelter, his safe place, but Tony was the keeper of his own peace. He could find it even when Steve couldn’t be that for him. He found it now. He felt the rawness of emotions—anger, fear, _paranoia—_ softening. They were still there, but they weren’t knives digging deeper into his own chest. He’d come to Steve begging him to help, but he’d asked for the wrong kind of help.

He didn’t want Steve to hurt and maim and _kill_ for him.

He wanted Steve to be with him. Here. Safe.

Damn the suit, he thought, sighing, letting go of the anger. There were better ways. Better ways of dealing with the terrible things they’d both endured. _V_ _engeance is not a cure_.

Steve inhaled against his shoulder, still gripping his shirt but no longer shaking as hard or gasping for breath. Tony held onto him, a silent promise. Slowly, Steve eased his grip, until he was loosely holding Tony’s shirt. Tony rubbed his cheek against the top of Steve’s head, soft hair tussled in his silent fury. “S’okay,” he murmured aloud, Steve’s fingers flexing around his shirt. “S’okay.”

Steve didn’t move, sighing against his chest. “’m sorry.”

“You apologize again, I’m gonna put ants in your pants,” Tony said.

He felt Steve huff, amused in spite of himself. “You don’t even have ants, Tony.”

“I could acquire them. They live outside. I occasionally go outside.” He shrugged and sank deeper into the soft surface at his back, feeling Steve relax against him. The uniform was stiff, but the lines of Steve’s back were smoothing, less rigid. “I always wanted an ant farm,” Tony admitted wistfully. Steve made a questioning sound against him. “It’s a farm. Where you raise ants.” A pause. “Well, actually, I don’t think you raise them so much as you watch them raise themselves.” He huffed at himself. “I can’t believe I’m getting philosophical about ants. You still have to feed them. I think.” Another meaningful pause. “I’d make a good Ant-Dad.”

Steve sighed, but there was so much fondness in his voice. “Ant-Dad.”

Nodding gravely, cheek brushing the top of Steve’s head, Tony said, “You’ve convinced me. I’m going to buy an ant farm. Did you know you can mail-order ants now? I wonder if they ship fire ants. Those fuckers are _mean_.” Steve laughed silently: Tony felt the hitching in his shoulders. “Don’t snark at me, you ever been bit? Of course you haven’t, you’d have the fear of God instilled in you if you knew what fire ants were like. They’re called _fire ants_ , Steve. They eat fire for breakfast.”

Steve murmured, almost softly enough he missed it, “I love you.”

Tony squeezed him, feeling warm in his chest. “Yeah, I love you, too. Nerd. Do you even _know_ what a bullet ant is?”

"No."

"It's an ant. That, specifically to spite humanity, was created with a bite so painful people have compared it to being shot.”

“Bet it’s not that bad,” Steve mumbled.

Tony sighed, pinched his side and said, “You sweet, summer child.”

Steve hummed against him, not deigning that with a real response.

. o . 

Tony flew alone. He flew into the fathomless darkness, up, up, and away.

It was breathtaking, beautiful. He rose steadily, but without clouds it became hard to gauge the sense of motion. 10,000 feet. 15,000 feet. 20,000 feet. Mount Everest lay on a plane below him as he passed over the 30,000 foot threshold. Cruising altitude for planes was between 30,000 and 36,000 feet, so he rose higher still, hovering in the still, inky darkness. He stayed for a long time, surrounded by peaceful nothingness. 

It was like being on Earth for the first time, realizing that the fast-paced chaos below him was a surficial feature. The Earth below was calm; the Earth above was calm, too. It was an illusion, of course: on a grander scale, the Earth was violent to its core and lethal to the very edge of space. It was not a gentle giant, but hovering in one small part of its fabulous curtain, it was possible to believe it was home.

Tony hovered on his back, gazing up at the stars, still impossibly distant from him. He wondered what it would be like to keep going upward until there was no Earth left, to pass seamlessly into space, untethered, free. He hated that the Chitauri had taken it from him, that first gasp of true infinity. It had been a moment not of exhilaration and joy but blind terror. 

He stared up at the stars, wondering what the other worlds were like, so many other worlds. He’d never get to them all, no matter how good his suits were. There was something almost calming about that knowledge, that it wasn’t possible, that he didn’t need to try. He was free to explore as much as he could, go as far as he could, but he didn’t have to see it all. He could die not knowing some things.

He hovered in space for a long time, letting the suit carry him. Then, with scarcely conscious decision, he rolled, belly to the Earth, back to the stars. He stared at the unseen ground, 34,000 feet below him, hidden behind a sea of clouds. He took a breath, arms and legs splayed, like he was trying to resist the fall. Fan out, provide resistance. 

It was almost instinctive—it _was_ instinctive, Tony amended. Humans possessed an innate sense of their place in space. _Proprioception_. Drifting weightless on air, Tony held himself above the world, savoring the serenity.

The first time he’d ever been more than 10,000 feet high, he’d been terrified, descending on a long, seemingly endless slope. He’d refused to tilt more than fifteen degrees downward. He’d dropped like a stone when he cut the thrusters, a moment of stomach-lurching terror punctuated by a startling arrest as he kicked the thrusters back on and wobbled violently in midair. That was why he’d given J.A.R.V.I.S. the code needed to pilot the suit. He’d never wanted to fall through space again, so he’d ensured that it would be, if not impossible, at least damnably difficult. 

Being able to _fly_ was exhilarating. Falling was the true test. It was the thing that separated him from being bold enough to go as high as the suit would let him and staying close to the floor of the Earth, safe, contained.

With a shout of terror, elation, and raw enjoyment, he arched downward, folded into a sixty-degree dive, and descended earthward like a meteor.

. o . 

Tony was always in a better state of mind after flying. 

Even if he was tired, he felt calmer, more under control. He could fly at any time and escape it all in a single joyous moment. The tangible reminder that he could _escape_ brought him a sense of peace. He kept that with him long after he’d touched down and shed the suit. It was the best feeling in the world, he decided. It was probably the greatest that existed. He felt honored to be able to experience it. Flight was a gift.

He spent the morning in the lab, alone, keeping his distance from the family, ironically fulfilling an old prophecy: _We never have to see each other._ It felt like a long time ago, regarding Steve with cool indifference as if he were an interesting but vaguely sad science experiment. The question was blunt: How long would it take until Captain America died? 

He’d come close, Tony thought, pausing in his tinkering as he saw Steve staring at him, unreadable, broken back lit up in red. Tony resumed his tinkering, busying his hands with the gauntlet, feeling comforted at the thought that Steve was fine. Hurting, but not in a way that would kill him. _Hopefully_. 

Again, Tony stilled, waited for the uncomfortable feeling to pass. He toyed with the gauntlet’s flexibility, moving it to its gentle limits, designed not because metal could not go further but because the flesh and bone underneath couldn’t. It always came back to Tony, the limits of the suit. He needed it to have limits so it wouldn’t hurt him in its zeal to perform at the mechanical ideals.

Immersing himself, losing himself in the work, he set the gauntlet aside, retreating with his tablet to the glorified bean bag. He sifted through his emails long enough to decide only a handful were worth responding to, tapping out responses with quick keystrokes. Then he played Pong with J.A.R.V.I.S., not because it was immersive or thrilling, but because it was easier than getting up and returning to real work. Plus, J.A.R.V.I.S. was good at the game, far better than the basic AI that came preprogrammed with the game. It was almost lively, but mostly it was pure satisfaction.

Talking more to himself than J.A.R.V.I.S., Tony slid his paddle across the screen and murmured, “I wish I could run away. Go somewhere nice. Stay there for a good long while, maybe forever. Find some still-secluded corner of the world and live my life in peace. I’ve earned peace. I think I’ve earned the right to live a peaceful life. Earned the right to be forgotten. It shouldn’t all be remembered, shouldn’t be kept. We should be able to disappear. Not everything should be everyone’s. Some things belong to us, us alone.”

J.A.R.V.I.S. scored. The game kept going. “I like my stuff. I’m very protective of it. Maybe that seems . . . I don’t know. What’s it seem like, bud? I sound crazy yet? Maybe losing everything makes you touchy. Maybe I was always touchy. I think the whole . . . Kunar thing just made it more obvious. All it takes is a near-death experience to highlight your dominant, latent, core—whatever-personality. Doesn’t matter, semantics. Who cares if it’s _avenging_ or _revenging_ or just _venging_? Just because we call it _avenging_ doesn’t make it all that different. Although I don't think people would really rally around the _Revengers_.” Tony scored. The game kept going.

“Honestly, I wish we were just the A-Team. Or maybe the B-Team. I’d be fine being second to bat, so long as the actual A-Team had its shit together. My dream is to be benched forever. I want to retire. That’s my ideal world. I want to stop fighting.” He missed a shot. J.A.R.V.I.S. scored. The game kept going. “You don’t really understand, do you? You’re not human. You don’t have human needs. You don't desire safety and comfort and a nice warm bed. You’re happy wherever you are. That’s enviable. Knowing your place in the universe, whether it’s paradise or paradise lost. Always found that book a little stuffy, but the message, that’s the stuff I like. ‘Paradise lost.’ We lost it. I don't know how we're gonna get it back.”

J.A.R.V.I.S. scored again. Tony concentrated on the game, snatched a point for himself. Then he added breezily, “But, you know, that’s human nature. We like to make a mess. We teach kids to clean up after themselves early in life because it happens so often. Nothing stays good and right and untampered. Things fall apart. Hurricanes strike. Then we pick up the pieces.” A pause. “I guess ‘avenger’ is a pretty good name. Things fall apart, we punch the people who blew down the house. Sound the applause for Earth’s mightiest heroes.” He scored again. Then paused the game.

He looked up from the tablet and saw Steve leaning against the wall, watching him with soft eyes. “I’m not crazy,” Tony prefaced. "Talking to yourself is completely normal.”

Steve pushed off the wall and sauntered over. He wasn’t in uniform. It was nice. Reassuring. _I’m not going into work today_. “I know you’re not crazy,” Steve assured, pulling the chair back from the desk and taking a seat. “Wanted to make sure you were okay.” Reaching up to rub the back of his neck, he added, “You were gone so early, I didn’t even notice.”

“Sorry,” Tony said honestly. 

Steve shrugged and waved a hand. “Nah, it's fine. I knew where you’d gone.” He smiled like he was pleased with that knowledge. Having the knowledge itself. “How was it?”

Tony paused, weighing his response. “Breathtaking,” he decided.

“How high’d you go?”

“34,000 feet.”

Steve whistled appreciatively. “Must be pretty brisk up there.”

Tony couldn’t help but smile, leaning deeper into the cushion. “Seventy below zero, give or take a few degrees.”

Another low whistle. “I’ve had my taste of seventy below,” he mused. “I think I’m set for a lifetime.”

“The suit kind of nullifies the cold factor,” Tony pointed out. “It’s completely self-contained. I can breathe sea level air in perfect warmth up there.”

Steve’s eyes were starry, dazzled. “You told me I could climb Everest. You should. Bet it’s a hell of a view.”

Tony shook his head. “I’m not a mountaineer,” he said. “I don’t worship the tall peaks, I worship the stars.”

Steve smiled. “As we all should. Although I happen to like a good summit, but I can’t fly, either.”

“You could.” Steve’s brow furrowed. “I could make you a suit.”

Steve shook his head. “It’s not me, Tony,” he said. “You’re the man of the future. I’m the man of the past.”

Tony set his tablet aside, mulling over that. “I don’t know, you’re pretty forward thinking.” Steve’s frown deepened, confusion clear on his face. “You see a world without war. A future that can be earned.”

Sitting in silence for a few long moments, Steve leaned back and inhaled. “Honestly, chief, I wish it was already here. I get tired, too.”

“You don’t have to fight all the time,” Tony reminded him. “It’s good to take a breather.”

Steve nodded, eyes not focused on him. “No, yeah, I know. S’good to get out of the office.” He smiled, focused on Tony’s gaze. “You taught me that.” Then, looking around, he added, “Course, your office is right here. That ever get to you?”

“Sometimes,” Tony admitted. “I don’t know what workplace-home separation looks like. This _is_ my home. This is . . . Iron Man.”

Steve nodded again. “Makes sense.”

Pushing himself off the bean bag, Tony ambled over to Steve, sliding onto his knee with surprising ease. “So. What brings you to my space?” he asked, cupping Steve’s face.

His expression was soft, full of wonder. Tony couldn’t get enough of it. “You,” he admitted, tilting his head to kiss Tony’s palm. “We becomin’ codependent?” he asked, sounding more amused than anything.

“If we are, it’s my favorite vice and I’m keeping it.”

Steve huffed against his palm. “I love you,” he said earnestly, making Tony’s heart skip a beat. “I really, really love you.” Tilting his head to look at Tony, face still framed by Tony’s hands, he murmured, “I don’t—I don’t wanna break this, you know? Can only put so much pressure on somethin’ before it snaps.”

Tony kissed his forehead. Steve anchored his arms around Tony’s waist, holding him in place. He was very warm, heavy and real. “We’re not gonna snap,” Tony promised him. Steve’s eyelids slid shut, relief plain on his features. “We’re gonna be okay. Even if it’s hard to figure out how sometimes.”

Steve looked at him, half-lidded eyes, quiet contemplation. “I didn’t mean it,” he murmured. Tony cocked his head. Exhaling, Steve clarified, “I do like being here.” He smiled at Tony ruefully. “I wasn’t lying. S.H.I.E.L.D. was—it was the reason, you know. For a long time. I couldn’t go home, but I could get up and go to work. That was something I could do, and it became the reason for bein’ here. Fury—I know you don’t. . . .” He trailed off, stared at Tony, weighing his words. 

“I know you don’t like him very much,” he decided, “but he’s been. . . . He cares. A lot. He’s kept me sane. Some nights, Tony, I honest to God thought I’d go crazy. I thought my mind was gonna break, because I was all but clawing at the walls, unable to accept that I was _here_. In 2012. 2012.” 

He inhaled slowly, exhaled deeply. “It still doesn’t sound like a real year, you know, but I’m getting. . . . It takes less time to believe it’s where I am. And Fury was always there, y’know. Didn’t matter if it was the middle of the night, I’d find him and he’d listen to me ramble until I was outta words. Never made me feel silly for it, either. He got it, you know, I think before anyone else. That this kind of thing, it—it kind of messes you up. Fundamentally. It shakes something inside you and you have to scramble to get a hold of it, to make reality solid again. I couldn’t sleep for weeks because I was terrified every time I shut my eyes I’d wake up in another reality. I’d just keep falling through space.”

Steve pulled him closer, forehead on Tony’s shoulder. “You know what you said, about Fury bein’ our boss, not our dad? He’s my dad. I didn’t have a dad, growin’ up. Mine died an unspeakable death in the first War.” He paused, breathing. Tony interlaced his hands behind Steve’s neck, resting them there. “I thought about him, you know, once I knew what _mustard gas_ meant. Thought about how—how it all seems so noble right until you’re the one drowning in air.” He shuddered. Tony squeezed his neck. “I didn’t know the guy. I wish I did. I never wanted to replace him, always respected him—immensely—but, you know, Fury kind of took me under his wing, and I started to see why people loved their parents as adults.”

Tony closed his eyes. He didn’t want to think about what it would be like, to have a parent as an adult. It was an all-too-fleeting privilege, bestowed on far too few, and he would never know it. “I know it’s—it doesn’t mean much, comin’ from me, but I’d die for him. I’d lay down on a wire for just about anyone, but he’s important to me. The worst thing I ever had to do was tell him about what I did, in. . . .” He swallowed. Tony scruffed the back of his neck. 

Releasing a deep breath, Steve went on, “He already knew, of course, but I had to tell him. I had to stand in front of him and say the words, if only so I could live with myself. I needed to be honest with him. I needed to tell him that I didn’t know _why_ I did it. Why I killed all those people. And that was the first time I ever thought he was gonna lose patience with me. 

"Before I stepped into that room, I thought, _This is it. Whatever happens next, I can’t come back from this_. I made myself open the door and tell him about the worst thing I’d ever done. That I’d. . . .” He swallowed. He didn’t finish the thought. “He wasn’t mad. I don’t know where he keeps his patience, but it didn’t run out. He stayed by my side. And honestly, Tony, even though. . . . You know, things changed, course they did, they had to, in the aftermath—even though it’s been difficult at times with S.H.I.E.L.D., Fury’s always been Fury. He’s never given up on me, no matter how much doubt I’ve put in him.”

He pulled back, looked at Tony, squeezed him. “If it came down to it,” he said slowly, clearly, “I would choose you. Fury might never forgive me, but I could lose Fury. It would hurt like hell, would tear me open, but I could live with it.” 

He paused. Then he said like it was the truest statement in the world, “I don’t wanna live in a world without Tony Stark.”

To that, Tony’s only response was to kiss him, trying to convey without words how inexpressibly grateful he was for Steve Rogers.

. o .

_You’re a real war machine_ , Tony thought, staring at the suit in front of him. It was all black and silver, a stealth suit to its core. He was right about the bulkiness, too, heavy in its dimensions. It might weigh upwards of 300 lbs. The guns, concealed but omnipresent, were impressive. It was a weaponized suit, plain and simple.

Tony held up a gauntleted hand, felt the heat build in his palm. For a moment, he stood there, hovering on the edge.

It would have been easy—so easy.

His hand trembled with the urge to _commit_. To destroy it. To do what he’d come to do.

He lowered his hand, exhaling shortly. He’d destroyed his own suits—not all of them, but some of them out of frustration—but he couldn’t make himself destroy the one in front of him. Not because he didn’t _want_ to. He wanted to so badly he shook with it. He couldn’t do it. 

In his mind’s eye, he saw a sandy hill overlooking a community filled with terrible secrets. He watched the super soldier slip into the warzone, cross a line, and start a war.

Tony could fight S.H.I.E.L.D. He was even confident he could win.

But he thought of what it would mean—this, the last straw, the end of the Avengers as they’d been conceived—and couldn’t make himself take the shot. He couldn’t be the one to cut out the heart of it.

He went instead to a familiar room. Wearing his own suit, mask down, voice calm and metallic, he told Fury, “I don’t forgive you for making it.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Fury said calmly. Always calm. It was infuriating, on some level, but it was also reassuring. A touch ironic, Tony supposed, given his namesake, but there’d been bigger surprises in his life. “I’m sorry you had to find out the way you did.”

“Got a friend,” Tony said, words a little stilted but thankfully firm in the filtered voice, “Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes. Best pilot I’ve ever seen. A natural in the suit. His took some fire after our last field run. Go a long way to restore good will if he got a fresh off-the-shelf replacement.”

Fury raised an eyebrow.

Going all the way, Tony said, “You want Iron Man 2? You got it. But those are my conditions. I’ll amp up the suit,” he added. “Spruce it up, get those averages where they should be. And you’ll get another Avenger out of it.” A beat. “I would, of course, be reinstating my status as an Avenger. Because I would need access to the suit. My suit,” he added.

 _Take off some of that goddamn weight_ , he thought. He wanted to rip it to shreds, take it apart and rebuild it the right way. Not enough to destroy it but enough to rework it. Make it better. Do it _right_.

Fury was quiet, contemplative. 

Tony pressed on: “Rhodey has a perfect record. He’s not going to cause you trouble, and we already work well as a dynamic duo. I doubt you could say the same of anyone else at S.H.I.E.L.D.” He waited, but Fury said nothing. At last, Tony asked, “Deal?”

. o . 

“ _You gotta be shittin’ me_.”

“That was basically what I said,” Tony said over the phone. “Merry Christmas, by the way.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. _wants me to be an_ Avenger?” Rhodey asked incredulously.

Tony huffed and stuffed a freshly made cookie into his mouth. “No, _I_ want you to be an Avenger. S.H.I.E.L.D. agreed because I make cool toys they want.”

“ _You must have some pretty big sway_.”

“I’m very charming,” Tony assured, resisting the urge to swipe another cookie. “It’s pretty cool, you should know. I mean, I designed it, of course it’s cool. Kind of reminds me of _War Machine_. You know that military proto I made a while back?”

He could almost hear Rhodey scrunch up his nose. “ _War Machine?”_

“Open to suggestions.” Giving in to temptation, he took a bite of another cookie. “You got any alternatives, you let me know. Iron Man 2 is still free real estate.”

“ _I’ll come up with something_ ,” Rhodey assured. “ _This is insane, Tony_.”

“Yeup, welcome to the club. We’ve literally got cookies, but sadly you’re too far away to enjoy them.”

“ _Now you’re just being mean_.”

Tony took an audible bite of a cookie. “Lemme know if you change your mind, I’ll burn the suit and we’ll buy a barnhouse together in the middle of nowhere.”

“ _Sounds nice_.” A beat. “ _You know, I’m happy for you, Tony. You sound . . . you sound good. Like you’re happy_.”

“I am happy. I got my buddy a sick new suit.”

“ _You know that’s not what I mean_.”

“It is what I mean.”

Rhodey sighed. “ _Stay outta trouble, Tony. I’ll see you in a week_.”

“Miss you already,” Tony said. “Bye, Rhodey.”

“ _Bye, Tony_.”

. o . 

_One week later_. 

. o . 

Flying was sacred, a lonely thing, a beautiful thing in its isolation.

Gliding alongside the silvery stealth suit, admiring his own handiwork—it was sleek and powerful, exactly what S.H.I.E.L.D. had hoped for—Tony mused, “Pretty slick, isn’t it?”

“Pretty slick,” Rhodey agreed, rolling over, expression unreadable under the mask. “You do this every night?”

“Sometimes.” A pause. “Most times.”

“I don’t know how you ever land.” Rolling back over, looking at the ground about five thousand feet below them, Rhodey mused, “It’s so beautiful.”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed, admiring the suit. He’d thought he’d feel . . . jealous, angry, about sharing this precious thing, but he was happy. He was radiantly happy, because it was Rhodey flying next to him. Best of all, Rhodey wasn’t in a prototype testing things out for him in the comfort of the lab, he was _flying_ a fully functional model. One that Tony had played a direct role in getting up to snuff for high-altitude flight. He didn’t trust it to go 60,000 feet yet, but he knew he’d get it there. Assuming that he could part Rhodey from it. “It’s pretty nice up here. Great place to clear your head.”

“Mm-hm.” Streaking left, then angling right, repeating the motion over and over, Rhodey swept the field in long arcs, staying a few dozen feet below him so they didn’t intersect. Unlike Tony, who had never flown a plane prior to the suit, Rhodey was a born pilot with over 10,000 hours in the air. He moved with great ease, dove and rose and turned like he’d been born to do it. It was fun to watch, the occasional whoop of pure joy carrying across the sky. “God, this is what it means to be alive.”

“Really is spectacular,” Tony agreed, floating on air. “Don’t worry, it never wears off.”

Rhodey laughed. “Best Christmas gift you’ve ever gotten me. I’m gonna have to get you something special to make up for it. Good thing I’ve still got time.”

“Just enjoy it, Rhodey,” Tony said serenely. “Just enjoy it.”

. o . 

Rhodey flew home to DC, while Tony returned to the Tower.

He was bone-tired, so sore with sleeplessness even walking was painful, but he made himself stumble across the balcony and into the main room before stepping out of the suit. They’d been up in the air for hours, shooting the breeze and seeing how far the Iron Patriot, as they’d dubbed it after much deliberation, could go. The answer was admirably high and far, not quite to the level of its inspiration but enough to grant true, spectacular flight. He had no doubt that Rhodey would be flying over DC’s night lights back home. He grinned. 

_Merry Christmas, Rhodey._

Stumbling towards the couch—the elevator was far, and he was ready to fall over—Tony managed to faceplant on the cushions instead of the floor before passing out. He awoke with a start a time later, snuffling into a pillow he’d been drooling on, aware of a blanket over his shoulders and the shoes missing from his feet. It was still dark outside. He exhaled in relief, almost slipping back into a catatonic slumber. Then he heard a quiet crunch.

There was immediate silence, but Tony still sat up to investigate, peering muzzily into the semi-lit kitchen where Steve stood, cookie in mouth, frozen like a deer in headlights. He waited for Tony to rebuke him before finishing the bite, chewing slowly, crunching very quietly. Tony thought about telling him that those cookies were _Tony’s_ , just to make him fluster, but he didn’t have the energy to banter, sinking back down onto the couch instead.

More very gentle crunching, then louder crunching as Steve stopped near his feet, swallowing the rest of the cookie and tucking a second one in his mouth. Tony told the couch cushion, “Mine,” and it made perfect sense to him, but Steve kept chewing until the second cookie was gone. Kneeling next to Tony, he reached up, rubbed his back, and asked something, to which Tony responded, eloquently, “Snurf,” which was literal pillow-talk for “Sleep now.”

Steve noted, “Bed’s comfier.”

“Hunf.” _Comfy here_.

“Can I pick you up?”

“Mmf.” _If you don’t drop me_.

Most people had trouble picking up objects larger than a small sheep, but Steve wasn’t most people. He moved Tony’s blanket away and slid his arms under Tony’s knees and back like he’d done it a thousand times. Lifting effortlessly, Steve held Tony close to his chest. Tony kept his eyes closed, the better to enjoy the experience. He let his cheek rest against Steve’s chest as Steve walked with the same steady gait as always. “Mff,” Tony mused aloud, expressing his general surprise and satisfaction with the service.

Steve hummed, a wordless response that Tony interpreted as _my pleasure, please rate me five stars on Yelp_. Steve negotiated the elevator easily, carrying Tony to his room and pausing outside the door to let it slide open automatically. Then he set Tony down on the bed and shifted back like he would leave. 

Without missing a beat, Tony had a hand in Steve’s shirt, holding on tightly. Steve froze like he was in trouble before relaxing and catching on. He slid into the bed next to Tony, settled flat on his belly. Tony scooted forward and pillowed his cheek on the back of Steve’s shoulder, draped over his back happily. He could feel Steve’s hum, another subvocal sound of satisfaction, and thought deliriously, _Excellent curbside service_.

Snickering to himself, he drifted off cozied up to Steve’s back, the sound of Steve’s deep, even breaths lulling him back to sleep.


	10. ONE SMALL STEP

A full morning with S.H.I.E.L.D., a full afternoon with Stark Industries. Tony was looking forward to throwing on the suit and blowing off some steam at the end of it all. 

Unfortunately, he had other matters to attend to first, namely the evening gala. The Gala was for S.H.I.E.L.D.’s benefit: the Avengers Initiative was well-known and obliged, like NASA and other governmental organizations, to make certain efforts to ensure good relations with the public. Since the Avengers weren’t promising the Moon, their payment was given in public appearances. People with money or fame or both were eager to chat them up. 

Tony thought it might have been flattering if he had any respect for kowtowing. Insincere compliments bored him and he didn’t take a special interest in most influential people. 

Still, he was a master showman: he lingered and mingled and engaged in brief but electrifying small talk with everyone. He dropped hints and answered questions with the sort of one-liners that drove reporters crazy. He touched appropriately, seized hands, squeezed shoulders, patted backs, and crossed paths with as many people as he could without stopping to get pulled into their conversations. He wasn’t _really_ interested, but he was good at disguising boredom for a sort of universal curiosity. He wasn’t moving on because he was disinterested, oh no: he had to engage in the full experience, do it all, drink the bar dry.

So far, he had made S.H.I.E.L.D. in general and Fury in particular proud with his behavior. He was in his element. Even though he longed to be on his own time, he was gracious and quick on his feet, easy to have around. People wanted Tony Stark at parties. He was there to elevate the crowd and he did it honorably.

Nevertheless, he itched to check his watch and see if they were any closer to the midnight mark. It had been a bad call to spend so much time with S.H.I.E.L.D. that morning. He didn't want to spend his evening with them, too. Distracting himself with another vapid pick-me-up from the bar, he drank it down, more to quench his thirst than excite his inner table-dancer. 

Despite the exhaustion of making appearances, he had to admit that it was nice to be included in things, even if he wasn’t interested in altering his Omega mission status to an Alpha seal. He was content to sit on the sidelines and watch the others risk their lives in the name of counterterrorism. He was busy privatizing world peace. Every effort he made to improve the Iron Man suit went beyond himself and his own private enjoyment.

Loathe as he was to admit it out loud, Fury had one compelling point: there was safety and value in numbers. It was good to have backup. More agents positioned around the world meant that a second Chitauri-level event could be contained more readily. Their band was too small to protect them all. Even with Rhodey filling out the set, the Avengers were still responsible for a billion lives apiece. Defending New York City had been a tall order, but the idea of trying to protect the entire _world_ was unimaginably daunting. It had been a cold move for Fury to work behind his back, but his logic was sound. They needed all the help they could get. Technology was the key to both war and peace. While S.H.I.E.L.D. built weapons, Tony built armor.

Irony, that.

Wearing his second Mark VII suit—these days seeming increasingly ragged, especially next to the brilliant Iron Patriot and the sleek, prototypal Mark VIII—he wandered around the rooftop garden and let himself be photographed. Fury had advised him not to wear the Iron Man suit for the entire function because people needed to _see_ the man under it, that what they were supporting was a flesh-and-blood human like them. At least he hadn’t opposed Tony’s suggestion to wear the suit if he kept the helmet off. With a pair of expensive black sunglasses, the look was tasteful, sleek.

Natasha and Clint were there, Tony knew, even though it was hard to find them in the crowd given their more sedate attire. They were political figures, a title they both disliked but managed with admirable grace. Everyone couldn’t be Iron Man, Tony thought, more out of amusement than cruelty. He could have worn a suit and tie and dressed to the nines like them, but he liked wearing the big suit. It made him feel safer. He rarely lacked confidence in a crowd, but there was no ego boost comparable to _being_ Iron Man. It put a swagger in anyone’s step.

Thor was off-world and Rhodey was tied up in DC. Bruce, looking supremely uncomfortable with the whole affair, had found safety at the bar. Tony sauntered over to him, set a metal hand on his shoulder—Bruce jumped in surprise—and said, “I had no idea you were such a social butterfly.”

Bruce winced like he knew how he looked hiding in his drink. “Is it eleven yet?” he asked. The event ran until two in the morning, but Tony had already designated his cut-off time at midnight. He suspected Natasha alone would stay till the finish. Clint, for all his gruff but general good-naturedness, was already looking ragged, Tony saw, as he walked past. 

Tony flicked up the helmet, checked the time, and told Bruce, “10:38.”

Bruce exhaled and slumped further over the bar. “I don’t even know why Fury wants me here. Nobody wants to talk to the Hulk.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Tony said, sliding onto the barstool next to him, mask down. “You’re leading the polls with the under-25 demographic.”

Bruce rubbed a palm over his eyes. “Great. I’m influencing the kids. That’s a great example to set, you know, for the kids.”

“Chin up, buttercup,” Tony said in the Iron Man voice, “you’re the coolest Avenger. After me.”

Bruce lowered his palm and looked at him, sighing. “I’m a scientist,” he said, almost pleadingly. “Not a socialite.”

“Well, tonight, you’re a socialite. Go be social before I find a microphone and make you give a speech.”

“Tony. . . .”

“Nope, nuh-uh, no sympathy.” Tony slid off the chair and flipped down the faceplate. In a normal tone, he illuminated, “Twenty minutes. That’s way easier than fighting a Chitauri monster.”

Bruce made a noncommittal sound but dutifully slid off the bar stool and edged towards a group of socialites who, with surprising warmth, made room for him in their conversational circle.

Satisfied that he’d done his Captain-of-the-Avengers duties, Tony swaggered around a bit more in his suit, all flashing smiles and quipped replies, while surreptitiously looking for the other Captain of the Avengers. He’d been pretty confident he could spot Steve in his suit from a literal mile away, given how brightly colored it was—to be fair, the Iron Man outfit was far from subtle—but he’d seen no trace of the Star-Spangled Man with a Plan since the Gala started over two hours ago. 

Tony had a growing list of complaints he couldn’t wait to lob at Steve as soon as he made an appearance because, really, Tony was _carrying_ the team tonight. That was supposed to be Captain America’s job. Steve carried the kids and Tony sat in a corner and accepted lavish praise from passerby as well as a steady stream of delightfully exotic drinks. 

He was supposed to be able to kick his feet up so he could last the entire night. Instead, he was doing the heavy-lifting. Mingling with different groups, he stayed in near constant motion, and it was taking its toll. He didn’t blame Bruce for setting his own turn-around time at 10 PM. Tony wished _he_ could bow out sooner than midnight without incurring disfavor, but, well, he could be heroic.

And when Steve arrived, he was going to get an _earful_.

. o . 

You couldn’t miss Captain America’s entrance.

Like the Red Sea, the crowd parted, a murmur rippling across. Tony was near the opposite end of the garden, close to the bar, but he was drawn to the slight commotion near the door. Suddenly even disinterested individuals were crowding closer, enlivened despite the hour—it was almost midnight, now, Bruce long-gone and Clint running on fumes; Natasha alone seemed as fresh as she had at the start of the function—and motivated to check out the novelty.

 _Clever_ , Tony thought, appreciating a good little trick even if it meant he’d been forced to carry the front half of the event. The Gala was six hours long, a marathon that doubled as a publicity stunt and a fundraising event. There was, of course, nice ambient music, surprisingly good hors d'oeuvres, and enough alcohol to loosen the tightest fists, as well as a guest list to make Hollywood envious, but even these charms had finite limits. Like Bruce and Clint, plenty of the actual socialites were approaching their own private departure times when, what Tony now realized was intentionally, Captain America arrived fashionably late.

Rather than rush forward like a lovesick puppy, Tony decided to lounge at a small table set up for mingling, and the people near him were still awed by Iron Man that they crowded around and talked to him. He didn’t even look Steve’s way, just chatted and drank and allowed a warm buzz to settle in his stomach, softening the edges of the night. He’d decided, somewhere around the 11:30 mark, that he would go for a flight after even if he didn’t escape until three in the morning. Pleasantly resigned to that ultimatum, he was feeling almost charitable as he watched the attention shift to the late arrival.

It took about five minutes for Steve to make his way to Tony’s corner of the garden. Tony sat up despite himself, because _that_ wasn’t his suit. It almost was, Tony amended, raking his eyes over every inch of dark blue and brilliant silver, red so smooth it seemed to burn with its own fire. 

Steve was glowing, little points of white light speckled across the flat white belly of the suit, crawling up along his red flanks, thickening across the back of blue shoulders. The firefly effect was dazzling, even more so as Steve turned to acknowledge someone who’d called his name, involuntarily showing off the full curve of light. The uniform itself wasn’t siren-bright like Tony expected it to be: every inch was five shades darker, a pleasing contrast of soft light and heavy shadows. The reflected light from his back was captured under the curve of his shield, drawing attention to it.

Tony stared, speechless, as Steve picked his way over to him, a small smile on his face, the faintest tinge of red on his face a mere shadow in the darkness. He looked like he’d bathed in starlight, glowing with his own warmth. Tony was already scratching out complaints and writing in thank-you notes to the designers who’d decided to put him in a literal Star-Spangly outfit. It shouldn’t have worked, would have looked silly, perhaps, in full daylight, but it was midnight-dark and the accents were just enough, soft enough to be missed but glorious up close.

Sitting at the table, forcing Steve to close the distance, Tony smiled broadly. “Hello, gorgeous,” he all but purred. Steve’s blush deepened, but Tony wasn’t worried. Here, he was equal parts billionaire, genius, and playboy: he was a known flirt.

And _everyone_ had their eyes on Captain America. “I was starting to think you were going to leave me out to dry.” Reaching out a metal arm, he waited until Steve stepped just in range before grabbing his belt and tugging him closer. “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” he added dreamily, holding onto his belt.

Steve looked vaguely flustered, an effect enhanced by his ruffled hair. Tony felt a possessive little growl stir in his chest because nobody else was allowed to touch Steve’s hair, but someone else _had_. Tony couldn’t blame them—you just _wanted_ to touch the soft gold—but he could still be jealous. He tugged harder, almost pulling Steve onto his lap before Steve could catch himself on the table.

“Easy, Tony,” Steve muttered, keeping his voice low, private, and Tony did purr, happy because thank _God_ , Steve was here. “Still in public.”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed, content to make him squirm. “You’re late,” he added.

Steve sighed and nodded. In the same low voice, he admitted, “Sorry.”

“No.” Tony waved his free hand before placing it boldly on the center of Steve’s chest, right over the silver star. “You’re forgiven.”

Steve gently but firmly took his hand in both of his own. “How much did you drink?”

Tony sighed theatrically. Only Steve would mistake his genuine admiration for drunkenness. “I’m barely buzzed,” he said, letting go of Steve’s belt to stand, only stumbling a little. “See?”

Steve put an arm around the suit to steady him, releasing him after a mere second of contact. “Uh huh.”

“We can’t _all_ be up from sunrise to sunrise,” Tony pointed out moodily. Just because Steve was still fresh for the fight didn’t mean Tony was weak for being unsteady. And buzzed. “I was being good. Doing my civic duty. Where were _you_?”

Steve wasn’t paying attention to him, looking around them, like he was aware of all the eyes that kept being drawn to him. _No, don’t look at them, look at me_ , Tony thought, putting his arm around Steve’s waist, firmly enough he couldn’t just slide out of it. The Iron Man suit was _awesome_. “Hey. I’m right here.”

“Yeah, I know,” Steve muttered, grabbing his Iron hand and gently but inexorably prying it off, ducking out from under his arm with a dancer’s fluid ease. “I should take you home.”

Tony huffed, real steel creeping into his voice as he said, “You’re exasperating, you know that?”

Steve kept a respectful distance between them, looking anywhere but at Tony. “Yeah, I know.”

He was edgy, disinterested, exactly the opposite feelings Tony wanted right then. _Look at me_. “I’m an adult,” he added, maybe talking a little too loud, if Steve’s tiny flinch was an indicator, “I can do whatever I want. I’m not even tired.”

Steve looked him over, just a cursory glance, then shook out his own watch from his sleeve. “Natasha might take you home, let me—”

Tony stepped forward, grabbed his face, and kissed him.

It wasn’t a subtle thing, not the kind of playful kiss on the cheek he’d give a friend. It was the best feeling he’d had all day, a sigh slipping past him. He didn’t realize just how badly he’d wanted to kiss Steve until he was pressed against him. Since the second he saw him, aglow in his own starlight—

And then Steve was just _gone_. He didn’t shove Tony into the table and shout in fury, but he stared at Tony, eyes dark with anger. He said in an even deeper voice, “ _Not. Here_.” He was stiff-backed, rigid, shaking a little with contained emotion. He glanced around them, well aware—Tony was, too, but he didn’t _care_ , let them goddamn stare—of the eyes on them. These weren’t just pedestrians on the streets, who would have accosted one or both of them for a selfie, but there were journalists, photographers, dwelling among them, people with cameras in their pockets who would gladly make a real story of the night.

Humbled, Tony watched Steve walk away. He moved with the same unfaltering gait, disappearing into the crowd. Tony felt very alone, shutting the helmet and turning off the cues so all he saw were the things in front of him, dark in the night. 

The night was humid, almost stuffy in its warmth, but the suit was cool, more like room temperature. It helped clear his head. He amped up the cold until he was all but shivering with it, a shot of pure adrenaline in reduced form. He made a point of walking towards the edge of the garden and looking over the rooftop, like he was admiring the city, utterly nonplussed. The suit was a gift for that reason alone: it revealed very little.

Sensing he’d abandoned them, no one bothered him as he looked at the little world underneath him, the ache to fly no longer as pointed. He just wanted Steve back at his side, appreciative and warm, anything but angry. But as he finally turned back to the party, he spotted Steve standing off to a side, nodding along to something a man of some import was saying. Jealousy burned inside Tony, but the man was in his seventies, anyway, hardly the man that Steve would try to woo. Right? He stuffed the unhelpful voice into a closet and locked the door. He made himself lower the helmet.

“For a genius,” Natasha said, “you can be very stupid.”

Tony closed his eyes. “Kinda wanna go home,” he admitted, voice smaller than he would have liked. “Is it midnight yet?”

Natasha checked her phone. “12:01,” she said. Then, taking his metal arm, she said, “Walk with me.”

Dutifully, he followed her. Almost before he realized it, They were at the door to the building. She didn’t stop there, smiling and nodding and making the appropriate, _He’s with me, everything’s fine_ noises. Tony put one foot in front of the other and didn’t stumble, grateful for small mercies. He might have died on the spot from embarrassment if he fell in the suit.

“I fucked up big-time,” he announced as they stood outside the closed elevator doors, waiting for it to return from the lobby.

Natasha sighed. “Just go home,” she advised. Her voice wasn’t without kindness. “Okay? Go home. Stay there.”

The doors slid open. Tony stepped into them. Turning to face her, he asked, “You’re coming home. Right?”

“Two hours,” she said calmly. Then, amending, she added, “Maybe three.”

Tony nodded, pressing the lobby button. “Just—come home.”

“We will,” she assured. The doors slid shut.

. o . 

It was a long, lonely way down. Tony shut the helmet, stepped out of the building as Iron Man, but he felt small, the heavy, hurting thing in his chest making even the effort of flying home seem gargantuan.

As soon as he reached the main room, he stepped out of the suit. He’d intended to make some coffee, to counterbalance the buzz, but he was shaking too much, opting instead to sit on the couch and put his head in his hands.

He was silent. Bruce and Clint were both in their own rooms, asleep. The room was dark. Even J.A.R.V.I.S. was seemingly offline, but he was idle, waiting for a prompt. Tony told him in a hoarse tone, “Fucked up.”

“It will be okay, sir.”

“Big-time.”

A pause. “It will be okay, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. repeated gently. “Few mistakes are uncorrectable.”

Tony pressed his hands over his face. “You think?”

“I am quite sure, sir.”

“Thanks, bud.”

“Of course, sir.”

. o .

Tony was tired enough he wasn’t sure he wasn’t dreaming when he felt arms curl around him, familiar, warm. He didn’t make a sound, didn’t try to make amends or apologies. The elevator pinged. It felt very late, the kind of hour when even cities slept. Just for a while. The elevator pinged again. He floated along, heard his own door slid back in place with a soft _swish_.

Step, step, step, step. Pause. He was set down on his own bed.

Tony turned, caught the edge of a shirt, held it. He heard a shallow indrawn breath. Then a deep sigh. The bed dipped beside him. Feeling so relieved he could cry, not entirely sure he wasn’t crying, he shuffled closer.

Steve lied on his side, facing away from Tony. Tony knew this because he heard him move, felt him sigh again, the rise of his shoulder under Tony’s hand. Shuffling closer, Tony wrapped an arm around his chest, desperate for the warmth, the comfort he knew was right in front of him. He pressed against Steve’s back, as close as he dared. It wasn’t close enough. He still felt sick. He forced tired eyes open, stared at the unmoved expanse of Steve’s shoulders. He’d switched into his own clothes at some point. The fabric was soft, but Steve was all hard lines. A wall. His breathing was shallow under Tony’s arm, tense.

“Don’t hate me.” Tony whispered it, but Steve could hear him.

Steve’s voice was incredibly flat. “I don’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Go to sleep, Tony.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“Good night, Tony.”

“Steve—”

Steve rolled over. Tony let him go, shuffling back. Looking him over. Steve looked tired. Not mad or sad or remotely joyful to see Tony again. Just tired. “What do you need to sleep?” Steve asked, eyes shut. “Want my forgiveness? Okay. I forgive you.”

Tony stared at him, silent. Steve finally looked at him, narrowed eyes, pinched eyes. Tired eyes. “What do you want?” he pressed. “I’m not gonna do this all night, Tony.”

Unsure, knowing he was taking a risk, Tony reached up, cupped the back of his head. Stroked his cheek gently, soothingly. Steve shut his eyes, still tense, agitated, but Tony didn’t say anything, and Steve didn’t ask again. Tony just stroked the same warm patch of skin, soft, undemanding. He felt Steve’s breathing even out, the harsh lines easing.

The world, he reflected, got to see Captain America in all his splendor, sharing in his light.

Only Tony got this.

. o . 

It was midmorning when Tony finally pried himself out of bed. 

He wanted to crawl under the bed and stay there until he’d repressed his shame, but he forced himself out of bed anyway. Steve hadn’t moved by the time Tony finished making himself look less like a despondent, kicked puppy, but that wasn’t especially unusual.

Tony let him sleep, slipping out of the room.

It was nice, very normal, in the main room. Bruce was making bacon. Clint was sitting at the table, eating a piece of toast and arguing playfully with him. Natasha was nowhere to be found, but she was even less of a morning person than Tony. Bruce didn’t even look over when Tony stepped into the room, just threw a cheerful, “Morning, Tony,” over his shoulder.

Tony fetched coffee, sat at the table, and listened to Clint and Bruce debate _Star Wars._

It was oddly comforting. 

. o .

“I overreacted.”

Tony paused in his work, swiveling around in his desk chair. Steve was standing in the doorway, arms folded, shoulder leaning against the threshold. It was almost two in the afternoon. He still looked tired. “I shouldn’t’ve. . . .” He paused, weighed his words. “I overreacted.”

“No, you didn’t.” 

Steve didn’t smile. “You okay?” he asked. Calm. Cool.

Tony considered his response. “Are we okay?”

Steve nodded once.

Tony stood, walked over to him. Steve straightened, no longer leaning on the frame but watching him with contemplative eyes. Unreadable eyes. “It’s not that I don’t love you,” he said slowly, “I—everyone gets everything. They don’t get this. You know?” He looked away, adding in a murmur, “That sounded better in my head.”

“I think I get it.”

Steve sighed. “I know it’s—it’s not just _our_ thing. We don’t live in a bubble. People are gonna find out someday. It’s—it’s kinda pointless, trying to hide it.”

Tony’s voice was adamant: “You get a private life.” Steve looked right at him, eyes softening. “You do. Doesn’t matter how famous you are. You’re allowed to have stuff you don’t share. Things you don’t wanna share. I don’t wanna share you,” he admitted. “I don’t. I get really, stupidly angry, just thinking about it. That I have to share you.”

Steve unfolded his arms, reached out, snagged Tony’s shirt. Tugged him closer. Tony wrapped his own arms around Steve’s waist, squeezed gently. “I pushed you. That was bad,” he said, talking to Steve’s shoulder. It was safe. It wouldn’t judge him. It couldn’t. “I’m a pusher. I push people away. I push my luck. I’m sorry.”

Steve inhaled deeply, hands on his waist, big and warm. “S’okay, Tony.” He slid his hands up Tony’s back, raked them back down gently. In a familiarly friendly tone, he asked, “Wanna go lie down for a bit? I wanna hold you.”

. o . 

Steve’s room was still spartan, but Tony supposed that was Steve’s personality. He didn’t want baggage, either kind. He just wanted what he needed to get by. Tony could understand that, even embraced it himself, to a degree. He had his toys, sure, but only the most important ones. Mostly Iron Man. He loved Iron Man. _My life’s work_.

The bed was very comfortable, even stripped almost bare. Mostly, Tony amended, Steve was very comfortable. He was hugging him, legs up behind his, arms around him, not tight but secure. Good as gold, Tony thought, amused. Better than gold. Palladium.

Steve slept, breathing softly against his shoulder. 

Tony sketched Iron Man suits lightly against his arm.

. o . 

The star-light suit, as they’d taken to calling it, was a hit at every after-dark event. It wasn’t overly loud, didn’t scream for attention; it just highlighted what was already there, put a soft, almost irresistible glow over its wearer. Tony asked Steve where he’d gotten it. Steve shrugged and told him what he already knew: S.H.I.E.L.D.

They wanted him to make an impact, to be seen and seen not just as a man in a suit—as Tony was supposed to; _you need to be human, they need to see themselves in Iron Man, too—_ but as something supernatural. Something above and beyond, something that captured the imagination. They hadn’t said it in as many words—Tony wasn’t even sure they’d revealed the full intention to Steve—but Tony could read between the lines. They wanted Captain America to not just walk on water but wear the stars. He was their symbol, their rallying point. He had to be above and beyond everyone’s expectations.

And he wore it so well.

Tony was the driving force, the embodiment of the future, the chugging engine of humanity. 

Steve was the flag.

Tony watched him, wondering if anyone could ever keep someone so spectacular. 

The best part, he thought, was when Steve looked at him the exact same way.

. o . 

“I know I said you didn’t have to sleep in my bed, if you lived here. But, you know. If you want to. It’s there. You already have the key. Metaphorically speaking. There is no key. The key is a lie.” Tony cleared his throat. Sitting in a chair with just a dim reading light for illumination, Steve blinked once at him. “Okay, good talk.”

Tony about-faced and marched out of the living room, forcing himself to not look back at the sole remaining occupant. God dammit, he was _Tony Stark_ , he did not get flustered asking Steve if he wanted to . . . well, move in. Again. Was moving into the same bedroom the same as moving into the same residence? They’d sort of skipped over the “we live on separate floors” stage. 

Tony couldn’t say what had inspired Steve to stay on _his_ floor, but he had his theories. Maybe Steve had been too tired to go exploring on his own. Or maybe it was overwhelming. Steve didn’t have a home, back then, and accepting what Tony was offering, let alone going the extra step to find a home in it for himself, was a lot to ask. Easier to choose the path of least consideration. Even if it meant taking the risk of invading Tony’s personal space. 

_My floor. Mine._

He huffed to himself at the thought as he stood in the elevator. He would have kicked Clint or Natasha or even poor, sweet Bruce to another level. Not because he didn’t care about them. They just didn’t have that particular privilege. Of being on Tony’s true home turf. The Tower was _theirs_ , but this level, this was Tony’s one-story home. He didn’t let anyone stay in it. He hadn’t even decided to let Steve stay in it.

Or maybe he had.

Either way, he dressed down for the evening, spending what amounted to an inordinate amount of time scrubbing his face with cold water. It helped calm him, made him feel more like he was in control. _I’m the boss_. Too riled up to sleep, he sat back against the headboard and sketched Iron Man suits on his tablet.

He was in the middle of a spacesuit he’d nicknamed _Exo I_ when the door slid open. It wasn’t locked—if it had been, J.A.R.V.I.S. would have announced the intruder and awaited further action—and Tony didn’t even look up, sketching Exo’s boots. Sleek, heavy things. They’d have to be heavy, counterbalancing, their own mini gravity. Rockets weren’t top-heavy. 

A human rocket, he mused. _Rocket Man._

Without looking up, he patted the space next to him. Steve shuffled up next to him. Tony tilted the screen towards him. _Rocket Man_. He wrote it in his big, flowing script. Steve hummed.

“It’s beautiful.”

It really was, Tony thought, marveling his own design. He pulled up a fresh page, doodled Rocket Man mid-flight, straight as an arrow. It was an artistic rendering, little more than an impression. What it might be like. He still stared at it in silent fascination, snagging some silver from the palette and streaking fire from Rocket Man’s heels. 

It was pure, indefinable ecstasy to look at. It reminded Tony of ancient cave drawings: so simple, yet so honest. Fulfilling. What art was meant to be. Something that made you feel something.

He wouldn’t call himself an artist; the sketch was crude, simple, hardly more than a few lines, but it was beautiful, and he’d made it. “Rocket Man,” he mused aloud, voice little more than a whisper. “You think I could do it?” he asked, addressing Steve for the first time.

“S’far as I’m concerned, Tony,” Steve said seriously, “it’s already done.”

Tony looked at the sketch for a long time, almost able to imagine it, the moment when exosphere became pure, unbridled space. It would be terror and ecstasy, joy and hope. The first taste of infinity.

He wanted to fly it, so badly his heart ached. He pulled up a blank sheet, but he was too tired to start anew. Setting the tablet down, he exhaled and said, “Wanna build it.”

Steve shuffled down, lying on his back, holding out his arm. Curling up to his chest, Tony repeated, “I wanna fly, Steve.”

Steve stroked his shoulder. “You will.”

“Fly beyond the edge.”

“Someday.”

Tony huddled closer. “You’d bring me back if I got lost out there. Right?”

A faint chuckle. “Tony,” he said, his Brooklyn drawl emerging, “if you were on the goddamn Moon, I’d come getcha.”

“We went to the Moon.”

“We went to the Moon,” Steve agreed on a sigh. “You see it? See it happen?”

“Before my time,” Tony admitted. “Watched some of the other landings, though. Just not the first.”

“Wish I coulda seen it,” Steve said, nodding, cheek brushing the top of Tony’s head. “We went to the Moon, Tony.”

“Yeah. Yeah, we did.”

“S’it ever just make you wanna cry? We went to the goddamn Moon.”

“When you say it like that, it does,” Tony said, closing his eyes. “Would you go?”

“To the Moon?”

“Mm-hm.”

“. . . Yeah. I’d go.”

“Me too.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm-hm.”

“How’d they even do it? I mean, I get that—you know, rockets. It just doesn’t seem like . . . you can actually do it.”

“Didn’t happen in one step. Lots of little steps. Thousands. Tens of thousands. Baby rockets. Bigger rockets. Manned rockets. Monkeyed rockets.”

“Monkeyed rockets?”

“Mm-hm. Sent monkeys into space. Sent a dog, too. One of the first animals ever in space.”

“Wow.”

“Laika.”

“Laika. S’a pretty name.”

“Pretty dog. Good-tempered. Sweet. Died.”

“Sad.”

“Yeah.”

“‘m sad she died, Tony.”

“Me too.”

“How’d she—?”

“Don’t ask me, sweetheart.”

“What about the monkey?”

“Oh, it made it back. Real hero. ‘Ham.’ Ham the monkey.”

“You’re pullin’ my leg.”

“Why would I make that up?”

“Ham.”

“Ham.”

“Hamlet?”

“Just Ham.”

“Huh.”

“We were at war with the Soviets. Cold War. Kind of had different ideas about what the world should look like.”

“Seen that before.”

“Yeah, you have. Things were heating up. You know how it is.”

“Mm-hm.”

“And people realized that there was only one ending: somebody was going to use space as the next arena of war.”

“. . . Weaponize space?”

“You can weaponize anything.”

“S’damn depressing.”

“Yeah. But it’s how the Space Race began. Soviets—Russians—put a lot of firsts on the board. First satellite. First orbit. First person. Yuri Gagarin.”

“Yuri Gagarin.”

“Mm-hm. Really, I don’t know if we could’ve done it twice, putting a man on the Moon first. It was that close. It just happened that way this time around. We built a very big rocket, put a lot of extremely combustible fuel in it, sat three brave bastards in the capsule near the nose, and turned on the ignition. Blast-off. Took three days in space to get to the Moon. Had to get it all right, the timing, the landing. Only two guys went to the surface. Can you imagine, getting all the way to the Moon and then having to just sit there in space, waiting for your friends to get back?”

“No.”

“Me neither. So, pilot, Mike Collins, stays up top, keeps the return ship in order. Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong land in the lander—aptly named—and Armstrong takes the first steps down the ladder. Aldrin filmed him. First words on the Moon, probably up there for the most famous quote in the world: ‘One small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.’”

“S’nice.”

“Yeah. It is.”

“And that’s it, huh?”

“That’s it. That’s how we went to the Moon.”

“S’a good story.”

“There’s a lot of details that I omitted.”

“Still a good story.”

“Yeah. Tell me a story.”

“A story?”

“Something about . . . you know, before you were Captain America.”

“Mmm. Okay. . . . Know what an ice box is?”

“Like a big cooler.”

“Mm-hm. Same idea. Big-coolers. Ice-boxes. Ma and I, we’d always managed, you know. We didn’t have anything fancy. We didn’t need anything fancy. Ma always liked to say that the best dishwasher had two hands and the best vacuum was a broom. So, we had an icebox.

“I remember, you know, the first time I ever saw a refrigerator. Thought it was swell. You know, kind of convenient, all the shelves, not needing to fetch ice. The wonders of electricity were fixing all our problems, even problems we didn’t have yet. Televisions were for the rich, but it was kind of on people’s minds that we were living in an age of the future, with all these new technologies.

“And, you know, just looking at that refrigerator, I thought, this really is the future. We’re not making homes out of sticks and stones anymore. We’ve got a small army of robots helping us live our lives. That’s magic.”

“Magic.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Surprised there wasn’t a ‘newfangled’ in there, to be honest.”

“Oh, it was all newfangled. Technology, back then, just didn’t work reliably. It was like the weather. Some days, clear blue skies and smooth sailing, others you’d be lucky to keep it from catchin’ fire. That was normal. Nobody expected everything to work perfectly all the time. It could be really frustrating, but it was never—you know, you just got used to it. Like the weather.”

“You know, people are talking about controlling the weather these days.”

“Are they really?”

“Mm-hm.”

“It’ll never happen.”

“Man of the future, huh?”

“Nah. Just . . . too much, you know? Can’t keep an eye on all of it at once, let alone make sure all the flowers get watered.”

“That’s your concern. Not killer tornadoes or dust storms or tsunamis. Flowers.”

“Somebody’s gotta water ‘em, Tony, or they won’t grow. So far Nature’s been kind enough to do it for us.”

“. . . I love you.”

Steve sighed, hugged him closer. “I love you, too, Tony.” Pillowing his cheek on Tony’s head, he added, “More than flowers.”

“Don’t sell flowers short.”

“‘m not. Selling you high.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Shh.” Steve let out a deep sigh. “So goddamn confrontational.”

“I keep you sharp.”

“Good night, Tony.”

“I could do this all day.”

Steve chuckled. “Yeah, I know, I get it. Go to sleep. Or I’ll—I’ll put ants in your pants.”

“Using my own tricks against me.”

“I mean, you haven’t done it, so is it really your trick?”

“You’re going to regret saying that.”

One of Steve’s hands came up, covered his mouth. “For the love of God, Tony, go to sleep.”

Tony bit his palm. Not hard, but Steve still pulled his hand back sharply. “What did I tell you about covering my mouth?”

“Goodnight, Tony.”

A beat. “Goodnight, room. Goodnight, Moon.”

“Goodnight, Moon.”

Tony closed his eyes, overcome with affection for the man underneath him, breath already deepening into sleep. “Goodnight, Steve."

. o . 

_Three days later_. 

. o . 

“What do you think, J.A.R.V.I.S.?”

“All systems sound, sir. Suit is fully functional.”

“No surprises?”

“It is in perfect working order, sir.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” Standing in the Mark VIII suit, almost vibrating with excitement, Tony said, “Let’s see how well it flies.”

Walking out of the lab, Tony admired how easily the Mark VIII moved. It was ten percent lighter than its predecessor. It was also in much better shape—less wear and tear, and unlike the first Mark VII it hadn’t been forcefully torn asunder by aliens and the Hulk—and moved with an ease he’d almost forgotten was originally part of the Mark VII model. The second Mark VII had lived a comparatively long and prosperous life, but it deserved retirement, too.

It was time for the Mark VIII to shine.

Stepping onto the balcony in the morning light, Tony asked, “How we doing, J.A.R.V.I.S.?”

“Still perfect, sir.”

“All right. Let’s get this show on the road.” He kicked on the thrusters, amazed at how quickly they ignited. In the darkening light, the glow was beautiful. “Oh, that’s nice. I could get used to that.” Then, looking out at the city, he said, “Safe way or fun way, J.A.R.V.I.S.?”

“I leave it to your discretion, sir.”

“Always knew you liked to party,” Tony replied. He elevated himself a few feet, the suit more like a second skin than a shell. Light. Sleek. _Gorgeous_. He’d already run every lab test he could think of, including hanging upside down and using just one thruster on his foot to stay airborne. Mark VIII was action-ready.

With a powerful kick, he surged upward, cutting through the air like it wasn’t there. He flung himself over the proverbial abyss, the suit reassuringly responsive, never once faltering. He climbed to almost two thousand feet, looking down at the city, hovering. He rolled, dove, zigged and zagged through the city, tried flight maneuvers that had made the Mark VII huff for proverbial breath. The Mark VIII was similar to its predecessors in many ways, but it was sleeker, more portable, a reflection of his improved suit-making skills. It was slick. He loved it.

And it had over 120 hours of flight time before it needed a cool down period. He could fly for _days_. He trembled at the thought, already planning his first multi-day flight. 

The hardest part wasn’t food—he could live without food, who needed _food_ at 50,000 feet?—but water. He’d dehydrate, fatally, in about that time without water, depending on how dry the conditions were. Within less than an hour of flight, he’d already resolved to hook up a sort of runner’s water bottle, one that connected to the back shoulder of the suit, that he could carry with him separately. Might look silly, but he’d wear a Hello Kitty cape if it meant being able to stay aloft for longer.

He could use astronaut food, if he wanted—probably not a bad idea; it would keep him sharper to keep his calorie intake up—but as long as he had the bottle, he could stay in the air for weeks before succumbing to humanity’s second-most pressing vice. And in the meantime, he could fly, just like this, high above the clouds.

He’d built Mark VIII to withstand 90,000 feet. 

Replicating conditions at that level was almost dizzying, but he’d wanted to push the limit, see how far he could go. He was confident Mark VIII would fly at 50,000 feet, 70,000 feet. Theoretically, and in all his tests, it also held together at 90,000 feet, a place where the air was so thin no human being could survive unaided.

He climbed upward, a reverse meteor, streaking through the clear blue sky. He crossed the 20,000 foot threshold, whooped in joyful satisfaction. He crossed 30,000 feet and climbed even faster, encountering less resistance. He was up above the 45,000 foot mark when he leveled out, hovering in space, enjoying the feeling. “How we doing?” he asked J.A.R.V.I.S.

“Admirably, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied. “All functions within the normal range.”

“Good. You know that’s what I like to hear.” He floated upward, not at the same reckless speed but ambling upward through space. 50,000 feet was a vertical mile above him. The thought put it in perspective in a way _50,000 feet_ couldn’t. Ten miles was an unfathomable vertical distance. One mile, though, he could imagine that. It was a huge distance to climb.

He crossed the threshold in six minutes.

He turned up the speed and hit 60,000 feet, leveled out once again, almost panting with exhilaration. The air was rich and warm up here, perfectly self-contained. The scene was incredibly empty: nobody flew this high. He was completely alone. Even Rhodey in the Iron Patriot would be more than 50,000 feet below him at the apex of his own suit

Gasping, he looked around, then looked up, at an endless expanse of sky, and imagined going _30,000 feet_ farther. Climbing another Everest, clawing his way towards the ceiling of the world. He could do it—he knew he could do it—but it was daunting.

He was safe at 60,000 feet, because even the hurting Mark VII suit had survived plenty of forays this high. He could stop there.

He said aloud, “First max. altitude test,” so J.A.R.V.I.S. would record it. Tony knew he could record every flight automatically, but he didn’t like rewatching footage. It was like watching a video of someone eating ice cream on a hot summer day at your favorite parlor when you hadn’t eaten in days. He didn’t want to watch the flight; he wanted to _fly_. But for tests and other practical purposes, he recorded certain flights.

He started to climb, idly wondering what it was like to climb the world’s tallest mountain. It wasn’t a sheer cliff—it couldn’t be climbed vertically, only in trade-offs, horizontal travel and vertical movement—but he rose through the air almost perfectly straight, like a rocket. It was easier to bend his knees, leaning forward, rather than arrow-straight. He passed 70,000 feet and called it out breathlessly. It was getting darker up here, the feeling like a shiver in his soul. He knew that he was well into the stratosphere, now. 

_Stratosphere_. He wasn’t the first human to venture this high, but it was like being one of the only people to set foot on a new continent. It didn’t matter if he was the first or the hundredth person to do it. It was a rarity, a novelty beyond expression. Doing it under his own power was dazzling. 80,000 feet rushed up to meet him. He reached, reached, arms extending upwards, like he could grab space.

87,500 feet. He killed the thrusters to hovering intensity, gasping as he stared around him. It was _dark_ up here, the blue sky grading into space. It was breathtaking, humbling even though the exobase—the beginning limit of the final atmospheric layer—rested over 500 kilometers above him, over 1,640,000 vertical feet higher.

 _That_ was the true scale of space. Just to get to the edge, he’d need a suit that could fly almost twenty times higher than anything he’d built before it.

Hovering almost weightlessly at 87,502 feet, he gasped, shaking with mixed emotions—elation, surprise, terror, awe—and finally looked down.

It was a height of such grandeur landmarks were meaningless, just a sweep of land and sea covered in spotty clouds. He drifted for a time, feeling the exterior of the suit drying out, warming up under the more intense sun-fall. 

The troposphere, the weather-sphere, was beneath him. With it, precipitation and dew that might have clung to the suit exterior. The suit was fairly hydrophobic, able to be submerged and emerge without damage, but this high up, it was reassuring not to worry if ice was crystallizing on some fundamental component of the only thing keeping him alive.

He took pictures with the visor of his suit, admiring the view, just enough footage to convey the breathless reality of being this _high_.

He stayed up top for just seven minutes before bellying down and arcing into a fifteen-degree dive.

He increased the angle gradually, crossing the 60,000-foot threshold and steepening the dive to familiar, exhilarating proportions, plunging sixty-degrees down. It wasn’t straight-down, but this high up, moving this fast, it felt like he was arcing straight as a bullet for the ground. He passed commercial airspace and kept going, finally reversing his dive into a shallow gliding arc at 10,000 feet. The suit moved brilliantly, flawlessly.

Descending, he swept like an albatross through the city, all but falling through space, his thrusters were on so low. He still had impressive momentum, pulling up short of the Tower deck and hitting the proverbial brakes with reverse thrust, lowering himself to the balcony once he wasn’t at risk of crashing through the floor.

He stuck the landing.

Thrusting both metal arms into the air, he shouted victoriously.

He heard a muffled roar behind him and turned to see Thor standing in the living room with both arms thrust upward, beaming like they’d both won the lottery. His shout was enough to get Bruce scrambling into the room. Tony stepped out of the suit as Thor turned to Bruce and repeated the victory cry, making Bruce cower in surprise. Snickering, Tony picked up the Mark VIII with a gauntleted hand and rejoined the world of the earth-bound, grinning unstoppably.

Thor tried to break Bruce’s ribs, which was good news for Tony, because Bruce’s stern rebuke meant Thor grabbed Tony with much more gentleness. “Hail to the victors!” he exclaimed, thumping Tony on the back hand enough to stagger him.

He really was a Golden Retriever, Tony thought, amused; he had no idea what he was cheering for but knew there was a _victory_.

Never one to disappoint, Tony ordered pizza, broke out the good wine, and hailed to the victors.

. o .

The party was in full swing by the time Steve showed up.

Pausing in the doorway, he asked, “I miss someone’s birthday?”

That was all he had time for before Thor was there. He ducked out of reach, grabbing Thor on the back of the shoulders and giving him a friendly shake. “Yeah, I missed you, too,” he said, letting him go and bracing himself visibly before Thor hugged him, full-force. “S’it your birthday?” he grunted, thumping Thor on the back a few times, as close as he ever came to crying uncle.

Thor released him but kept a vice-like hand on Steve’s shoulder, laughing like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. “No, don’t be foolish,” he said, waving behind him. “It’s Stark’s.”

“Not my birthday,” Tony said breezily. “But, you know, I never say no to gifts.”

Steve ducked out from under Thor’s arm, picked his way over a catatonic Clint on the floor, and sat on the opposite end of Tony’s couch. Looking around the room—empty pizza boxes, empty wine bottles, Bruce sitting at the table and typing on his laptop one-handed, free hand holding a fresh slice of New York’s finest—he raised his eyebrows at Tony. “Okay, it’s not your birthday,” he said.

Tony reached down, kicked the briefcase on the floor towards him. Steve leaned over and picked it up, hefting it onto his lap like it didn’t weight almost two hundred pounds. His eyes lit up with understanding, though. He ran his palms over the exterior of the case, pressing down on the release mechanism.

Tony suggested, “Put it on the floor.” 

Steve carefully lowered the still-shut briefcase onto the floor. Tony nodded, “Give it a tap, same spot.” Obediently, Steve pressed his foot against the metal. It unfolded. He stared at the suit in wonder, completely silent. Tony told him, “Go on.”

Reaching down, Steve grabbed the gauntlets, lifted the box again, the bulk of the suit spilling downward like a sheet of armor. He whistled low, duly impressed. It weighed 180 lbs fully assembled, but he stood and lifted the fifty-pound box like it was nothing, held it wonderingly in gauntleted hands.

“Break it open,” Tony told him. Steve stared at him, blinking once. “Pull it.” Tony demonstratively tugged an invisible weight open at chest level. Steve didn’t move, just holding it. Tony nudged his thigh with a foot. “Don’t worry, it’s one size fits all.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Steve stared at the box, thoughtful, silent. “This is selfish, by the way,” Tony assured him. “I just wanna see how the suit moves with someone else in it. You know. Different perspective.”

Steve huffed, then drew in a centering breath and gave the cube in his hands a firm tug. The suit snapped open into a t-frame setup, unfolding itself like a sheet of armor. It enveloped its wearer completely: like shark teeth, extra metal plating rested just underneath the outermost skeleton, sliding out or staying concealed depending on the need. The t-frame was the key: dead-lifting 180 lbs was still beyond Tony, but with the suit creating its own frame, it was easy for it to fill in the gaps with the remaining metal.

Tony watched it happen in a delirious sort of happiness. Suit-up time was down to less than ten seconds. As soon as the metal faceplate slid into place, blue-white eyes glowed back at him. 

With cautious movements, Steve looked around, tilting his head, taking it all in. “Wow,” he said, voice still his own but filtered, metallic.

Tony nudged his socked foot against an Iron calf. Steve looked down at it, cocked his head. Even in the suit, Tony mused, his personality shone, as he moved with a simultaneous hesitance— _is this all right?—_ and confidence. Looking up with calm blue-white eyes, Steve asked, “You take it for a test drive?”

Tony nodded lazily, throwing an arm over the back of the couch, the picture of satisfaction. “87,000 feet.”

Steve felt his metal arm with a gauntleted hand. “Wow,” he repeated.

“That’s what I said.”

Steve hesitated, dropping his hand and looking at Tony. Given the natural bulk of the suit, it was, in a strange way, like watching a clone, the Iron Man form hiding the wearer perfectly. Steve was Steve only in gesture, the way his head stayed at a slight tilt, contemplative. He looked down, flexed his own covered feet, lifted onto his heels. Flight was on safety-mode, Tony knew, which was good: otherwise the simple movement would have activated the thrusters. It was the equivalent to pulling the ignition cord, every flex of his feet controlling the flight pattern. The safety mechanism was key: it would be inconvenient to take off every time he took a step.

Tony watched in utmost fascination as Steve turned away from him and took a single step forward. 

The suit was quiet, mechanical hum muted, the press of his boot on the floor the only sound. Tony knew, in a sad way, that this might be the only time Steve would ever wear the suit, but he savored it, drank it in, as Steve walked slowly across the room. Even Clint sat up from the floor, watching with interest. Bruce turned from the fridge and saw Iron Man walking around and Tony on the couch. He asked slowly, “Am I seeing double?”

Steve didn’t respond, completely focused. Tony understood, watching with warm amusement as Steve paused in the middle of the floor. He twisted around gently, like he wanted to scratch his back, not moving fast enough to break anything. The suit moved fluidly with him. He picked up a foot behind himself, held it for a moment in a stretch. The suit made it all easier, providing support and mechanical oomph. Tony knew Steve could do push-ups essentially indefinitely, but even an ordinary person in the suit could replicate the feat. It was stability, power. Ease.

Steve stood, feet planted, going through the motions of various warm-up stretches, testing the suit’s limits. Tony knew he wouldn’t run, not in the suit—but it was exciting to imagine, Steve bursting through the door and launching himself into space.

He didn’t need an edge to leap off, Tony realized, amazed, as Steve _launched_ himself up, four feet off the ground, spun twice, and landed perfectly.

There was perfect silence in the main room as Iron Man stood in their midst, eyes aglow, utterly at ease. Steve leaned back in the suit as far as it would go, back nearly scraping the floor. Then he let himself fall, roll backward, spring back upright and leap again, kicking outward with both feet, landing on them both without apparent effort. The reverberation was loud, powerful, muted thunder.

Even Thor had nothing to say, Tony thought, dazed.

Steve looked at each of them in turn, blue-white eyes unblinkingly steady. Finally, he looked over at Tony before glancing down at his own hands. He turned them over to stare at the palms, glowing white in the center. There was a safety mode—he could only fire them with the unlock code—but he still stared at them like they were loaded guns.

“They won’t fire,” Tony assured, finding his voice somehow.

Steve lifted his right arm, pointed at the glass wall separating them from the balcony. Normally that would have cocked the proverbial gun, but nothing happened. He lowered his hand, seeming satisfied. Reaching up towards his own throat, he pressed the helmet release switch, blinking in the well-lit room.

“Oh, okay,” Bruce said, sounding more at ease, stuffing a breadstick into his mouth. “That makes more sense.”

Steve looked at Tony, hair mussed up, expression calm, satisfied. Like he’d scratched an itch, figured something out for himself. He didn’t need to ask where the release mechanisms were, pressing them and stepping out of the suit. It collapsed onto itself. He picked up the briefcase, set it on the floor very gently in front of Tony.

“It’s magic, Tony,” he said, eyes dancing.

Tony didn’t know what to say, nodding. Bruce was dishing out cards at the table for himself, Clint, and Thor. 

They weren’t alone, but it felt alone, like it was their secret.

Reaching out, Tony grasped Steve’s hand, his own fingers cool, Steve’s hot like the gauntlet. Steve squeezed his hand, very gently, released it. Bruce called, “You guys want in?”

Steve looked at Tony, who shrugged. “Yeah,” Steve called, hauling Tony to his feet.

The little table was crowded with five Avengers, so Tony shouldn’t have been surprised when Steve pulled Tony onto his lap like it was just normal, but he was. Exercising considerable self-control, the others didn’t comment. Tony, for his part, kept his reaction as down-low as possible, preening.

After a few spirited rounds of group card games, they somehow ended up playing _Go Fish_ , which didn’t work with two people sharing the same real estate, but Thor seemed to figure that it was a two-person game and joined Bruce, who set down his own hand, reading Thor’s. 

“Got any . . . fours?” Thor asked, with the sort of gravitas typically reserved for announcing that the prized ox had died.

“Go fish,” Steve replied calmly. “Got any nines?”

Thor wordlessly plucked a nine from Bruce’s hand, tossed it across the table. Steve smiled, laid the new set, and asked, “Got any Jacks?”

Thor smashed a fist on the table, nearly startling Bruce out of his chair. “Go fish!” 

It was, Tony mused, as Clint sat idly by and Bruce allowed Thor to make the calls, almost entirely a game between Thor and Steve. Tony didn’t mind at all, holding the cards and shuffling them, sliding the one Steve wanted just out of reach when he went to grab it, making him huff in amusement. Steve had one arm wrapped around Tony’s middle, the other flitting around, grabbing cards, sliding his own across the table.

Natasha joined them at some late hour. Clint scooted over so she could squeeze in a chair between him and Bruce. Thor and Steve, improbably, were still locked in the game. Tony figured it out after he caught Clint surreptitiously swiping cards from Bruce’s hand and replacing them whenever Thor looked up. He got away with it, too, until Steve said, “Got any Aces?” and Thor passed two across the table, giving Steve five Aces.

He still didn’t get it, laying down the cards triumphantly and asking, “Got any nines?”

Clint, Tony saw, amused, took a sip from an abandoned wine bottle and slipped the extra Ace out of the pile.

Tony was all but dozing when Steve said, “Got any . . . sixes?”

Thor reluctantly slid a single card across the table. Steve laid down the new set. “I win,” he said, very calmly.

Thor sighed mightily. “I have shamed my people this night.”

“Nah,” Steve assured, casually flitting the cards back into a single pile, moving almost as if Tony wasn’t there. “Your people will never know your shame,” he assured, reaching across the table, consolidating the rest of the deck. He slid it to Natasha, who shuffled it, and leaned back, wrapping both arms around Tony.

“I think I’ve had my fill,” he admitted, reaching incongruously for the nearest bottle of wine and drinking deeply. Even more incongruously, he squeezed Tony’s waist gently, not making any move to get up, so Tony accepted the hand Natasha dealt him and played their little game. He lost, but it didn’t matter, because he still had the best seat in the house.

He caught Natasha’s eye, saw her little smirk, but it was gone before he could confirm it. Clint’s poker face never broke. Even poor, sweet, fumbling Bruce didn’t falter and mention it. Thor, who had probably decided Tony and Steve were soul-bonded or whatever it was Asgardians did to express affection, was completely at ease, like he already knew they were together and there was nothing whatsoever to be gained from pointing it out.

Steve just held him, radiating contentment, and Tony basked in his glow.


	11. THIS IS A LEVEL SEVEN

They got the call in the middle of the night.

Steve was on his feet and in uniform in less than sixty seconds, tucking his now-silenced phone into one of his belt holsters. Tony, still groggy with sleep, watched him clip the shield on his back and say in a firm voice, “I gotta go” before loping out the door in three strides. Tony had the distinct impression he wasn’t about to wait for the elevator when the staircases were action-ready.

Slinking out of bed, running off less than an hour of sleep, Tony asked, “J.A.R.V.I.S.? What’s going on?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. has issued a Level 7 alert, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied.

“Level 7,” Tony echoed, not comprehending as he shrugged on a t-shirt. “What’s a Level 7 threat?”

“According to the databases, Loki Laufeyson’s arrival was the most recent Level 7 event.”

Tony froze.

“The Director has issued the alert to all local S.H.I.E.L.D. agents,” J.A.R.V.I.S. continued, “but all sub-seven agents are advised to stand down and seek shelter.”

Tony shoved the Iron Man bracelet around his wrist, summoning the suit. “I need details,” he ordered. “Give me everything.”

“The initial alert was issued at 0100 hours,” J.A.R.V.I.S. narrated. Tony glanced at the clock: 1:07 AM. “No supplemental information has been provided.”

“Patch me through to Fury,” Tony ordered, holding out a hand.

He suited up, faceplate sliding down. J.A.R.V.I.S. replied in the helmet, “I’m afraid he isn’t responding to his phone. Shall I try again?”

“Patch me through to Commander Hill,” Tony redirected.

She answered on the fourth ring. “ _Stark, make this quick, we’ve got a bit of a situation_.”

“Define _situation_ ,” he said, launching himself off the balcony.

“ _We have a containment breach_ ,” Hill replied. “ _Hostile loose in the facility_.”

“How do you even have a containment breach?” Tony demanded. “You messing with portals again?”

“ _It didn’t come from a portal_ ,” Hill answered sharply. “ _Just get over here, Stark_.”

“I’m en route. What kind of hostile?”

“ _We don’t know_.”

Tony didn’t know whether to be reassured or terrified. Reassured, because S.H.I.E.L.D. had had a damn good look at the Chitauri during the Invasion of New York and wouldn’t be likely to mistake a future recurrence; but terrified, because the unknown meant limitless possibilities.

An unearthly shriek across the comms nearly made him crash-land, the call cutting out as J.A.R.V.I.S. ended it. It was part of the suit’s safety protocol – anything above a certain decibel was shut down automatically – but the shock of it still made Tony rattle in his suit. _Holy shit_.

He landed outside the new S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ. It was deceptively calm, the night revealing nothing. Five seconds later, he felt the vibration of another terrestrial roar, muffled this time by the suit. He forced himself to walk towards the doors. _You’ve got this_ , he told himself, straightening his shoulders and balling up his fists. _You’ve got the suit_.

The doors scanned the suit and beeped. Then they swung inward.

Tony stepped through them, shifting on the night vision view to navigate the near-perfect darkness. Whatever had struck had knocked out the main power lines, plunging the room into eerie darkness. It took him a moment to realize his suit was still cutting off all exterior sound as he stepped soundlessly forward. “J.A.R.V.I.S., override manual safety lock, code Tau-185-942,” he instructed.

“Override successful,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied.

“Reinstate Tau-185 if amplitude above 100 decibels detected,” Tony instructed.

“Protocol reinstatement confirmed.”

Stepping deeper into the main atrium, Tony heard the firm press of metal footsteps on the floor as he advanced into the green-lit darkness. The Iron Man suit was a walking bomb shelter, capable of withstanding almost anything thrown at it with flying colors. It was aquatic, self-contained, and could support the weight of a ten-story building in a crisis. It was also was heat-resistant and bulletproof and could channel enormous quantities of electrical energy without damage. In any crisis, it was a very safe place to be.

Tony ordered J.A.R.V.I.S. to remain in passive detection mode as he prowled. It amazed him how empty it seemed, given how many people worked there at night. It was supposed to be a hub of human activity, but he couldn’t find a soul, only overturned carts and abandoned cases. There were, far more disconcertingly, huge claw marks on the far right wall. He paused, staring at them, letting the suit reel out numbers: 3.2-inch diameter, 46-feet-long, 10.5 feet off the ground.

His first thought was, _They let a goddamn dinosaur loose_.

He couldn’t determine why the creature had sliced the metal wall, let alone for such a distance, but he didn’t have time to contemplate it: the ground rumbled and another piercing shriek plunged the world into perfect silence as the Tau-185 protocol kicked in. Tony didn’t override it, pausing as the mini-earthquake passed.

He advanced through another set of doors, this pair mangled almost beyond recognition. Whatever had come through here didn’t have the Level 3 clearance requisite for S.H.I.E.L.D. mission information, Tony thought, let alone the Level 5 access to elevators it had disemboweled. There were more claw marks. He saw the first signs of true carnage in the form of dark, unmoving shapes on the floor. He swallowed hard, switching to a heat scan to check for life signs, surprised when each one lit up. They weren’t dead, just knocked out. 

Unsure if he was more reassured or uneasy at the thought, he opted to stop the pseudo-dinosaur first and attend to the wounded after. He flew up to the mangled elevator, then floated up to the next level. The suit shook with another vibration. Whatever made it was clocking in over 110 decibels, he noticed, more amazed than afraid. The suit could likely stand the buckle of a close-range nuclear explosion. It was going to take a lot more than a _T. rex_ to push it past its limits.

Still, it was more than enough energy to bowl over anyone unfortunate enough to not have a suit of armor between them and the source.

He was floating up to the fourth level when he felt something _ping_ against the back of the suit. Whirling, expecting a dinosaur, he stared uncomprehendingly at Hawkeye, crouched behind open elevator doors. Letting his gaze shift down to the arrow embedded in the shoulder of the suit, he pried it off with a metal hand, wondering if he was dealing with another Loki-takeover, but the arrow popped off, a blunt-headed magnetic square. _Handy, that_. 

Daring to angle over to Hawkeye, he said aloud, “Okay, Bird Man, what’s with the welcome party?” A beat. “Actually, what’re we welcoming? Start there.”

Hawkeye ignored him, staring down the catwalk, intent. When Tony hovered in the Iron Man suit, incomprehension written across the unmoving helmet, Hawkeye looked him up and down once and signed.

Tony stared even more blankly. “J.A.R.V.I.S.,” he tried.

“I can’t get a read on it, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. admitted sheepishly. “American Sign Language is not one of my known languages.”

Tony didn’t know a lick of sign language, so to his shame he was forced to mime, pushing both upturned palms forward twice, _slow down_. 

Hawkeye picked up what he was dropping pretty easily, leaning around the door, keeping his gestures clear and big. He signed with deliberate pauses, like he was teaching a first grader a string of words. “ _No sound_ ,” J.A.R.V.I.S. translated. “ _Ears off. Director missing. Power down. Animal use sound weapon. Need find. Stay alert_.”

“Remind me to teach you ASL when we get home,” Tony told J.A.R.V.I.S., nodding at Hawkeye and holding up, again with only his pidgin sign language, an OK-sign. “Actually, scratch that, remind me to learn it,” he added as, helplessly, he could offer no more than a _lead-the-way_ gesture with a hand. Hawkeye nodded, then pointed down the catwalk. Tony waited, but he didn’t advance.

Hawkeye signed: “ _Sound. Cover me_.”

It still took Tony a moment to translate the obvious, thinking stupidly that Hawkeye wanted Tony to watch his back. Then it clicked. He landed on the catwalk, an oversized human-shaped shield, and started walking down the catwalk. His own breathing seemed loud in the helmet, none of the expected cues to provide him any comfort. 

He felt rather than heard another magnetic arrow attach to his left hip, turning to see Hawkeye attaching the line to a clip on his own hip, like they were climbers roping up. At first Tony didn’t understand, but Hawkeye walked backward a few paces, pinning the line at his hip with six feet of lead. He looked at Tony and gave the line a firm tug. It didn’t detach, but Tony still felt the tug. Tony understood. _Tether_. He couldn’t hear Hawkeye if they got separated, but he could feel the line, and that was instant feedback.

 _All right, bud, let’s go find a dinosaur,_ he thought, turning back to face the unknown.

He walked maybe three paces before, after a prolonged silence, he _felt_ the wall of sound. He froze in place, feeling Hawkeye press against his back. Without audio, it was a pure wave of energy, washing over them, but it was still like a strong wind. When the rattle stopped shaking the floor, Hawkeye gave him a slight nudge behind the shoulders. Tony resumed walking.

They reached the opposite end of the catwalk and stepped into a warzone. Whatever had gotten out of its cage had passed through here, ripping its way down the corridor. Hawkeye unclipped his lead and darted out from behind Tony to the nearest door. He clambered over the ripped open door and stepped inside. 

He didn’t call out, didn’t pause, sweeping the room before bolting back to Tony and shaking his head. He didn’t bother to clip in again, ducking into the opposite room and emerging a few seconds later. Tony scanned both rooms thermally, confirmed what Hawkeye had already determined—no life signs, no bodies—and then braced his feet as a louder wave of sound shook the floor. Hawkeye held the back of his shoulder-plate for balance.

They moved from room to room. Tony grabbed Hawkeye by his shoulder, fumbled his way through a brief explanation by tapping the Iron eyes and then pointing at the rooms. Hawkeye got the message, nodding, and followed him down the corridor as Tony swept the rooms, pausing when he detected bodies behind a door. 

Hawkeye was there in a second, feeling around the door as he tried to open it, but it was on emergency lockdown. Tony knocked on the door hard, making it shake, and saw one of the huddled forms stand and approach. He could only see the heat signature, but he knocked twice hard enough to rattle the door. He saw—he couldn’t hear or even feel—the person reach out and mirror him. He could pry open the door, but he felt another roar rattle the walls and saw the person cower back from the door, the only wall between them and the monster.

It was impossible even for Iron Man to see the helmets they wore, but he suspected they had them. The combination of steel and armor could be enough to protect them from the worst of the sound. He counted six bodies in the corners, hoped they knew it wasn’t goodbye when he tapped out one last affirmative beat and moved away. Dinosaur first. Casualties later.

Hawkeye seemed torn, but he moved away when Tony did. They found a second room in a similar state three doors down. Tony didn’t bother to knock, knowing that it was false comfort he provided. He did feel a bit guilty, not giving Hawkeye any indication that there were human beings huddled in the dark on the other side of the wall, but he had a mission. _Find the monster. Stop the monster. Then worry about the little people_. 

At this hour, there were a thousand people huddled in the woodworks. The lucky ones had gotten out; the unlucky ones were hunkered down, waiting for the big guns to come out and put down the threat. _Good thing I brought them_ , Tony thought, almost itching for a confrontation as they passed torn doors and unconscious bodies inside them. Hawkeye didn’t stop at any of them because Tony didn’t stop at any of them, committed to the task at hand.

He wondered if Bruce was around, if Thor was on world, if the Avengers knew to assemble. He grabbed Hawkeye by the back of the shoulders, a firm Iron grip on his uniform and floated them up to the next level, using the empty elevator passage on this side. 

This floor was pristine, untouched. Tony noticed a lot of bodies in various positions. Hawkeye looked around, like he was ready to make a move, but Tony caught him by the back of the shoulders again, shook his head. Hawkeye nodded. The monster hadn’t come through here. He had to hope that the walls were thicker than they looked.

He got a good firm grip on Hawkeye’s shoulders and, with a fortifying breath of his own, descended first one floor, then two, floating down into the green-lit darkness, following the scars on the walls. He could almost see the monster screaming its way down. 

He _felt_ the rattling roar near the base as the monster cried out, Hawkeye squeezing his eyes shut in a grimace as the sound smashed into him. 

Then it cut off. Tony landed on top of the shattered elevator with jarring suddenness, not paying attention. Hawkeye buckled, one ankle nearly twisting as he stumbled forward on the wreckage, unclipping himself. Then, without hesitation, he slunk underneath the gap in the wall where the intact elevator previously alighted to let people off at this, the lowest level. Tony followed, albeit more clumsily.

To his surprise, it wasn’t Bruce or Thor that greeted them. He understood why Hawkeye had _scrambled_ out of the elevator shaft as the ambient lighting from the suit illuminated Black Widow, leaning against the wall, a gun in hand. It was almost impossible to see down here, even _with_ the night vision, but the suit glowed with ambient lighting, providing its own night-light effect. 

Black Widow stood out in the darkness, a pair of black ear plugs in place. She blinked owlishly, like she’d been fumbling in the dark for a while now. Tony noticed her left leg was elevated, broken, but she just looked him over once before jerking her head down the corridor. Hawkeye got up underneath her left arm, taking some of her weight. He looked down the pitch-black corridor fearlessly. He looked at Tony, itching to say something. Then he signed with one hand, _I stay. You go_.

Tony nodded, walking alone into the darkness. The walls were covered in claw marks, the floors gouged a bit, too. He glided along, scanning the space, not pausing at any of the unconscious figures he alighted near. 

If the monster roared like a jet plane taking off from the corridor, he didn’t want to think about what it would feel like down here. Eardrum rupture occurred around 150 decibels. Permanent hearing loss was possible in less than ten minutes of continuous exposure to 103 dB’s or more.

He turned a corner and got a glimpse of the monster at the end of the hall.

His heart stopped.

The monster paused, then turned, shoulders moving as it sniffed the air. It was . . . it was almost beyond description, in the ethereal green glow. Huge. Even bent in half, it was too tall for the twelve-foot ceiling, shoulders scraping it. 

As it turned to meet the newcomer, Tony saw it had a penguin’s beak and huge, soulless black eyes, glowing green in the night-vision. Its claws dragged the floor, leaving the gouges as it used them to hop along, almost ape-like, as it approached him. 

Tony had never retreated faster in his life as he hit full power to the reverse thrust, crashing into the opposite wall and watching death itself lope towards him.

He waited until it was almost on top of him, not out of any strategy but simple petrified immobility, before holding up both gauntlets and firing a full, blinding blast of red-hot light. The creature screamed. Even with the noise-cancelling qualities of the suit, it was overwhelming, like an earthquake at close-range. Tony cowered as the creature writhed and clawed at its own face, trying to get the light out of its eyes. Tony trembled, hands up, back in the little cove he’d carved for himself against the metal wall, as the creature shook its head madly, twitchy, birdlike, apelike, _thanks, I hate it_.

**_MONSTER!_ **

Tony jerked, sank to the floor as the creature looked right at him, still pawing with a taloned hand near its face, hand shaking. **_KILLER!_**

On the verge of hyperventilating, Tony stared and stared and finally thought, _What the fuck?_

The creature bared its beak—oh, God, it had teeth—at him. **_MONSTER!_**

 _Yes, monster!_ Tony agreed, wondering why he was shouting in his own head except he was, he was literally going crazy, because the bird-ape-man was shouting in his mind. _Stop shouting!_ he added as loudly as he mentally could.

The head tilted at an alarming, owl-like angle. Then, advancing, the monster breathed, _You speak?_

 _It’s MY head_ , Tony pointed out, trying to keep the hysteria out. _Get out!_

The monster loomed over him. Tony held up his hands. The monster bared its beak. _STOP HURTING_ , it shouted, leaning over him.

Self-preservation was strong, but Tony was a mere man. Pinned down by a giant bird monster, he couldn’t fire. He sat on the floor, trembling in terror as the bird-ape-man loomed right over him. Sensing compliance, it looked him over, beak heart-guttingly close. _What are you?_ it asked.

The wrong answer, Tony knew, was fatal. _I am Iron Man_ , he replied, trying to keep his thoughts clear enough, one-sentence-at-a-time. _What are you?_

 _Anuxa_. Even the name felt ancient, prehistoric. The bird-monster sat back on its heels. Tony felt the thud. He swallowed hard, staring. The bird-man—he suppressed a hysterical laugh because he was never looking at Clint the same way—chirruped. He didn’t hear it, just saw the throat move. _I have arisen,_ Anuxa announced.

 _That’s nice. Why?_ As low-key as possible, Tony thought, Can you go back to sleep?

Anuxa tilted its head again at that unnervingly steep angle. _To rule the world_ , it said, as if it was obvious.

Oh, good, a megalomaniac bird-man. Tony didn’t move, huddled in his little corner, wondering if this was how mice felt before hawks swept down on them. Probably. As calmly as possible, he thought, _Um. Earth is taken._

The bird-man didn’t even blink. Its green eyes—black eyes; they were only bright green in the suit—stared into his soul. _Taken_.

Nodding, Tony affirmed, _Closed for business. No more rulers._

Anuxa’s head returned to its proper place on its axis. It was silent for a long moment, then it roared, _I AM RULER._

The sound shook the corridor. Tony flinched. _Okay, bird-man, keep it down, would you?_

Anuxa reared onto its feet, back scraping the ceiling. _Bird-man?_ it echoed menacingly.

 _It’s an honorific,_ Tony hurried to assure. _Great leaders. Kings. Bird-Men, one and all. Ever heard of Horus?_

Maybe, Tony mused privately, this _was_ Horus, the ancient Egyptian god with a falcon head. The Greeks and Romans had parlayed names before. 

The bird-man relaxed back onto the floor and repeated, _Bird-Man. Anuxa. Horus._ Nodding, surprisingly civil, it added, _Iron-Man_. Its tone oozed derision.

Tony let it slide. _Lowly Earth Man,_ he agreed. _Juliet is the East, and you are the Sun._

Anuxa’s eyes narrowed. _What?_

 _Shakespeare? You don’t have that?_ Sweating in the suit, Tony insisted as calmly as possible, _Of course not, our lowly Earth art isn’t worth the Bird Man’s time._

Don’t push it, Stark.

 _I am looking for another Bird-Man_ , Tony added as pointedly as possible. Bird-Man blinked once. It blinks, Tony thought, careful to walk over the thought with a firm, _He is my friend. Missing one eye._ Covering one of the Iron Man eyes, he added, _Have you seen him?_

Bird-Man blinked again. _Snack?_

Tony shuddered. He didn’t vomit, but it was a near thing. _Please tell me you didn’t eat him_.

Anuxa blinked. _I am Bird-Man_ , it said, puffing up its chest, preening like a bird and baring it like an ape. It was disconcerting. _Only Bird-Man. No Horus. No one-eyed Bird-Man_.

 _Did you eat the one-eyed Bird-Man?_ Tony asked, staying on track as much as he could with the Bird-Man in front of him almost drooling on the suit.

Anuxa cocked its head the other way. It didn’t respond. Without warning, it roared and turned around. Tony knew he should fire, bring the monster down, but he couldn’t budge, could only watch in vague surprise-horror as Anuxa shouted, _**VERMIN!** _and charged. Tony could feel the Earth trembling, the ungodly roar almost enough to short out the suit as lights turned down low and J.A.R.V.I.S. warned, “Redirecting power from auxiliary to Tau protocol, sir.”

Tony nodded vaguely, pushing himself to his feet to watch Anuxa charge, prepared to disembowel the poor bastard who’d interrupted them. 

His wits returning, he held up both hands, hot and ready to fire. _Drop the snack!_ he ordered, but Anuxa ignored him, swinging its head forward with tremendous force. It clanged against something unyielding and metallic. Tony saw through the feathers and green light the flash of a curved shield.

_God dammit, don’t eat THAT bastard!_

Anuxa roared like it was trying to bring the whole house down and doing a reasonable job of it. Tony fired a warning shot at its right eye, making it fall backwards, scrambling with claws and beak. Tony thought he saw Steve shout something, maybe a greeting, maybe a warning, but then he tossed the shield Tony's way and leaped up. He grabbed Anuxa’s beak in both arms, holding it like a crocodile.

Anuxa thrashed and screeched, a tornado in feathered form. Tony offered another helpful blast to Anuxa’s foot, making the monster teeter before it threw its head upwards, smashing it _through_ the ceiling, super-soldier and all. _BAD SNACK,_ it snapped. 

Tony didn’t know if Steve responded—maybe the telepathy thing was one-way—but he scrambled to fire off another shot before Anuxa’s clawed hand could finish its path to Captain America’s back, prepared to gouge out his heart. The Bird-Man still got its claws in the suit, but only for a second as Tony picked up the shield and threw it as hard and low as he could.

It was comical, the way the metal _zinged_ past, Anuxa shrieking in surprise as it landed on its back, legs swept out from under it. It tried to scramble back up, kicking and screaming—even through the suit, Tony’s ears were ringing, starting to hurt a good deal—and Tony lunged into the fray, grabbing a clawed hand and ordering J.A.R.V.I.S., “Lock it down, Phi-24!”

A jolt of electricity passed from gauntlet to clawed hand, which spasmed and went limp. Anuxa used its free talons to pry Captain America off its beak, flinging him down the hall like an irritating mouse. Then it stabbed its beak towards Tony, who got his own Iron hands around it just in time.

He breathed rapidly, shaking with the effort as Anuxa thrashed in his grasp, claws ripping at the suit. _Don’t break my suit!_ he shouted, more irritated than afraid because oh, God, he was going to be eaten by a giant bird.

But he’d underestimated the Mark VIII; Anuxa’s efforts were fading, realizing that the metal under its claws wasn’t yielding like the walls and elevators had. _Iron Man_ , it said, hot breath on Tony’s metal arms, beak trembling in his grip, eyes so big they were all Tony could see, this close.

 _That’s me_ , he thought, getting his feet underneath him, but Anuxa pressed forward. He crashed back down, unprepared. Hissing, sensing an opening, Anuxa swung its head almost all the way around— _owl-man—_ and clawed at Tony’s face. Instinctively, Tony threw up his arms to protect it, wincing as claw scraped violently across metal. _Okay, all right, you made your point!!_

Anuxa ignored him, then turned with stunning speed and _leaped_. Tony didn’t even know how he managed it, firing automatically. Anuxa’s chest lit up in blinding green and it toppled to the right, crashing into the wall. It put out a clawed hand, the other frozen at its side, still disabled from the shock. It grasped at Captain America, who ducked around it and grabbed Anuxa’s beak. Tony fired again, but neither Captain America nor Anuxa—now gripping the back of Steve’s suit in a powerful, taloned hand—moved. “Outta the way, Rogers!” he barked, his own voice loud in the suit after the silence, but Steve couldn’t hear him.

Anuxa shouted, _I cannot be stopped!_

Then the monster lurched backwards and Tony saw an arrow sticking from its feathered breast. Steve didn’t let go. Neither did Anuxa, crashing in a confused mass of feathers, claws, and steel on the floor. 

There was no blood around the wound. Tony had the impression that it was surficial, but it caught Anuxa off-guard. Hawkeye loosed another arrow at the talon on Steve’s back. It spasmed but didn’t let go. Hawkeye let his next arrow loose on Anuxa’s collar. 

_Now_ the beast bled, Tony thought, as Anuxa roared again, shaking the walls, bowling Hawkeye over with sound alone. Even Steve let go. Sensing an advantage, Anuxa _roared_ , full-throated and feral. The decibel readout on the suit hit 178. 

The loudest sound humans had ever borne direct witness to was 180. 

Even Tony reached up to cover his ears, heart pounding. He forced himself to focus, putting his hands up and firing right at Anuxa’s throat, stunting the cry. He poured heat until the feathers blackened, until the beast stumbled and rasped in something like panic, _Stop! Stop!_

Tony stopped. Anuxa reached up with its speared hand to pry the other arrow out, shuddering, feathers dropping. Tony saw it rip the arrow out and toss it towards the unconscious archer at the end of the hall. He warned, _That’s enough_.

Anuxa turned to look at him, eyes pinched in pain and fury. _I am Anuxa. I am to rule the Earth._

 _Tough shit_ , Tony replied unsympathetically, gauntlets up. _Earth’s closed._

Anuxa hissed, but it was a volcanic exhale, a gasp of air more than a true cry. _Vermin,_ it said. 

Tony fired a warning shot, right at its face. Anuxa cried out, a weaker scream that still hit 140 on the suit. _We can do this the nice way or the not-so-nice way,_ Tony told it. _What’ll it be?_

Anuxa stared at him with hatred. _Monster_.

Tony let the gauntlets burn red with heat. In the mask, they bathed Anuxa in sinister green light. _Try me, Bird Man_. 

Anuxa bowed its head, still looking at him with dark eyes. There was no surrender in those eyes. Tony fired. Anuxa ducked and charged.

It was red, tooth and claw, as Anuxa fixed its beak around Tony’s right shoulder, shaking hard, intent on wrenching it free. If it could break the shell, the noise-cancelling tech would be useless, and Tony would be pretty useless shortly after. 

Pouring heat onto smoldering feathers, Tony roared right back at the beast, using Iron Man’s strength to push upward, stand, force Anuxa back a step. Anuxa let go of his shoulder but stabbed forward three times in quick succession, powerful penguin beak like a javelin. Tony cowered involuntarily as it dented the suit. He grabbed the beak and Anuxa threw him towards the ceiling. Kicking on the thrusters at the top of the arc, Tony surged forward, bowling Anuxa over.

He held Anuxa against the floor, keeping the thrusters on, pinning it by the throat, beak still stabbing haphazardly at the mask. Anuxa thrashed, sensing a greater danger than mere humiliation as it used its feet to push against Tony’s lower half, digging the claws in deep. 

Tony was grateful beyond measure that he’d beefed up the Mark VIII, because the metal _still_ bent, and it was almost three times as thick as its predecessor.

Slowly, the pressure eased. Anuxa’s eyes went glossy. They didn’t close. Tony released it warily, but the chest still rose and fell. . . . _Anuxa?_ he tried.

The Bird-Man didn’t twitch. Tentatively, Tony reclaimed his feet, staring at the downed monster, feeling dizzy with a mix of emotions.

Wasting little time, he flew over to Clint, grabbed the rope off his belt and returned to the monster. Then he wound it as tightly as he could around the beak before tying it off. For good measure, he repeated the gesture with Anuxa’s feet. 

Anuxa sneered suddenly, _You are unworthy to be Ruler_.

 _That’s nice_. Glancing at his fallen teammates, he looked right at Anuxa and said, _You’ve been a bad bird._

Anuxa hissed, but it couldn’t open its beak. _Monster_ , it accused.

 _Uh huh_. Then, using Iron Man’s ample strength, he grasped Anuxa like an oversized turkey, upside-down, holding the feet together and dragging it along the corridor. 

With both hands disabled and its throat still oozing blood, Anuxa seemed in little shape to fight, but it still twisted furiously in Tony’s grip, stabbing as much as it could. It was almost funny, until its beak jabbed at his leg hard enough to dent the metal, and then it was decidedly less funny. Tony howled in pain, but he still didn’t drop it.

He hauled his prey back the way he’d come, saw Black Widow looking at him in disbelief as he passed by, Anuxa sliding on the floor. Tony still couldn’t hear it, didn’t dare turn off the Tau protocol until he was sure things were contained, but from her expression, the sight was as extraordinary as it looked.

Flying up the elevator shaft with a giant Bird-Man was more work than even the suit was used to handling. Anuxa complained, _Drop me. Drop me_.

Tony huffed and puffed and clawed his way up the shaft, using one hand to hold the bird dangling below. _Shut it_.

He dragged himself to the Atrium level, hauling Anuxa after him. He was greeted by a small army of black-suited S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, all wearing helmets and protective gear, as well as rather large guns, pointed right at them. Anuxa sneered, _Vermin_.

Tony watched the agents regard them in silence for two seconds before redirecting their guns solely at the Bird-Man. “I brought you a present,” he said, but he could barely hear himself. “Sorry it’s not wrapped.”

The vermin took over, tasing the bird bastard no less than five times, any time it so much as lifted its beak. Tony had little sympathy for it, especially since it seemed to shake off the shocks with ease, but those brief interludes allowed the agents to get super-duct tape around claws and beak. That was good enough for Tony. 

Even as a team effort, they struggled to haul the bird away. Tony was forced to carry it, turkey-style, as the agency picked itself up. They were almost to the detainment center when the lights came back on, and Tony saw in full technicolor wonder the horror that Anuxa had wrought, including—he swallowed hard—several body bags as other agents flooded the floor. An _all clear_ signal rippled throughout the facility. 

Anuxa was still making enough noise that Tony was grateful for the protective barrier of the suit, but it wasn’t prohibitive for the agents in their suits, a reminder of what it _could_ do. He hauled Anuxa towards the cell the agents opened, dragging the Bird-Man inside and releasing it. _Stay down_ , he advised. _Or they’ll tase you again_.

Anuxa sneered and lunged upward, then jerked as an agent tased it. _Told you so,_ Tony said, stepping out of the cell. The door snapped shut. Anuxa’s snarl fell silent.

It was surreal, staring at the monster in the full light of day, terrifying and unearthly in the dark green light, alone, silent, but white-feathered and almost harmless in the unforgiving cell light. Its big eyes were open, its beak cracked a touch, the softest seething hiss inaudible but visible. 

Tony thought about taking pity on it, turning the lights down, but the Bird-Man had tried to eat Captain America. Maybe it deserved a little discomfort. Besides, he knew, looking at the agents who were talking to each other, fresh—they’d arrived from other locations, he sensed, to help contain the disaster in New York, 2.0—they’d take care of it. They were cold, not cruel.

Anuxa told his back, _I will rule the Earth_.

 _It’s good to have dreams_ , Tony replied without looking back.

He wondered why none of the other agents seemed off-put by the telepathic creature, but it occurred to him that he didn’t converse with ants very often. _Vermin_ , he mused as he plunged back into the broken elevator shaft, wondering how furious Anuxa would be if he realized Iron Man was a _lie_.

 _It’s not a lie_ , he thought, landing with more grace amid the wreckage on the floor, steady now that he knew the monster was under control. He still had to work to slip underneath the gap, but he was rewarded with a dimly-lit hallway. He asked aloud, “Anybody home?” Then, realizing he wouldn’t hear anything even if there was sound, he ordered, “End protocol Tau-185.”

“Tau-185 protocol ended,” J.A.R.V.I.S. said. There was a soft sigh as the world came back into focus. It was amazing how much _sound_ there was: creaking walls, the distant patter of feet, a tiny city coming alive. He heard more immediately footsteps and he glided down the hall to meet them, almost crashing into Hawkeye, who startled back.

Then, looking Tony in the eye, he signed, _All clear?_

Tony nodded. Hawkeye relaxed. _Clint_ relaxed. They were still the Avengers, but the battle was over. Tony lowered his faceplate to express it. The ringing in his ears seemed more pronounced in the open, almost stale air, laced with concrete and rubble. “Where’s Cap?” he asked.

Clint had no trouble reading his lips, signing, _Up_. Sensing Tony’s confusion, he pointed a finger at the floor above, adding the symbol Tony recognized as _Director_.

Tony looked around, but the hallway was empty. “Natasha?” he tried.

Clint shrugged, looking helpless and frustrated. He signed something else. Tony raised the faceplate. Clint repeated the gesture without so much as an exasperated side-glance. “ _I don’t know_ ,” J.A.R.V.I.S. translated. “ _Maybe Captain. Maybe Mountain_.”

 _Hill_ , Tony thought, nodding once in understanding. “Don’t they have trackers?” he asked. It was Clint’s turn to look blank, frowning. Tony rephrased it: “They have cell phones. Can’t they call Fury? Hill?”

Clint smiled, then pointed at his ears. Tony caught the gist. _No ears, no phones_.

“Are you hurt?” Tony pressed.

Clint shrugged, then indicated his own ears and signed something. Tony didn’t know enough to know the ASL word for _pain_ , but he could surmise it. Shrugging again, Clint waved a hand.

Tony stepped forward and reached out. Clint braced himself as Tony grabbed his uniform by the back of the shoulders and floated them up through the broken ceiling to the next level. Cap was a monkey in an elevator shaft, but Tony doubted he would abandon Natasha in a hurry, and Natasha wasn’t climbing with her hurt leg. Still, he was surprised that they’d already put enough distance between themselves and Clint and Tony to be invisible. Waiting until Clint faced him, Tony said, “Split up?”

Clint nodded. Then, waiting until Tony put the faceplate up, he signed, _Meet Atrium_.

Tony nodded in confirmation. Clint trotted off, moving at an easy but efficient pace, swinging from door to door. He didn’t call out, barely made a sound in his loping strides. Tony thought about following him before turning towards the elevator at the end of the hall and seeing pried-open doors. He slipped through them, then floated up to the next floor, where agents were reappearing. The _all clear_ call, he realized, was only good for people who could _hear_ it. He knew Cap must be pretty desperate if he was ignoring the people trapped in their own silent prisons in search of Fury.

Tony hesitated, then floated up past that floor to the next. Here, just twelve feet higher, people were moving freely in the corridor. It was amazing, how the foxes came out of the foxholes once the emergency passed. There was hardly any panic in the air, a sense of interrupted routine and a near-miss. Tony moved up without pausing, sensing more than knowing that Steve wasn’t among them.

He almost doubted that Steve could climb four stories in the time it had taken him to put away Anuxa, but it was almost three in the morning, and Tony realized with a jolt that he hadn’t been gone for a few minutes, dragging his prize: he’d been gone for over an hour, helping the agents take care of the hostile. He’d left Clint, Natasha, and Steve alone in the dark for an hour. Guilt stirred in his belly, but he crushed it down and searched the fourth floor.

He’d underestimated Steve. He wasn’t on the fourth floor. 

He was on the _eighth_ floor.

Even with his back to Tony, Fury looked to be in a bad way, bruised and bleeding. He was limping alongside Captain America, moving away from Tony and the destroyed elevator, one firm, bloody hand on the blue uniform, and holding his free hand to a bleeding wound on his side. Tony had many questions, but none of them seemed to matter. The conference room he’d visited a dozen times was down the hall, not far from Fury’s own office. The entire hallway was striped in claw marks, blood, standing but shaken by the encounter.

Fury grimaced with each step. Tony was surprised to hear his voice, short but strong. “This is why I hate Wednesdays.”

Steve didn’t respond. Tony found his own footing, gliding into the hall, alighting beside them. Steve paused, then turned. Tony caught Fury under his opposite arm, supporting him as gently as he could. Fury still sucked in a breath, then sighed, “Just once, I want all Hell to break loose on a Tuesday.” He bled onto the floor with every step. Steve moved at his pace, barely making a sound, never once acknowledging Tony. The weight of his guilt was palpable, even from here, and Fury’s speech was as much for himself as it was for them. Calming. Normal. “Can’t believe I had to call you kids in in the middle of the night.”

“You’re not that old,” Tony bantered, voice light. Normal. “Miocene at most. Cap’s late Cretaceous.”

Steve didn’t say anything. Fury sighed. “I used to like _Jurassic Park_. Now I’m going to have nightmares about Bird-Men.”

“Join the club,” Tony admitted, flinching from an invisible beak stabbing at his face. “Heard dinosaurs _were_ birds.”

They were silent for a few steps. “You know what,” Fury said, “I believe that. I believe that completely. I have never met a meaner animal than a swan.”

“Rooster,” Tony said, shaking his head. Fury looked at him. “My Uncle went through a chicken phase.”

“A chicken phase?”

“I almost went through a nine-finger phase,” Tony said.

Fury huffed, then closed his eye. Tony picked up the thread of the conversation, asking casually, “You ever seen _Jurassic Park 3_?”

“No,” Fury said, opening his eye. “Why?”

“It’s a beautiful train wreck,” Tony said.

“Really.”

“No, but it’s a rite of passage.” Nodding, he added, “Cap’s never seen it, either.” A beat. “Movie nights are invitation only, you understand.”

In the same flat drawl, Fury said, “What’s the catch?”

“No catch.” A pause. “I’ll think of something.”

They reached the end of the hall. Steve got the door open one-handed. Tony let go of Fury so they could pass through it. Steve took Fury’s weight easily as they walked down the stairs. “So, who brought Anuxa?” Tony asked conversationally.

Fury paused and Steve stopped automatically at his side. “Anuxa?” Fury repeated blankly.

Tony nodded. “Yeah. Bird-Man.”

Fury looked over his shoulder at him. He seemed tired, worn, in no jesting mood, but the Iron mask gave away nothing. Besides, Tony wasn’t lying. He lowered the faceplate and asked, “Do you really think I’d name it _Anuxa?_ ”

“How do you know its name?” Fury asked.

Tony shrugged. “It told me?” Steve turned to look at him, his expression guarded, like he wanted to know why Tony was holding them up. “Really? Didn’t tell you?”

“I had ear plugs,” Fury said. “Once it breached the outermost doors and hit 100 decibels, I took safety precautions.” He looked over Tony, then noted, “Guess it helps to have a soundproof suit.”

Steve, patient but unhappy at the holdup, gave Fury the gentlest of tugs. It reminded Tony of a kid tugging on their parent’s pant-leg and Fury conceded, walking alongside him. “Of course, my ears were still ringing for a while, but I can hear pretty good now.” 

“I’m glad,” Tony said truthfully. Then, testing a theory, he asked, “How’re your ears, Cap?”

Steve’s pace didn’t change at all. Fury gave no indication that it was unsettling, instead saying calmly, “I regret bringing you two into this.”

“Four, actually,” Tony amended. “Romanoff and Barton are downstairs.” 

Fury sighed. Steve firmed up his grip like Fury was flagging and needed the support. “How’d he find out?” Tony asked, tone conversational but a warning undercurrent lacing his tone. “Thought he was a Level 4. You know. Grunt labor.”

Fury didn’t respond immediately. “It’s been four months since the incident, Stark,” he said. “Even the Council recognizes that there are just and unjust holding periods. They’re not prepared to lose an Avenger, and neither am I. I convinced them to lift the hold.”

“So that’s it, then.”

Fury turned to look at him. Steve almost stumbled, lost in his own thoughts, regaining his footing after a beat. “I’d prefer not to have this conversation right now,” Fury said.

Tony looked at him, at Steve’s stiff back, and nodded. “So where’s Bruce?”

A longer pause. “Level 6.”

Tony sighed. “You’re really something else, you know that?”

Sounding annoyed for the first time, Fury said, “It’s not a caste system, Stark. Occasionally it is not in our best interests to have the Hulk in an unsupervised environment during a crisis.”

“Cause more trouble than he’s worth,” Tony agreed acidly. “Makes sense. You know you can trust us farther than you can throw us, right?”

“Can I?” Fury retorted, voice misleadingly calm.

They reached the second lowest level. Agents had noticed them, finally, and rushed out to help. They kept their distance, though, refusing to touch Captain America, Iron Man, or Director Fury without permission. Fury waved them off. Steve and he walked the rest of the way to medical unaided. Still trailing blood. 

Tony resolved to have a stern talk with Bird-Man as soon as possible. He followed, faceplate down, an armed escort prepared to rebuff the first person to cause them even the slightest inconvenience.

Hill was lying on a gurney, eyes closed, hair caked with blood on the right side of her head. Tony felt guilt twist up in his stomach, wondering if there was any way he could have stopped it. The little infirmary was full of the wounded, Tony realized, people with their head in their hands, a few with more gruesome injuries hidden under pure white bandages. _I couldn’t help them,_ Tony told himself, because the attack was too fast. He couldn’t have carried all of them. He could barely protect Hawkeye. _I can’t protect them all._

It felt like an excuse as Captain America lowered Director Fury to a chair. He stepped back, arms crossed behind his back, at attention, guarding as much as supporting the Director. Tony felt obtrusive, unwanted, and wandered over to Hill’s side, but she didn’t awaken and debrief him. It had happened fast, all of it. He looked around, lost, grateful that the faceplate was up, his entire demeanor Iron, unreadable. 

He felt Clint’s hand on his shoulder, giving it a light shake. He turned to face him. Tony caught his expression, saw Natasha standing nearby, a sentinel with her ankle wrapped in a black brace. She looked cool and calm, but he could tell they were both tired. And, in the oddest twist of events he’d ever seen, they weren’t asking Cap for permission to leave. 

They were asking _Tony_.

He couldn’t make himself speak. It wouldn’t matter if he could. They couldn’t hear him. He felt like an island, surrounded by people who hadn’t fought the battle attending to those who had been leveled by the fight. 

He didn’t want to lower the faceplate, but Clint looked at him with helpless supplication, so he nodded his head towards the door, and led the way. He didn’t turn to see them follow, didn’t look back at Cap, standing like a bodyguard at Fury’s side as a small team of doctors attended him, his shield covering his bloody back.

Tony hesitated in the door, wanting to grab him, too, _c’mon, chief, we’re going home_ , but Steve wouldn’t leave when Fury couldn’t stand on his own. That was who he was. If his commanding officer was down, he wouldn’t abandon the fort to lick his own wounds. He stood his ground. He stood vigil. Tony knew it was wrong to abandon them.

But he had to give the stand-down order or the Avengers wouldn’t disassemble. It was almost in their blood, follow-the-leader. If Fury summoned them, they went. If a giant Bird-Man monster bore down on them, they fought back tooth and nail. And when the dust settled, they stood at attention, ready to fight as long as there was danger in the air.

There was no more danger. Natasha and Clint didn’t say a word to him, never once indicated that they were following him any more than sharing his objective— _get home—_ but they all piled into Clint’s car and he drove them back. He wasn’t at all uncomfortable with the silence. 

Tony knew his ears had to be hurting from the attack, but he was Deaf, so this was oddly normal. Tony lounged across the backseat, his suit too big to fit comfortably between seats, and watched the roads go by. They didn’t talk—there was no point—and when they reached the Tower, Tony felt gratitude and shame wash over him in equal measure.

They went upstairs. Bruce was still on his floor, asleep, or out and about, unaware of the panic that had pulled the others from a cold sleep. Clint and Natasha worked late; they’d been at ground zero when the alert went out. Everything here seemed very normal.

Tony stepped out of the suit, shoving the briefcase aside. He got himself a drink. Something to take the edge of the night off, help him sleep. He had no plans on sleeping, but Clint and Natasha left him alone in the main room, which was nice. He lounged on the couch, untouched glass in hand, watching the sunrise.

He almost thought the wait was futile—surely Steve would go to bed, as he always did after a long day at S.H.I.E.L.D.—but Tony’s intuition called him to stay, so he did. He wasn’t disappointed: around seven in the morning, six hours after the alert, Steve stepped through the doors. 

He was still in uniform, still moving stiffly. He moved almost warily into the kitchen. He seemed edgy, uneasy. He reached up and pawed at his right ear before dropping his hand. He looked around, saw Tony on the couch, and stiffened, looking him over before turning away.

Tony stood up and walked over. He paused near the counter. He was trying not to startle him, but Steve still flinched when he happened to look around, agitated, and caught Tony standing closer than he’d expected. He hesitated, like he didn’t want to put his back to Tony, every line of his body tense. He turned to grab a glass, filling it from the tap and chugging it down, repeating the gesture half a dozen times. Tony knew he’d drink right from the tap, had seen it before, after a hard workout, stuck his face under the water and fed a seemingly unquenchable thirst. He was civil now, efficient, stepping aside and setting the empty glass down. He put a few more steps between himself and Tony. Tony couldn’t read him, at all, underneath the wariness, the uneasiness.

Tony slid down the counter. Steve paused near the opposite end, watching him. Letting him close the distance. He stopped just out of arm’s reach, looking Steve over, unable to see the damage but for the tears in the suit. The shield covered the gouges on his back. He tilted his head at Tony and finally, tentatively, reached out, running a hand over his sleeve. Steve seemed satisfied with what he found, brushing his thumb over warm skin for a moment.

His voice sounded ten years older. “I can’t hear you.”

Tony reached out and caught his suit. Careful not to touch the gash near his hip, or the slice under his right arm, or the dozen little wounds he knew were lurking under the blue. He didn’t know what to say—knew there was nothing _to_ say—so he reached up, slowly and gently worked his thumbs under the helmet, and slid it off. It wasn’t a helmet, not metal and fire like Tony’s, but it was better than a mask. It came off. Steve watched him. Tony cupped his face. “It’s okay,” he said. Steve blinked at him, hungry for affirmation. “It’s okay.”

Steve nodded, catching on. He looked down. Tony let him go, took his sleeve, tugged him away. Steve followed him, didn’t ask where or why. Sat on the edge of the empty bath, still in uniform, looking up at Tony thoughtfully. He breathed shallowly when Tony reached for the shield on his back, holding out his right arm so he could slide it off his shoulders, a tiny, suppressed noise escaping him as it slid free. 

Tony didn’t need his own suit to see the torn flesh underneath the suit, black and blue bruises everywhere. He winced, but Steve patted his thigh reassuringly, like he needed it. Maybe he did. He set the shield aside, reached for the zipper near Steve’s throat. Caught Steve’s gaze, steady as could be, utterly calm. He slid down the zipper and saw more red and blue. 

It was fitting, Tony thought numbly, as Steve shut his eyes and let Tony guide first one and then the other arm out of the suit, that Captain America bled like his country. He made another soft sound. Tony knew it wasn’t intentional, but he didn’t pause, didn’t make a comment on it. It wouldn’t matter, anyway. The wounds looked terrible, raw and without the clean lines of blades and guns, just ripped flesh and maimed skin. He wasn’t quite torn to pieces, but Anuxa hadn’t forgiven him for challenging it, and the fight was painted in vivid red, white, and blue across his flesh.

Running a bath was out of the question—the shredded skin would never tolerate it, and it would heal, Tony knew, in due time—but he couldn’t do nothing, hands skimming over cold, clammy skin. He stepped aside, found a washcloth, dampened it with warm water, and worked around the wounds. He brushed the same unhurt patches of skin over and over, re-warming the cloth and sliding it very gently over bruises. Steve kept his head bowed, eyes closed, sitting with all the weariness visible in his curved shoulders. 

Tony knew he felt guilty, in the same way Tony felt guilty: all those bodies, the living and dead, the disaster that struck in the middle of the night that felt personal. It was always personal. Whether it was people they knew or people they’d never met, they were the Avengers. They were heroes, light in the darkness. When they passed by the closed doors, they weren’t supposed to leave people in the middle of a crisis. They were supposed to help. But it was too big a job. _Stop the monster. Then help the others_.

They’d both made their choice. Tony wished he could talk to Steve, but he didn’t know what to say.

He knew what he would have said, five months ago:

_We do what we can, Rogers. We save as many as we can and we keep collateral low. We have to move on. It’s like you said. We lose soldiers._

He helped Steve shuffle over to the bed, sit on the edge. With all the care he possessed, he wrapped his chest in clean white bandage. He didn’t talk, but he mused in silence, _I think we did pretty good, chief. Fury’s all right. Hill’s alive. Clint, Natasha, they’re okay. They’re both hurting, but they’ll be okay. I’m okay. I know, that doesn’t seem fair, does it? I get the suit of armor._ Around and around the roll of gauze went. It was a soft sound, sliding through his fingertips. _I wish you had one. I know you don’t want an Iron Man suit. I get that. I think. Man of the past_. He left Steve, who watched him carefully. He returned with a soft, over-sized shirt. Steve shrugged it on, grimacing before smoothing out his expression. He was still in the suit pants and boots. Tony worked the boots off first, crouching in front of him.

 _Maybe it wouldn’t have hurt you, if it thought you were different,_ Tony thought, tug, pull, gentle, he couldn’t know all the damage Steve wasn’t saying. He’d had a head start. The fact that Anuxa was cornered in the basement when its target was eight stories above it implied that it had been chased down, inspired down, compelled to follow the prey. Tony knew Steve wore a target on his chest and back and shield for a reason, but it still amazed him to imagine _luring_ the monster into the pits, away from everyone. He wondered if it was the allure of a shiny new toy. All the gray-suited mice. Then the brilliant red-white-and-blue mouse, who was quick on his feet and more interesting to chase than the ones that fell over.

For all he knew, Anuxa was color-blind, but Steve was still brilliant in motion, unstoppable.

It would have hurt him, Tony decided, working off the left boot carefully, no matter what suit he was wearing. Because Steve would have drawn the fight away, no matter what it took. He would have spent every breath he had making sure the monster couldn’t break free. 

He wished he’d been faster. He had the suit. He _should_ have been faster. But terror had kept him slow, kept him from lunging into the fight. He was afraid. It slowed him down, while Steve was fearless, and that gave him the breathtaking speed needed to act, to _save lives_.

People were alive because of Captain America. Tony hoped, desperately, that he knew that. He leaned up, cupped Steve’s face for a moment, looked him in the eye, wishing he could convey that he had done the right thing. He’d done _everything_ he could. Because he was ready to die for them, for anyone who needed him to jump on the grenade, and Tony was scared to. He was afraid to lose, to experience catastrophic failure. He was afraid to fly into space without a way back down, to die cold and dark and alone. He wouldn’t go, until he knew he could survive. Steve would leap and worry about surviving the fall when he hit the ground. The world saw them both as heroes, but Tony thought they didn’t make them like Steve Rogers.

He would have held Anuxa’s head in his hands if that beak had been through his _heart_ , and only let go when he finally died.

It was a haunting image, just one more body in a bag for S.H.I.E.L.D. Tony resolved to be as fast as he had to be to keep that from ever happening. It had seemed impossible in the heat of the moment, that Steve could _lose_ , but Steve knew it, just as Tony knew it, stayed back from the monster. Steve chose to risk it all anyway.

He got the pants off with little fuss, offered a pair of shorts, rested his thumbs on the least damaged parts of Steve’s skin above the hipline when they were in place. He still couldn’t speak. He didn’t know what to say, and Steve couldn’t hear him anyway. He pressed a kiss to Steve’s forehead instead, holding it there.

Later, sitting with his back to the headboard, Steve’s back facing him as he slept, Tony sifted through the S.H.I.E.L.D. files on a tablet. He found his own. Saw what he expected, glancing at the top before moving on. He didn’t care to read the whole thing. Didn’t want to know what they knew. He found Steve’s, saw Level 8 and did a double-take.

Level 8.

It was no wonder people had deferred to him, Tony realized, feeling dizzy. He couldn't unsee the image of Hill unconscious and Fury, for all his muster, flagging while Captain America stood by, not in watchful hunger but as a rock for the entire organization, a promise without words: _I’m here. Everything’s going to be okay_. There were other Level 8s, Tony knew, even a couple Level 9s, but that night, the chain of command was clear, who was there and who would keep them afloat, should their true leaders fall.

Hill, Fury’s director subordinate, was Level 9. Fury was at the very top of the chain. Even Clint, the highest ranked among their group prior to the Avengers’ Initiative, was still Level 7. 

If Steve was Level 8, there was very little information he couldn’t access. Equally very great responsibility rested on his shoulders. Moreover, had the chain of command fallen, Level 8 agents stood at the ready to assume permanent leadership of the entire organization. There was, of course, the Council to oversee all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s branches, but the implication still stood.

In a weird, almost cruel way, promoting Steve made the leash on his neck that much tighter. There was a happy middle for S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who wanted it all, power, prestige, but not so much responsibility that fieldwork became impossible. Every agent at S.H.I.E.L.D. depended on the chain of command. Everyone trusted Fury: when he issued an alert, everyone fell into line, took shelter, came to the rescue. They didn’t question the chain of command because it kept them alive, would follow it even if their leader was wrong. If Fury was down, Hill was there to lead them. But if Hill was down. . . .

Tony looked at Steve thoughtfully, just the tuft of golden hair above the blankets, like he didn’t want to be seen—or was escaping the light from the well-lit room. Tony would have turned the lights off if Steve wanted it dark, but he had fallen asleep with them on eighty percent. Tony hadn’t felt like changing it. He wasn’t even tired, and the light was comforting. A normal day. Wednesday. October 3rd. According to the little temperature readout on his clock, it was a cool sixty-two degrees Fahrenheit outside. A nice, normal, fall morning.

He huffed to himself at the thought, trying to think of a _less_ normal start to the day. He realized with a start that it had been exactly two months since they’d left Oahu. Leaving Hawaii, he decided, closing the screen and setting the tablet aside, was a mistake. New York was a poison and it was killing Steve, maybe even him, too, but Steve wasn’t going to move an inch with S.H.I.E.L.D. holding his chain.

In a conspiratorial corner of his mind, he wondered if Anuxa’s untimely arrival wasn’t, in fact, rather timely. It certainly showed how vulnerable S.H.I.E.L.D. was without Captain America. The man, the myth, the _legend_ who was ready to take a bullet to the teeth for its agents, who would leap into action without a drop of hesitation in his veins, who was loyal to the _bone_ to every single one of them. Tony didn’t doubt Fury’s and Hill’s loyalty to S.H.I.E.L.D., but even he could see that Captain America’s diehard dedication was mouth-watering for an organization headed by people that depended on obedience.

No, he wouldn’t be at all surprised if Anuxa wasn’t an accident.

Wordlessly, he reached for his phone and texted Rhodey, _You know, October is a beautiful time of year. To visit your best bud._

Rhodey was an early morning person. His reply was quick. _A visit, huh?_

_Just for a few days. I know you’re a working man._

_Something happen?_

Tony considered. _No,_ he decided. _Just miss you._

 _Sure,_ Rhodey replied, after a long pause, _I could come up for a few days._

_If you want, I’ll send my jet._

_Oh, you will?_

_You act like I never share my toys._

_That’s because you don’t._ Tony snorted softly. He was definitely sending the jet to Rhodey, but Rhodey offered, _I’ve got the Iron Patriot_.

_I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of my private jet taking off._

_Jackass._

_You love me._

_I do. You’re really a piece of work._

_Wait till you see my roommates._

_I’ve seen your roommates._

_Then you know it’s nurture._

_Sure thing._ A long pause. _I can leave after work._

_That’s perfect. I’ll make cookies._

_Ooh. Save it. I want cookie dough._

_Did you earn cookie dough?_

_Do you really want me to show you the pictures, Tony?_

_Pictures?_

_Malibu_.

Tony grimaced. He wasn’t completely proud of his errant youth, but Rhodey still thought the world of him. That was what counted. _That’s a low blow, James._

 _That’s just on my phone._ Tony could almost hear his grin. _Let me know if you ever need convincing._

_You’re a cold, cold man._

_You love me._

_I do. I’ll let you know when the jet lands._

_Really something._

_I try._

Setting his phone aside, Tony looked at Steve, still sound asleep. He leaned over, kissing his cheek. Steve grunted, and Tony felt bad, because he hadn’t meant to wake him, but then Steve dragged the sheet from over his head and mumbled, “Tony?” And Tony melted.

“Hey, buddy,” he replied, leaning back. Steve sighed, reached up to cup his cheek. Gratitude radiated from him. Tony tilted his head to kiss his palm. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Mm.” Steve assured, “Just happy to hear your voice.”

“It’s a nice voice,” Tony agreed, heart bleeding with relief. “I could win an award, for my voice. It’s that nice.”

“You could put it next to your modesty trophy.”

“Finally. Someone who understands my core personality traits.”

“Humility, modesty, temperance,” Steve agreed. “In that order.”

“Now you’re pushing it.” Tony leaned down and kissed his cheek again. “I’ll have you know I’m _very_ good at holding my drink,” he said against warm, faintly stubbly skin. It was nice. He missed the Oahu beard though.

Steve hummed, sighing as Tony kissed along his jawline. “Besides, I am the _life_ of the party,” he reminded.

“Mm-hm.”

“I am,” Tony insisted.

Steve reached up again, scratched his cheek lightly. “Sure thing, buddy.” He dropped his hand, pulling the sheet up over his face again. Tony defied it by nuzzling his face against the blanket-covered jawline. He could swear Steve was smiling, even if his voice was honey-smooth as he insisted, “I take no bribes.”

Tony kissed the top of his head, then shifted like he would get up. “Okay, then I’m just gonna—”

Even moving carefully to avoid over-stretching any sore points, Steve was still quick as he rolled over, snuck both arms around Tony’s waist, and gently but adamantly hauled him into his arms. Tony went with it because there were worse ways to lose. This wasn’t even losing. Oh, no. He liked to think he planned this outcome, shuffling down contentedly, head tucked under Steve’s chin. “I changed my mind. I accept one bribe,” Steve murmured, and Tony could feel it.

He draped his own arm around Steve’s hip, careful not to put too much pressure on his back. “You are so damn hot,” he said, amazed that Steve wasn’t raising the temperature of the room. Tony knew he ran warm whenever he was healing, but it was a furnace under the sheets.

Steve’s chuckle was soft but there. “Thanks. I try.”

“Where’s _your_ modesty trophy, huh?” Tony asked, squirming away and pulling the sheets down. He sighed in the cool air. “If you say in the mail, I’m gonna kick you.”

“It’s in the mail,” Steve replied easily.

Tony didn’t kick him, but he did grumble, “Don’t make me a liar.”

“I’m not makin’ you a liar. You’re makin’ promises you can’t keep.”

“Snarky. You’re a snarky man.”

A beat. “‘Snarky’?”

Tony groaned. “You’re so old. Old man. Old.”

“Old bear.”

“Do you even know what a bear is?”

Steve paused. “Yeah.”

“Do you really?”

“. . . Did they change bears?”

Tony couldn’t resist a snicker. Steve’s voice carried his pout. “It’s a big fuzzy animal.”

“Uh huh.”

“. . . Tony.”

“Nope, you got it.”

“ _Tony_.”

“I’m tempted to keep saying no so you’ll keep saying my name.”

Steve sighed. “You’re gonna make me ask Clint.”

Tony paused, then said seriously, “Please tell me when you do. I wanna record it.”

“No,” Steve said stubbornly, tightening his grip around Tony. Hugging him like a teddy bear. Tony snickered. “What’s s’ funny?” he grunted.

“Grumpy old man.”

“Mean old bear.”

“I am not a bear.”

“I’m not a tiger.”

“What does that have to do with bears?” Steve was quiet. Tony waited, amusement growing. “Hm? What’s a bear got to do with a tiger, huh, buddy?”

Steve curled around him a bit more, like he could get Tony to stop arguing if he cuddled him close enough. He was wrong, but Tony wasn’t about to disillusion him. “You been reading?” Tony teased. “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!”

Steve was now almost on top of him, kind of smothering him, if Tony was honest, but he couldn’t stop snickering. “You know, on the list of things to be shy about, I wouldn’t think nicknames is one of them.”

Steve grunted near his shoulder, “Mean old bear.”

Tony pushed up against him, mostly for show, but also because he was _hot_. “Big hot tiger,” he teased, able to feel the blush on Steve’s cheek as he tucked his face between Tony’s neck and shoulder. “At least you’re cute. Otherwise I’d have to kick you.”

“Promises, promises,” he mumbled.

Tony reached up, scruffed his hair near the base of his neck. It was so soft. He didn’t understand it. Didn’t mean he didn’t love it, oh no. Just wondered whether or not you could bottle perfection. “A bear is a gay guy with a paunch,” he said. “Usually hairy. The very epitome ofmasculinity,” he added. “You get partial credit.”

Steve didn’t say anything for a moment. “Huh,” he mused.

“Don’t get ideas,” Tony warned. “No running away with a nice bear. I’m right here. I’m not a bear.”

“I’m not gonna run away with a bear, Tony.”

“Thank you. Not that there’s anything wrong with bears. I love bears. Who doesn’t?”

Steve tilted his head, kissed his cheek. “Who doesn’t?” he agreed serenely.

Tony scratched his neck. He hummed against Tony’s shoulder. “Rhodey’s coming over,” he said conversationally.

“Good guy. S’that mean we gotta get up now?”

“No,” Tony assured, sliding his arms down Steve’s back, anchoring them around his waist. “No, we’ve got some time, big guy.” Then, belatedly, he added, “It’s October 3rd.”

Steve hummed. “S’that a holiday?” 

Tony paused. “Probably. I have no idea, actually.”

“Happy October 3rd.”

“No, Steve, it’s _October 3rd_.”

“. . . Yes?” Almost pleadingly, he added in a thick Brooklyn drawl, “Tony, please, I’m beggin’ you, I can’t learn two things in one day, it’s bears or October 3rd, not both.”

“You know it’s not fair when you do that, right?”

“Do what? S’how I talk. All the time.” Switching back to prim and proper—how _does_ he do that? Tony wondered, snickering—he added, “See? Same thing.”

Sighing, Tony said, “See, now I can’t tell you what October 3rd is.”

“National Bear Day.”

Tony snorted. “Yes. It is . . . National Bear Day. Thank God. I remembered.”

Steve tried to hide it, but he was chuckling. “Sounds like a great day.”

“It _is_ a great day,” Tony agreed. Sensing he would get nowhere otherwise, he pointed out, “Okay, September 3rd.”

“. . . S’that when the, uh, the Twin Tower—?”

Tony groaned. “No. Focus. 9-3. 10-3. What do these numbers have in common?”

“Tony, I’m gonna be honest with you, I was never really good at math. Why’re we doing math?”

“Really? Captain America can’t handle four numbers?” Tony softened the words with a faux put-upon sigh. “I can’t believe you are making me spell this out, Rogers.”

“‘m sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize.” 

“’m gettin’ a lot of mixed signals.”

“Steve. Steven.”

“Tony- Tony-e-en.”

“You moron, it’s _Anthony_.”

“. . . Really?”

“How do you not know that?”

“Howard didn’t even have a girl when I went under, Tony—”

“Please don’t ever call my mother ‘a girl’ again.”

“Sorry.”

“Quit apologizing.”

“‘m sorry.”

Tony pushed up on him. Steve sat up, looking down at him with baleful eyes. Tony cupped his face, held his gaze, and said, “You are such a nerd, I can’t stand it sometimes.” He covered Steve’s mouth with a hand, then added, “No, shush, listen.” Steve didn’t lick his palm, which Tony thought showed a considerable amount of restraint, but he seemed more amused than annoyed at its presence. “We left Oahu on August 4th. Do I have to spell out August 3rd?”

A pause. He could almost hear the gears turning. They turned slowly. Sighing, he released Steve’s mouth and finished, “You goddamn nerd, it’s our two-month anniversary.”

The gears turned slowly. Steve looked him up and down once, like he was searching for the clue to the riddle. Then it clicked. He smiled, pink dusting his cheeks. “Anniversary, huh?” 

Tony pulled him down, kissed him, and muttered against his cheek, “Swear to God, you’re lucky you’re cute, you big dumb bear.”

“Mean old tiger,” Steve retorted, smiling as Tony groaned.

. o . 

He looked it up, later.

October 3rd. 

National Boyfriend Day.

Of course it was, Tony thought, watching Steve and Clint banter without words, light cuffs and the occasional signed word between them, smiles and easiness. Natasha wasn’t up yet, even though it was almost two in the afternoon, but Tony didn’t see that as unusual, after everything. If anything, he should have been more surprised at how readily Bruce accepted the breakfast Clint and Steve were cooking up. Steve did most of the talking, but Clint still made his opinions known, grabbing the pancake bowl or letting an elbow catch Bruce in the ribs as he reached for Clint’s smoothie. Natasha had gotten them hooked on smoothies, Tony mused, wondering what that particular addiction was known as. Everything had a name.

Including the warm feeling in his stomach as he watched Steve grin and play with them. 

That thing, he decided, was called _love_.

They took their cues from their Captain, Tony noticed, watching with an idle sort of wonder as they stayed within a ten-foot radius, Bruce at the counter, Clint at the stove, Steve moving around and talking, cracking open the milk jug with his teeth as Natasha stepped up and wrapped an arm around his waist, sliding his own arm around her shoulders. “Hey,” Bruce pouted, “get your mouth off that.”

“This is mine,” Steve replied, uncapping the bottle and drinking it down. Natasha didn’t move away. Tony felt almost intrusive, watching the four of them from a distance. Steve did indeed drink the entire bottle—he’d had plenty of experience, after the America’s Got Milk campaign—and recycled the empty jug with a smile. 

“There’s more,” he assured, moving down the counter so he could chop up bananas for smoothies. Bruce got the message. Natasha hadn’t left Steve’s side, holding on, gently pinning him in place, but even that wasn’t abnormal; Steve invited closeness, warmth, comfort.

Bruce got up and snagged Clint’s smoothie. Clint whacked him with the wooden spoon hard enough to make him yowl.

Steve chuckled, brushing his cheek against Natasha’s hair, squeezing her gently. He was completely at home, Tony thought, feeling warm. This was where they all belonged.

They were the Avengers. 

Kickass in the field, family in the kitchen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. Anuxa is in fact a minor Marvel villain. It's horrifying!
> 
> P.P.S. Behold—[Anuxa](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Anuxa_\(Earth-616\))!


	12. OLD SCHOOL TRICKS

Standing in the lab, fully suited, Tony turned over the Mark VIII gauntlets, torn between the inadequate and the excruciating.

He could make repairs. Or he could put the Mark VIII to rest.

The suit wasn’t mortally wounded, but it would never attain 90,000 feet again. It wouldn’t sustain him under deep water or protect him from extreme temperatures. It was a great shield, but he needed an enclosed wall of armor. Anuxa had ripped far too many bricks from his fortress. 

Standing in the suit, Tony could feel the structural integrity damage like a tremor under his skin. Internal bridges near the hips and shoulders had collapsed. He was lucky that none of the pieces had broken loose, but they had been crushed inward, creating new weak points that hadn’t existed eighteen hours ago.

Swallowing hard, crushing down disappointment—the Mark VIII suit was just six days old—Tony asked in a voice that only shook a little, “J.A.R.V.I.S.?”

“I’m here, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied soothingly.

Tony closed his eyes. “What’s the right move?”

J.A.R.V.I.S. was not without compassion. “The Mark VIII has performed admirably well,” the AI danced, neatly sidestepping the brutal deliverance. “It endured a sonic attack that would have rendered the Mark VII inert. While its demise was premature, this one can only be considered a success, sir.”

Tony sniffed. His eyes were dry, but he hated that the answer was no longer a split decision, that even the appearance of dawdling would not bring him any comfort. “Thanks, bud.”

“I am sorry, sir.”

“I appreciate it.”

“I have no doubt that the Mark IX will be more spectacular.”

“I appreciate that, too.” Tony sighed, cleared his throat, then said robustly, “All right. Okay.” In a calm, clear voice, he announced, “Mark VIII, final entry. One goddamn hell of a suit. IX won’t go down like you did. Goodnight, buddy.” 

Then he slid the helmet back a final time and stepped out of the suit. It collapsed into its suitcase form, gently and without provocation. He drew in a fortifying breath, trying to ignore the emotion tightening in his throat. He felt tired. Worn. Overwhelmed from the near-death experience and crashing from too many low-to-no sleep nights in a row. He’d been flying this beauty eighteen hours ago, swooping through the star-scape, untouchable, free, laughing at 70,000 feet.

Fuck, it was beautiful at 70,000 feet. It was goddamn indescribable.

Pulling the handle on the briefcase, he rolled it over to the far wall. Sliding a panel aside revealed the resting Mark VI and the first Mark VII, both proudly on display.

Both suits had seen better days. The Mark VI suit had nearly been eviscerated in the helicarrier blades; its first round against the Chitauri had been brief and decisive. 

Its successor, the unfinished Mark VII, had succumbed to the vacuum of space. It had taken some delicate work to reattach the faceplate to its helmet—it had taken a surprising amount of time just to _find_ the damn thing, in the breathless reeling aftermath—but he’d managed it. He’d spent hours welding the first VII’s faceplate back on, wanting it to fit well, to look _good_ , not perfect but as it was meant to be but good enough for display. He’d been pleased with the results, loving it in its inertness. 

The first Mark VII was a beautiful disaster. 

Its clone, the Mark VII 2.0, was a suit that had proven itself worthy well over, achieving a watermark for all suits to follow: the coveted 30,000 feet mark.

It had seemed so high when he’d first flown it.

( _Shouting, howling with unbridled joy, he effused, “J.A.R.V.I.S.! 30,000 feet! New record! New record!”_ )

There was nothing not to love about the Mark VI and especially the Mark VII. Tony was almost grateful that both had died in battle or he may never have moved past them. They were sleek and wore the red and gold well, high-climbers, sea-divers, tough as hell and built to last. They should have lasted twenty years apiece. He hadn’t built either suit with future suits in mind; he’d only planned to improve the ones he’d had. 

There was something sobering about the first Mark VII, neutralized by the killing cold waters of space, in light of its successors: the second Mark VII was still operational five months later, but the Mark VIII was dead inside a week.

Flipping a switch, Tony watched all three suits disappear behind the sliding wall before he walked over to the adjacent panels, sliding them back manually. Stepping back, he beheld and admired the twin Mark Vs. They were designed solely for low-altitude flight, pushing 300 lbs apiece. The first one was on life support, demolished after its rough encounters in the field, but the second one was nearly mint condition, action-ready if needed. The Mark V was a great model for on-the-ground defense, but it was terrible for the light-flight he’d come to cherish with later models, loathe to be pinned to the ground. He didn’t want to stay under 1,000 feet, but, in a pinch, he was happy to throw on some real armor if he needed to take a beating.

 _Should’ve brought it to Anuxa_ , Tony thought ruefully. Even so, hindsight was twenty-twenty. The Mark VIII had been the superior suit by a landslide. Everything about it was faster, smarter, better, _more_. It had dozens of safety protocols that outshone even the Mark VII 2.0, extensions of Tony’s borderline-obsessive pre-planning that were designed to save his life in a pinch. He had had the basic commands established as early as the Mark IV, but by the Mark V he was already contemplating auto-suits and integrating J.A.R.V.I.S. more fully into the system.

The Mark VIII had been a dream suit. Instead of functioning like an inert skin of armor, it involved hundreds of individual components that operated in glorious concert, allowing him to control the minutiae, the details, like a biome working in tandem. It had dozens of protocols, enabling it to function like a human body: Tau controlled auditory functions, Theta controlled respiratory actions, Eta controlled visual, and so on. Six days hadn’t been enough to field-test it all.

Still, J.A.R.V.I.S. was right: the Mark IX would be even more spectacular.

With a soft exhalation, Tony shut the door on the Mark Vs. He felt oddly protective of the suits, even the dead ones, because they had been brilliant in life. He would always be grateful to them for 30,000, 60,000, 90,000 feet. He would be grateful for humble IV, the first suit to look like _Iron_ _Man_ , and humbled by the first three models, Marks I through III. They had gotten him home, _made_ him home.

Even though he didn’t open any other panels, he looked down the wall, at the remaining closed doors. He smiled privately at their unseen contents.

They weren’t going fly again, but they were still there. That was what counted. They were still there. 

And the Mark VIII was back with the Mark VI and VII. It felt fitting: neither the VI nor the VII were flight-worthy anymore, but they were almost identical, and the first VII had also become the first Exo-suit. It hadn’t survived the encounter, but it _had_ gone to space. It _had_ set a high bar, giving him the first taste of infinity. The Mark VIII had just taken him that much closer. 

He couldn’t bear to look at it, still so pristine and personal despite its damning battle wounds, but he was content knowing that it resided somewhere special.

Feeling naked without a suit, he turned away from the long pharaonic wall and crossed to the far side of the lab where most of his tech resided, head quiet, empty of all remorse, all hope that the Mark VIII would come alive as he had hoped it might. Sifting through his treasure scattered around, he didn’t have to search long before he found what he was looking for, a briefcase that felt cold against his skin but still fit like a glove in his hand. Tugging the box into the center of the room, he kicked it flat and pressed the release mechanism, and the Mark VII 2.0 sprung to life.

Standing inside it, comfortingly cocooned, Tony ran through the suit’s stats on the head-up display. It was the older model and it showed, some of the peak records shattering in their discrepancies with Mark VIII, but it was still a spectacular suit. When Tony said, “It’s good to be back,” he meant it.

“I’m gonna keep you safe,” he promised, looking down at his armored arms with no small sense of wonder. Thinking about how it was the first suit that he had flown with Steve, hanging by a hand, made his chest tighten. 

He curled his metal hand into a fist, like he could hold onto the memory that way, like he could hold onto everything present and beautiful if he tried hard enough.

. o . 

Lounging in the suit on his favorite souped-up bean bag, Tony was entering _I’m so tired my teeth hurt_ territory, which was why his first response to Steve stepping into the lab was, “Carry me.”

To his credit, Steve cocked his head at him, like he was sizing him up. Tony didn’t know why he didn’t say _I’m kidding_ even when Steve lifted him up, Mark VII and all, like he’d done a dozen times before. Belatedly, Steve asked, “Why?”

Sigh filtered behind the mask, Tony replied instead, “You’re a dream, you know that?”

He heard Steve hum, but he couldn’t feel it through the metal. “I aim to please.”

“I will find your vices,” Tony vowed, but even with iron in his voice, it didn’t sound particularly threatening. “I can’t believe you did it.”

“You did ask.”

“And if I asked you to throw me through the wall, would you do that, too?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I’m not gonna hurt you, Tony.”

“You throw Thor through walls.”

An unexpected chuckle reverberated against the metal. “Mm. That’s fair.”

Tony couldn’t help himself: “Really, I’m beginning to think you love him more than me.”

Steve hiked up Tony, Iron Man suit and all, like he was preparing to throw him. “Is that so?”

Nearly certain that Steve wouldn’t do it, Tony still wrapped Iron arms around his neck, clasping his wrist to lock it down. “I changed my mind; my love language is gifts.”

Steve hummed again in acknowledgement, holding him close. He didn’t seem remotely strained to have nearly sixty pounds of metal bearing down on his shoulders alone. Tony was duly impressed. “What’s a love language?” he did ask.

“Sound it out,” Tony suggested.

Steve huffed. “You’re a real character, you know that?”

“Yes. Because I’m Iron Man.” Then, squeezing his neck very, very gently, he added seriously, “You don’t have to carry me.”

“S’fine. I can do this all day.”

“Really?”

“I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but you and yours aren’t the heaviest things I’ve ever had to carry.”

“I’m _deeply_ wounded. How many other Iron Men are in your life, Rogers?” 

Steve shrugged and began walking towards the door. “How many suits do you got?” he answered breezily.

He paused near the threshold, turning sideways to pass through it. Tony squeezed his neck again, this time in warning. “Hey. Beautiful disaster.”

“Mmhm?”

“Don’t get caught. My pride will literally never recover.”

“That’s a shame.”

“I’m serious.”

Steve shrugged. “Won’t get caught. The kids are downstairs.”

“The kids,” Tony repeated incredulously.

“Y’know. Clint, Natasha, Bruce.”

“What about Thor?”

“He’s not here.” Striding down the hall, Steve paused again in front of the elevator. Its motion sensor picked him up and summoned their ride. “At least, he wasn’t an hour ago, so my information might not be current.”

“That’s comforting.” It was surreal being in the suit in _Captain America’s_ arms as Steve stepped inside the elevator. It felt like a dream. He squeezed Steve’s neck, trying to affirm its realness, but it was intangible to his fingertips underneath the gauntlet. Steve made a soft warning noise. Then the elevator pinged, and Steve stepped out of it. 

Tony wanted to say something smart, but he was too entranced, fatigue and the fact that he was gliding down the hall without a single whoosh or purr from the suit making him content to enjoy it. Besides, they reached his room, and that was literally the worst thing that had happened to Tony in the last twelve hours—which was fair, since the Anuxa attack was, according to the HUD time, roughly nineteen hours behind him.

Steve set him down, letting out a grunt of pain when Tony’s grip didn’t release on his neck, forcing him to hunch forward. Tony released him quickly, feeling a flash of sharp awareness break his pleasant stupor, that flicker of pain there and gone on Steve’s face. “Easy, Tony,” Steve rumbled, only softness in his voice, no anger.

Tony moved deliberately in the suit—not slowly, but with intention, cooperating with the suit, making it work with him. Standing in front of Steve, taller in the suit—that was nice but also dreamy, off-world—he said seriously, “Please don’t ever hurt yourself for me.” Steve looked at the Iron mask like he could see right through it. Tony switched off the helmet with a simple touch to the base of his neck, adding in a normal, unfiltered voice, “I love you, you beautiful disaster. You don’t need to prove anything.”

Steve smiled at him. He didn’t look tired, which wasn’t fair, because Tony was sure his only remaining human emotion was _put me to bed or I’ll die_ , but his general happiness and warmth were contagious. Tony sighed, giving up on reforming him. “Know what we should do? We should go flying.”

“There’s always tomorrow,” Steve said calmly. Calmingly. He was calming Tony.

But _flying_ , God damn, wouldn’t that be great? “Clear our heads. Don’t you wanna fly?”

“Tomorrow,” Steve assured.

“It’s almost tomorrow.” Tony looked at the clock, adding, “Five more hours.”

Sneakily, Steve reached out, took one of Tony’s gauntleted hands, and pressed the button at the base of his wrist, manually releasing it. “Sure,” he said agreeably. “Tomorrow.” He slid his hand up the Iron forearm, clicked the release at the elbow, the shoulder, and removed it as one piece. Tony stood still, almost floored that he still remembered how to do it.

(The suit was dead. Right. The suit was dead and too heavy for Tony to carry and he needed to get it off. Right. In the wake of the Chitauri attack, Tony couldn’t seem to find his equilibrium. 

_You good?_ Cap asked, looking down at him.

_Sparkling._

_Okay, Stark. There an art to this or just start anywhere?_

_Buy me dinner first._

Without so much as a disapproving glance, Cap found the release mechanism on his neck, and the rest of the helmet slid free.)

Fuzzy-headed, content to feel warm human hands replace warm metal as Steve worked the suit off him, Tony mused, “You never bought me dinner.”

“Hm?”

“Dinner,” Tony said slowly. Then, pointing at his mouth with his Iron-gloved hand, he made an exaggerated chomping motion. “Food. At night.”

Steve took his hand calmly, released the lock in one smooth motion, and squeezed his actual hand a moment later. “Your knack for poetry really moves me, Tony.”

“I have many, many—” Tony yawned, not quite losing the train as he finished, “many talents, Rogers.”

“Uh huh.”

“Don’t _uh huh_ me.” Tony poked him in the chest. It was rock-solid. “Honestly, I gotta know, is it the working out, or is it just natural?”

“Mm?”

Tony poked him again, light, careful. Steve wasn’t the type to point out Tony was poking a bruise. 

Steve huffed, catching on. “Right. Uh.” He released the chest plate, pressing the catch above the arc reactor. There were two, off-center—easy access for Tony, but not necessarily things he would accidentally touch in the heat of battle and thus, deeply inconveniently, pop out of his suit—and the release mechanism loosened the torso plating. 

Steve pried the suit open using a seam on the left flank. Tony hadn’t wanted to build a suit that needed to be pulled over his head in case he had to manually free himself, so he made everything accessible and easy to remove. For the chest plating, it was like prying off a jacket that zipped along the side instead of the center.

Steve tipped the release buttons on his hips. Tony felt the Iron legs release his own until he could step backwards. He did so unthinkingly. The metal folded in on itself, collapsing into a cube. Steve nudged it aside like it was feather-light. Or just delicate. Tony wasn’t sure, but he did accept the lush, warm hug Steve tucked him in, all soft lines and radiant human warmth.

“Okay,” he permitted, voice muffled by Steve’s chest, “this is acceptable.”

Steve hummed agreement, holding him close. Swaying. Steve didn’t say anything. Tony was sure he could and would fall asleep, just like this. Maybe he did.

Steve just held him and swayed, swayed, swayed.

. o .

The bed was bigger than Tony remembered it.

Rolling away from the pillow he was drooling on, he flailed an arm around the emptiness next to him before opening his eyes and confirming what he already knew: it was empty. _All right, big guy_ , he thought, more curious than annoyed. He glanced at the clock—huffed at 6:49 AM; Steve was on his morning run—and launched himself out of bed with a sigh.

He got himself ready for the day and then, for good measure, pulled one Iron gauntlet over his hand, activating the rest of the suit. It fit like a glove, compact but comfortable. He ran it through its paces—Alpha, Beta, Gamma scans, which took ten seconds, thirty seconds, and two minutes, respectively—and determined that cosmically, he’d been destined to reclaim this suit: it was in perfect working order.

 _Gotta stop throwing out my toys, huh, bud?_ he mused, flexing his arms. He twisted around to reach his own back, testing the suit’s flexibility. Compared to the Mark VIII, he could feel the added weight, the slower response times, but it was still a dream to operate. He walked confidently in it. 

There was no evidence of revelry in the main room, but he saw a disproportionately large number of clean dishes next to the sink and suspected. He felt strangely ambivalent about the idea of sleeping through the party. They were kids, and he was Iron Man. Let ‘em have their fun. He had his.

Stepping out onto the balcony, he called up the temperature readout. Sixty-seven degrees Fahrenheit. Not cold enough to wear a coat, but far from the heat of the summer. 

The thought saddened him more than he expected it to. Summer couldn’t last forever, but he wanted it to. It was like a sweet, tangible thing in his mind, a living memory he was afraid to let go of. 

There was something fragile about the future, about fall, _winter_. He hated the idea of losing anything to future storms he couldn’t see yet. He wanted to bask in the sun until his heart was full.

Inside the suit, it was pleasantly cool, immune to the outside temperature. “J.A.R.V.I.S., deactivate Theta-160.”

“Deactivated Theta-160 protocol.”

The ambient air temperature was cooler than the suit. Tony shivered, cool metal against his skin, but he drew in a breath. It was real air, fresh air, circulating in his lungs. He could feel the suit breathe, strategically loosened to allow air to flow in and out. 

Tony was a planner. He hadn’t ruled out the possibility that he’d need a way to vent the suit in a pinch. He wasn’t about to end up suffocating in a cage of his own making. It was nice, breathing deeply, flooding his lungs.

Curiosity was an endless thing. “Reinstate Theta protocol if atmospheric pressure drops below 50 kilopascals.”

“Protocol reinstatement confirmed.”

Tony lifted off slowly, climbing at a pace that would feel glacial in an enclosed suit but felt fast with air flowing freely. It was nice, like swimming through air, the weight of morning dew and the sharpness of cool but not freezing air filling his lungs. He knew he’d wasted time—summer was better for it, none of the early morning coolness—but he was glad he hadn’t let ice creep over him before realizing he could fly without the bells and whistles. He left the altimeter on the suit, watching the number scroll upwards.

At sea level, the atmospheric pressure was right around 101 kilopascals. That was humanity’s home environment, the intended atmosphere that some had overcome by living at altitude but most were bound to. With air half as thick, it was agony to be above 14,000 feet, but Tony had the Theta protocol for that. He wouldn’t get to 15,000 feet before the Theta protocol reinstated.

He leveled out around 7,500 feet, adjusting to the temperature drop and the gradually thinning air. It wasn’t punishing—yet—but he could feel it, feel the faintest hint of breathlessness. People routinely climbed 7,000 feet above sea level, _lived_ 7,000 feet above sea level, but there was something surreal about climbing the same height in less than ten minutes.

He felt a _whoosh_ as air displaced underneath him. Then he heard a familiar Iron voice say, “First you make your boyfriend pick me up at the airport, then you don’t tell me you’re going joyriding. Are we even friends, Anthony?”

Tony held out his arms like a kite, feet together. He looked down at Rhodey, hovering effortlessly ten feet below. “There’s a lot to unpack from that.” He was surprised himself with how calm his voice was. Maybe that was the dropping air pressure talking. “When’d you get in?”

“Eleven.” With a roll that was second nature, Rhodey looked up at him, gliding on his hands, palms towards the Earth, and said calmly, “Pretty sick ride, not gonna lie.”

“You flew?”

“. . . You get hit in the head? Private jet?”

It clicked. Tony huffed in understanding. “Right. The Gulfstream. Pretty slick.”

“You were pretty trashed last night, weren’t you?”

Tony made an affronted noise. “I haven’t been _trashed_ since college, Rhodes.”

“Uh huh.” Rolling back over, staring at the ground, Rhodey lobbed back, “Okay, picture-of-health, where were you last night?”

Tony didn’t respond immediately, floating along. Rhodey let him get away with it, drifting ahead of him. Tony didn’t know what to say, so he ordered, “J.A.R.V.I.S., initialize Theta-160.”

The suit locked into place with a puff of air, a perfectly self-contained unit. It was amazing how quiet it was. He thought the Tau protocol was still offline, blocking sound, but—no, that was the soundless beauty of flight with a good helmet. Rhodey didn’t notice, and Tony knew the change was subtle, under the plating, internal bridges shifting and realigning. 

It was amazing how much depended on those tiny bridges. There were hundreds of them, meant to turn and fold and expand depending on what he needed. The suit was three times larger than Mark II, but it looked smaller and weighed less, because like shark-teeth, most of the extras were tucked under the skin, folded up in layers. The Iron Man suit had four connected skins, the innermost pressed right against Tony’s, the outermost absorbing the worst of combat damage.

Built by S.H.I.E.L.D., the Iron Patriot had almost no bridges, autonomous and flight-worthy, tough as hell and powerful, but not streamlined. It would have been impossible for the suit to perform the acrobatics that Tony enjoyed, spiraling to feel the world spin round, the suit equalizing effortlessly.

“Oh, now you’re showing off,” Rhodey teased. Tony responded by cutting the thrust completely and falling backward with a whoop. Driving fast cars didn’t have _anything_ on this, Tony thought, reengaging the thrust before he could get dizzy, following a parabolic arc upwards, leveling out right next to Rhodey. He grinned behind the mask, certain Rhodey, equally unreadable under the Iron mask, could see it. “You were joyriding, weren’t you?”

“No,” Tony admitted, floating upwards, gentle but constant thrust that Rhodey mirrored. It reminded him of hawks riding air currents, but they were creating their own air currents, defining their own limits. The altimeter climbed towards 10,000 feet. Mark VII could hit the 60,000 foot ceiling, but 10,000 was as high as Tony felt comfortable taking the Iron Patriot. Too few bridges. It would become top-heavy in the thinner atmosphere without the right structure, make it hard to fly, make it dangerous to fly.

“I’m gonna make you a new suit,” he declared.

“I like this one,” Rhodey replied, looking at him steadily, blue-white eyes. “Really.”

“I’m gonna make it better,” Tony insisted. “Climb higher.”

“I don’t need to climb higher.”

“You haven’t been to 90,000 feet.”

Rhodey whistled. “90k?”

“90k.”

“Damn.”

“Sums it up.” Tony rolled, floating on his back and looking up at the blue, blue sky. “How many hours you got left on the suit?”

Rhodey checked in with his own less autonomous J.A.R.V.I.S., which Tony had nicknamed A.L.T.A.I. ( _A Limited Toolkit Artificial Intelligence_ ). A.L.T.A.I. could only respond non-verbally, but it was almost as smart as J.A.R.V.I.S. “Four-and-a-half,” Rhodey replied. “How long were you planning on staying up here?”

“Four-and-a-quarter,” Tony defined. The Mark VII had thirty hours left. “Although I didn’t stop for breakfast, so maybe two.”

“Ooh.” Rhodey made an appreciative sound. “I could go for blueberry pancakes.”

Tony’s mouth watered at the thought, but descending meant leaving the perfect blue plane. He was content to put his growling stomach lower on the priorities’ ladder. For now. “You’re cruel. Now I want blueberry pancakes.”

“Hey, you left me at the airport.”

Tony rolled onto his stomach. “It’s not an airport.”

“It’s got a runway.”

“No TSA. _And_ no lost luggage.”

“Touché.” A beat. “So, am I supposed to forgive you for sending your boyfriend in your place?”

Tony turned his head to look at him. “My what-who-now?” he asked eloquently.

Rhodey sighed, looking at him with that _you are so goddamn stupid, Stark_ look that Tony could feel behind the mask. All Rhodey needed was a glass of water to sip as Tony made a dramatic, spectacular ass of himself on national TV on behalf of Stark Industries. It would be perfect. “Captain America picked me up at your private airport an hour before midnight, and you wanna tell me there’s nothing going on between you two?”

Tony looked straight ahead. “I don’t have a tracker on him. He goes where he pleases.”

“He answered your phone.”

 _God dammit, Steve_. “Sounds like a personal problem.”

“Tony.”

“Rhodey.”

Rhodey sighed. “If you’re really gonna play this low-key, you need to be more careful.”

Tony had an image of a star-lit suit, a warm summer night, and a feeling of complete and utter isolation. “I’m the king of low-key,” he said, for want of something more persuasive. “There’s nothing there, Rhodey.”

“No?”

Tony didn’t deign it with a reply.

They flew in silence for a few moments. Tony knew Rhodey was waiting for him to say something, to give up the ghost, but he couldn’t. At last, Rhodey said conversationally, “I didn’t know he knew how to drive.”

“He’s Captain America,” Tony reminded. 

It was the most natural thing in the world to finish: “He can probably fly.”

. o .

Steve’s favorite sport, Tony decided, was Parkour.

That, or giving Tony a heart attack.

At least, that was the end result as, unbeknownst to Tony, Steve launched himself over the edge of the railing, five stories above him, _right_ at the moment Tony stepped into the Atrium. Steve landed like a bat in the night right in front of Tony, sudden and terrifying in his suddenness, boots skidding violently on the ground as he purposefully fell backwards instead of sliding—crashing—into Tony. 

Tony yelled over the sound of his newly-airborne tablet crashing into the wall. With superhuman reflexes, Steve somersaulted backwards and hopped to his feet, looking for all the world like he hadn’t just dropped sixty feet straight down onto concrete. He smiled tentatively, red-faced—Tony couldn’t say if it was sheepishness, exertion, or apology, but there was a distinct lack of shame, regardless—before adding breathlessly, “That was a close one.”

 _Yearning_ to throttle him, Tony breathed in and closed his eyes. When he exhaled and opened his eyes, Steve was holding the tablet out to him, broken screen and all, his expression doubly apologetic. “I, um. I think it’s broken.”

Tony took it wordlessly and scowled at him. Steve grinned, looking more satisfied than upset, and noted, “You know, you really have impeccable timing.”

Tony couldn’t let that slide. “ _I_ have impeccable timing?”

Steve looked him over, reaching out and straightening his suit with a tug like it was the most normal thing in the world. Tony was glad he was frozen in place with surprise from the _ordeal_ or he might have reacted more strongly, and the Atrium, while empty at the moment, was on the first level. Tony was surprised security hadn’t come running.

Then he heard footsteps. Steve wisely stepped back, looking boyishly ( _charmingly_ ) ruffled as he offered his most sincere toothy smile at the pair of guards who trotted around the corner. “Mornin’, boys,” he said politely. “How we doin’?”

They both paused, like they didn’t know what to do if their boss was apparently being attacked by Captain America. Then one guard saluted. “Captain America,” he said. His partner mirrored him sharply.

Tony didn’t slap his own forehead, but it was a near thing. At least Steve looked sheepish, waving a hand in dismissal and putting a heavy one on Tony’s shoulder, giving what amounted to a friendly but full-body shake. “You’ve got a good team,” he told Tony, but he was talking more to the black-suited guards, who watched him from behind masks that almost but didn’t quite hide the genuine admiration they had for the man talking to them. Tony scowled at them, but Steve released Tony and continued smoothly, “When do you boys get off? We’ll grab a bite to eat.”

Guard 1, the first to cave, looked at his watch. 

Tony sighed, said shortly, “Go. Now.”

They looked at Tony, almost for the first time. Guard 2 asked seriously, “Are you okay, boss?”

Tony didn’t bare his teeth. He wasn’t feral, like Steve, who fucking _jumped_ from the balcony five stories above him because stairs were too slow. But it was close. He was rumpled composure personified as he said shortly, “Scram.”

Steve eased the awkwardness by stepping forward, slinging a broad arm around Guard 2’s shoulder, and redirecting them the way they’d come. Guard 1 followed closely at his side like he hoped Captain America would draw him into his embrace, too.

Making an exasperated sound in his throat, Tony waited until they were out of sight before stalking off to the elevators. On the way up to the top, he advised the front desk to shuffle an extra pair of eyes to the main level. 

This, he thought, was why you never let college-aged kids be security guards. They weren’t going to _shoot_ Captain America. He doubted they’d know what to do if there was an alien monster in the process of ripping Tony to shreds.

But, if Tony was entirely honest, the guards were a formality. Stark Tower—the _Avengers_ Tower; he sighed—was virtually impregnable. No one could walk in unannounced. There were five significant security hurdles, not to mention lockdown procedures, to overcome en route to the balcony floors. 

Besides, five of the seven Avengers lived full-time on the top floors. Intruders beware.

Nevertheless, the flesh-and-blood security guards provided a comfort that cameras didn’t. It wasn’t like they weren’t handy at turning away milk-jug bearing well-wishers. They gave an air of formality to the enterprise. In their sleek, intimidating uniforms, it was easy to forget half of them were in their early twenties. He was giving them an opportunity to work in a very safe environment for good pay and please their parents by putting _Stark Industries_ on their resume. Really, he was a charitable guy. And none of them had guns, just mean-looking Tasers.

Somehow, Tony’s plan to eat alone in the peace of the Tower’s living room didn’t carry the same appeal after the Cap fiasco in the lobby. He found himself returning to the lobby after a short contemplative period. He couldn’t believe he was doing it as he asked one of the receptionists: “Okay, where’d they go?”

The bar was at or near capacity, but Tony found his way through the door. Getting inside the establishment, packed with college-aged kids, a few intrigued natives, and a healthy amount of tourists, was another challenge. But, unlike Captain America, who sat against the back wall in his goddamn uniform, Tony was in his work suit, blending in.

The two guards, mask-less, were exactly the sort of kids Tony had pegged them as, twenty-somethings who were old enough to maintain an air of adult composure but young enough to barely suppress their visible pleasure at being seated at the same table as Captain America. “Their table” was becoming increasingly relative: there were probably twenty people wedged into their corner, nearly standing on top of each other to be in proximity to chat with Captain America.

With an inaudible growl, Tony forced his way through the throng of people and scowled at the guards, who looked at him with utmost innocence, like they couldn’t imagine why he was annoyed. 

The answer was obvious: Cap had his long arm slung across the back of the booth. Even though it wasn’t touching either guard, it was clear that they were enjoying being in the hot seats. 

Listening intently to a woman speaking to him, Steve let his arm slide down, pressing down on the guards’ shoulders companionably, before reaching out and clasping the woman’s hand in both of his own, holding it for a moment, radiating comfort. Tony saw an unsubtle hand slide across Steve’s forearm, covered by the suit. He repressed a vocal response as Steve said something he couldn’t make out over the buzz of the bar, squeezing the woman’s hand again before letting her go.

He didn’t even pull his arm back to rest on the table before two different hands clasped it, like they couldn’t help themselves, glancing brushes that he reciprocated with ease, smiling to diffuse any lingering sense of _look, don’t touch_ austerity that seemed to surround him. It was, Tony noticed, finding an unobtrusive place for himself near the bar, entrancing. 

Tony was used to hands grabbing him, reporters shoving mics in his face, the flash of cameras, the overlapping shouts of impatient press junkies, but for Steve it was like no one knew what he would allow, what he would reject. They were utterly determined not to cross the line with Captain America. But they were hungry for the opportunity, too. They wanted more than polite distance, wanted to touch, to talk to, to be near in some way to the living legend.

He reached out to them, crossed the barrier, smiled and smiled and smiled. Tony tried to remember the last time he’d seen him smile so much, never a sour word or harried look, at ease. Steve spoke so clearly and firmly that Tony heard it over the noisy bar; he’d dubbed it Steve’s _America, this is your Captain speaking_ voice. 

Tony knew he himself had a nice voice, that people enjoyed lengthy interviews he almost never granted because he was quick and sharp and easy to follow, but he also knew that Steve was a military leader, a rallier, a man out of time, a larger-than-life hero. His voice reflected it all. He spoke like he had exactly one day to spend with you, and he knew it, and he wanted you to know that he was grateful he’d met you. One day.

They all knew it, but they hung onto him. He let them lean, let them close. Tony thought it was Biblical, the way they wanted to _touch_ him. Someone was bold enough to ruffle his hair, someone else to slug his shoulder. He reciprocated, careful never to let the raw strength lurking under his shoulders loose. He was a draft horse, a big animal capable of killing them, but he had the kind of docile invitation required of a hero meant to be ponied around.

Tony accepted a drink from the bar, let the coolness of it comfort him in the sweltering room, and watched it all from a distance. Steve glanced his way a couple times, never letting his gaze linger. Tony knew why: the crowd focused on what he did. Tony was a point of interest. He was trying to keep them from noticing Iron Man, from swarming.

He wasn’t uncomfortable, but he was very cognizant of how much attention he had on him, how much _power_ he held. Rarely had Tony ever felt like he truly controlled the media around him, despite his best attempts to keep the narrative as streamlined as possible, to give them the sensational so they’d ignore the reality; but Steve held court, every bit commanding the room.

Tony’s hunger was a distant thing, pushed aside by curiosity, but as the temperature of the room inexorably arose—it was definitely at capacity, barely an inch of floor space to stand in—he found himself impatient. 

He was hungry, but he didn’t want to sit or eat alone. That was the real reason he’d come, he realized. His plans to eat at the Tower were thwarted by the not-entirely-unusual but at times painful reality that sometimes, he _was_ alone in his own place. Somewhere between resenting Clint for using his coffeemaker (Clint bought another one, because of course he did) and inviting Steve to sleep in his own bed, Tony had gotten used to being around people, even in the most private moments of his day. 

He didn’t like being alone anymore. Alone, he was vulnerable.

He pushed away from the bar and, with only a minimal of grimacing at being pressed up against strangers, found his way to the table.

Steve squeezed Guard 2’s shoulder. With a minimum of fuss, the kid slunk out of his seat. Guard 1 followed. Tony wanted, suddenly, to slide in next to Steve, to soak in the moment, but he was tired, the bar was hot, and there were far too many people for him to entertain being that close.

God, he wished there weren’t twenty pairs of eyes on them.

Steve slid out of the booth. In less than a minute, Tony and he were standing in the breathtakingly cool air outside the bar, a very warm hand on Tony’s back guiding him away from the hubbub. 

He almost couldn’t believe how easily Steve had gotten them out, but it was like a good card trick: Steve was totally absorbed with the crowd, keeping their eyes on his, not looking at Tony, but with one hand he kept pushing Tony forward, and Tony found that people let _him_ through for a chance to earn a winning smile from Captain America. 

The trick, he realized, was to be completely earnest: don’t slow down, don’t shove, just move in the direction you wanted to go and catch the eyes of the people in the way, make them feel like they were doing you a favor by moving aside.

For good measure, he released Tony, slung his arm around Guard 1’s shoulders, and walked down the sidewalk with Guard 2 on their heels. Tony scowled, unable to repress a sense of being left behind as he was left behind, but he understood. People were _still_ watching them. Rhodey was right: if they wanted to keep the whole thing on the down-low, they had to be careful.

Still, it felt like he’d spectacularly failed his goal as he watched Steve and the actual kids disappear in the hubbub New York City was famous for.

Tony pulled out his phone, called Pepper, and took the long way home, chatting with her like he hadn’t even noticed Captain America.

The crowd forgot them, but Tony had to carry the weight of the encounter all the way home.

. o . 

Tony made it about four blocks before, mid-step, an arm slid casually around his shoulders. 

Wearing a pair of dark sunglasses, an honest-to-God baseball cap, and a gray NYU hoodie zipped up over his chest, Steve’s expression was totally cool as he released Tony and walked alongside him, slightly ahead of him, like he had somewhere to be and their paths had coincidentally crossed. Tony, with the barest huff of amusement, reached up and yanked the tag off the hoodie. Steve didn’t lose his stride, but he looked back at Tony in mild surprise, like he’d flicked him on the ear. 

“You steal this?” he asked, unable to imagine it but satisfying himself when Steve leveled a completely flat look at him behind the dark sunglasses. 

“I don’t steal things,” he said sulkily, like Tony had insulted his father, and kept walking. “Your kids,” he said explanatorily, slowing his pace as he realized he was setting an uncomfortably brisk walk. “Found a shop. Got a hoodie. Told the kid you’d pay him back. You’re welcome.”

Tony sighed and caught the back of the hoodie, noticing that there seemed to be a distinct lack of firm fabric underneath it. “Did you trade your jacket?” he asked, caught between surprise and alarm.

“Know the very best way to make a kid’s day, Tony?” Steve flashed him a slight smile.

Tony sighed, but instead of releasing him he tugged him possessively closer, an arm around his waist, squeezing. “You’re gonna make me break his heart when I ask for it back, aren’t you?”

“I can be bad cop.”

Tony rolled his eyes, pulling him to a stop to press his cheek against the back of Steve’s shoulder. Broad. Warm. “You. Bad cop.”

“You know. Two-man con.” Steve didn’t move, but Tony sensed he wanted to turn around, hug him properly. He started walking again and Tony only released him so they could walk, blatantly together, and not in a business sense. 

Despite the crudeness of the disguise, Steve Rogers disappeared—those baby blues were more important to the Captain America look than Tony had previously credited. With the cap covering his golden hair, he looked like a bored bodyguard, a tall-dark-and-handsome stranger for Tony Stark, legendary playboy, to hang off of. He hated the image, could see the paparazzi photos, knew that the right response was to let Steve go.

He held him tighter. Admittedly, he did feel a bit like he was hauling one of the kid-guards around instead of Captain America, given the way Steve carried himself—insolently, shoulders slouched, steps ever so slightly weaving, looking around like he was simultaneously bored and impatient—and wore the oversized hoodie. He was broad enough that he would break the seam on a large hoodie, but the effect of wearing one two sizes up was clever: it was baggy to create the illusion that Steve wasn’t a God in man’s clothing, just an ordinary, bored, impatient hookup that Tony Stark had snagged.

God, he hated himself. He wanted to walk hand-in-hand with Steve instead of being simultaneously led by Steve and being perceived as leading _him_. Maybe that was the push-pull of their relationship the public wanted to see, right down to Captain America and Iron Man, never seeing eye-to-eye, electrifyingly at odds. S.H.I.E.L.D. saw them, albeit less confidently, as teammates more than— 

_What? Boyfriends?_

It was almost an insult to their relationship, what they were doing. Omissions of the truth were easy; outright lies, acts to cover up the truth, were harder to swallow. He didn’t like it. He didn’t _want_ it. But he understood it, unpleasant as it was. If people saw Iron Man and Captain America, even dressed down, in public together, they’d draw attention. Imagining what it would be like to have the spotlight Captain America was under, dining at a bar, on everything they did in public was nauseating. He wanted to be able to escape.

Steve was helping him escape.

He pushed Tony into a hole-in-the-wall place, like he was impatient with the act, too. Tony trailed along, flirtatiously running a hand down his back. It wasn’t an act as much as an excuse, and he liked the way he could feel the small shiver walk down Steve’s spine. Still, Steve’s step didn’t falter. 

With surprisingly little participation from Tony, they found themselves in an out-of-the-way booth near the back of the bar, pleasantly ignored by the rabble-rousers pawing for drinks at the actual bar. Tony sat with his back to the door, which put Steve in the sightline of any particularly nosy passerby, but nothing in his body language said _Captain America_. He had the cap and glasses off, but he ruffled his hair pretty fantastically as he did so, making it spike up, subtracting fully five years from his age. 

Then he wrapped an arm around the back of the table, conveniently hunching his shoulders, and tucked a toothpick between his teeth. Without the warm, invitational smile and soul-searingly earnest gaze, he was a look-alike, someone who probably got asked once every couple of weeks, _Hey, you know, you kind of look like that Captain America guy_ until he’d refined the insolent exasperation that seemed to ooze from every line of his body.

That was what Tony _saw_ , at least. The booth was small, and Steve was long-limbed, even tucked in the corner, leaning into the corner and almost resting a leg on the bench itself to fit properly, his other knee pressed against Tony’s. 

Under the entirely believable premise of reaching down to check his phone in his pocket, he slid his hand under Tony’s right thigh and lifted, encouraging Tony to put his legs up on top of his own, one big hand resting over Tony’s shins. Conveniently hiding his feet from view. Steve left it there, like they did it every day, and it was honestly fascinating, the mix between blatantly acting like he didn’t know Tony and genuinely channeling his inner bastard.

It was also, Tony admitted, nice to put his feet up. The bar hadn’t exactly been the comfiest place to sit, and Steve’s thighs were a great improvement.

Toothpick in mouth, Steve regarded him with a lazy smile. It melted into an almost dismissive look for their waiter, again playing up the _I’m so sick of being said I look like that guy; do I fuckin’_ sound _like Captain America?_ act. He wasn’t rude, just clearly not interested in more than perfunctory gestures, inviting nothing.

Then he reached up, tugged on the collar of the hoodie almost hard enough to snap it, and murmured, “Geez, it’s fuckin’ hot in here.”

Tony’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “Okay, who are you and what did you do with my boyfriend?”

Steve’s expression was so composed Tony briefly wondered if he’d somehow stumbled across an alternate universe version of his Steve. Then Steve smiled, took out the toothpick, and said seriously, “Boyfriend, huh?” He stroked Tony’s leg idly, replacing the toothpick and draping his free arm over the booth wall again. He didn’t stop smiling, but his voice was thoughtful as he added, “Now, what poor bastard could ever manage to impress the one and only Tony Stark?”

“He _is_ tragically under-endowed, but I can compromise for a great personality," Tony admitted. Steve grinned toothily, pick between his teeth.

“You know, Tony Stark’s the leader of the free world,” Steve went on, plucking the toothpick and adding, “probably the most respected innovator of our time, who _single-handedly_ ,” he pointed with the toothpick for emphasis, like Tony was a naysayer on the street, “developed a flying suit capable of reaching the stars.”

“Haven’t reached the stars yet, buddy.”

Steve’s eyes twinkled. “Call it an inkling, but I’ve got a feeling he’s gonna get there.” Replacing the toothpick, he offered a nod at the waiter, who set down their drinks, and continued breezily, “Haven’t you heard? Tony Stark’s gonna clean up the oceans. He’s savin’ the sea turtles.”

“To be fair, that’s a group project,” Tony pointed out, mostly so he could keep from flustering. It was hard not to, when Captain Star-Eyed America was looking at him with such affection. “I’m just the sugar daddy.”

Steve laughed, that gloriously dissonant bray of laughter. Tony hid his smile behind his water. “Oh, but haven’t you _heard_ ,” Steve went on in an earnest croon, like it was the beginning of his favorite song, “Tony Stark’s gonna power the city, the whole damn world, with a renewable, clean energy source.”

Tony mock-toasted him. “My evil plan. Who told you?”

Steve rested his elbow on the table, put his chin on his hand, and smiled at him. “You think I don’t know the exploits of that beautiful genius? He’s got a hand in all the world’s solutions. He’s makin’ this world a better place. What a time to be alive, to watch Tony Stark fly.”

Tony couldn’t speak. He stared at Steve, caught by the utter _earnestness_ in his voice. He swallowed. “Okay,” he said softly, like it would make the words more bearable. It was almost too much: Steve didn’t just look at him like he’d hung the Moon, he looked at him like he’d created the stars.

Steve set his toothpick aside and leaned back, chest open, invitational. He asked, “Wanna know a secret?”

“I have no secrets,” Tony said, tossing a repartee automatically.

Steve squeezed his leg lightly, out-of-sight. “No, this one’s a good one. I don’t think anyone knows.” Leaning forward, Steve wrapped his arm around Tony’s shoulders, pulled him close, and murmured against his cheek, “I’m in love with him.”

Steve leaned back a touch and brushed his nose against Tony’s. And Tony reached up, cupping his face, wanting to but resisting the urge to kiss him. He just rested for a moment, forehead-to-forehead. Then he let Steve go.

Melting back into the booth with his messed-up hair, his rumpled sweater, and his irrepressible grin, Steve told him, “Maybe you already knew that one.”

Tony reached out and Steve rested his arm on the table, giving him access to his hand. Tony placed a hand casually on Steve’s wrist, pushing the sweater up to touch warm skin. Tony had a smart quip, but it didn’t seem to want to exist in the soft, warm place between them. 

Steve turned his palm over, intertwining their fingers, squeezing gently. Holding him. Tony had no doubt that if there wasn’t a table between them, he would draw Tony onto his lap and hold him there, safe and sound, but there was something nice about it, nice knowing that it was _new_ , that they could, in fact, do what he’d considered impossible: be anonymous and together.

Tony didn’t know how much time passed, but he embraced every second of it.

. o . 

Of course, nothing—absolutely nothing—compared to flying.

It didn’t matter that the Mark VII could only reach 60,000 feet. They stayed shy of 14,000, Steve wearing both the Cap suit and a thermal jacket over it, totally trusting the icy grip he had on the Iron Man gauntlet. Tony breathed deeply, warm in air half as thick as sea level and a mere nine degrees Fahrenheit. Steve’s breath misted, but he seemed comfortable, his grip on Tony’s wrist unwavering, like he fully expected to have to hold himself up for the duration of the flight.

Tony never let go, asking after a very long time, “Feels like another planet, doesn’t it?”

With only a touch of breathlessness, Steve replied, “Wasn’ kidding earlier, you know.” Looking right at Tony, stars reflecting his eyes, he said warmly, “Being alive for this? This is once-in-forever, Tony.”

Tony swallowed, unable to think of a single thing to say, a full, illuminating Moon far above them. They’d both been— _too early, too late—_ for the Moon landing, but there was something about Steve’s words that he couldn’t shake.

There would be others, he knew, with the sort of peace that came with magnanimous joy: Iron Man would never be the last. With the possibility realized, others would fly. He stood not at the end but the beginning of something very special. Once-in-forever.

It didn’t happen often. Steve didn’t live in blissful ignorance that it was there: he knew, like Tony, this breathless, priceless taste of infinite. Of free, open, spectacular flight. Of knowing that you weren’t safe, but you could be if you were smart and quick on your feet. That you could fall, die. That it would never be truly risk-free.

“Once-in-forever,” he agreed in the Iron voice. “You should write poetry.”

Steve chuckled, reaching up and hooking his hand in the Mark VII’s hip plate. “Now, why would I do that?” Tony leaned back to pull him upright and wrapped his free arm around Steve’s waist, using his feet to keep them aloft. “Nothin’ I wrote could ever be as beautiful as this.” With one gloved hand, white with ice, he cupped the mask and added, “As you. You’re my once-in-forever.”

Tony pressed his forehead against Steve’s, holding him with both arms while Steve wrapped his arms around Tony’s neck, feet on top of Tony’s, perfectly balanced.

“I am so in love with you,” Tony admitted. He wanted to add something light, something quippy, but he couldn’t. It was the simple truth. It deserved to stand alone.

Steve smiled at him, tips of his hair fringed with ice and stars caught in his eyes.


	13. STANDING ON THE CLIFF-EDGE

Let it never be said, Tony thought, arms wrapped around Iron Man’s waist, that you couldn’t have everything you ever wanted.

Swaying together in the middle of a crowded room, Tony thought of all the things he wished he could say. _You drive me crazy. The kind of crazy that makes you want to take up cliff-diving. The kind of crazy you don’t write home about because you’re pretty sure it’s a fast-and-loose, we’re-gonna-wreck-a-car kind of thing. Maybe crazy’s the wrong word. Maybe this is just hunger. You make me hungry to be alive. I am absolutely desperate to be alive, and I’ve never felt like that before. Like none of this is guaranteed and yet it’s all. . . ._

He lost himself in the rhythm for a time, unsure, undecided. _It feels priceless. Like I won’t have this twice. I can’t have it twice. I can’t have_ you _twice. I know that’s stupid, that it took . . . honestly, I’m a little ashamed how many people it took to realize that you can lose it all and then it’s gone forever. That if you slip away, that’s it. This, us? I’ll never find another you. You make it seem so goddamn precious, like we found the rarest thing in the world, and if we’re not careful it’s gonna be gone forever. But I’m not afraid of losing us. I’m only afraid of losing you_.

He said nothing. There were peripheral eyes on them, but he didn’t care. No one knew who was under the suit. No one knew there _was_ someone in the suit. Tony was sure there were people who thought he was narcissistic enough to fall in love with his own suit, the classic _what person could ever live up to those expectations?_ angle. 

It was all part of the show, and he was the main attraction. They loved the drama he created, never knowing if he’d go off on national television or throw the party of the year and sleep with half the guests. He was completely unapologetic about it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly. He was wildly, irrepressibly alive. People envied him for many reasons, but his ability to live boldly was one of his more coveted traits. People wanted to be as shameless as Tony Stark was. Since they couldn’t be, they wanted to live vicariously through him.

In a small corner tucked away most people’s hearts, they wanted to _be_ Iron Man. He could feel the hunger, the admiration, the standing-in-wait energy that permeated the air every time he walked into a room, wearing the suit. They weren’t just cheering for him, Tony Stark: they were cheering for the revolutionary, the one who’d paved the way, who’d showed them there was a door they could step through. Anyone—absolutely anyone—could wear the suit.

In a way, Tony mused, feeling warm metal under his bare fingertips, tonight was a poignant reminder that the future was coming. Soon, Iron Man wouldn’t stand alone in a crowd.

There was something beautiful in the anonymity of it, like some of humanity’s colder vices couldn’t appear without the benefit of a clear sightline. Some people thought machines were cold, dehumanizing, but Tony saw it the opposite way: they took away all the bells-and-whistles, allowing the _person_ underneath to shine through, boldly, brilliantly.

The future was now and not just in front of him. Rhodey was out in the Iron Patriot, probably doing loop-de-loops somewhere in that great big yonder over the cityscape. Tony would have been jealous under almost any other occasion, especially when he was stuck in a social event in a regular suit, but he wouldn’t have traded a thousand flight-hours for the next ten minutes. He wouldn’t have traded the next ten years to be anywhere but in this room, enjoying the joy of being himself and having something precious.

It couldn’t last forever.

Without explanation, Iron Man stepped back suddenly, releasing him.

“Enjoying yourself, Mr. Stark?” a woman asked. Tony vaguely recognized her, but he couldn’t recall her name. There were a lot of faces in his life, nameless faces, tens of thousands of them. He only remembered so many. She was young and beautiful, the sort of woman he would have tripped over his own shoelaces to impress ten years ago. Hell, twenty-year-old Tony Stark would have absolutely died if she talked to him, baby-faced and nerdy as he was. It was only as he grew into the role of _Tony Stark_ that he developed truly extravagant tastes and began racking up an absurd number of fictional escapades. Well. Mostly fictional. He wasn’t always proud of his past choices.

Focusing on the present, he beamed his forty-million-dollar smile. (Some canny accountant had figured it out: if Tony Stark attended an event and smiled, the fundraiser tended to rake in forty-million more than its original plan. Iron Man inspiredpeople more than the President; Tony Stark had the larger-than-life personality to match). “I am, actually,” he said, wrapping a firm arm around Iron Man’s waist to anchor him beside Tony before he could move away. He had to fight a smile at the absolutely absurd notion of anchoring _Captain America_ anywhere he didn’t want to be, but he didn’t walk.

The woman looked over Iron Man once, admiring the suit. Tony felt Steve lean back against his arm, projecting, _I am uncomfortable_ vibes. It wasn’t a full movement so much as weight shifting. Only Tony could feel it. “Why aren’t you in the suit?” she asked Tony.

He shrugged. Then, with perfectly-timed candor, snagged a drink from a passing waiter. “Faster service,” he said, tossing it down.

The woman looked Iron Man dead in the eye, like she could see past the blue-white glow, entranced. “You must love them very much,” she said. To his credit, Steve didn’t move an inch in the suit. He stood, silent and stalwart, as Tony leaned against him. Then, looking at Tony, she introduced, “I’m Margaret Taron.”

“Margaret.”

“My friends call me Peggy.”

Iron Man lifted a hand like he couldn’t help himself. Peggy held out her own fearlessly, met steel with flesh halfway, palm-to-palm. “I’ve heard a great deal about you, Mr. Stark,” she added, looking right at those glowing blue-white eyes. “My grandmother worked with Howard Stark. This. . . . He would be very proud.”

Tony’s smile dimmed a few watts. “I wouldn’t be so sure.” Iron Man lowered his hand. Peggy withdrew hers, looking at Tony with a wry smile.

“I hope you have a magnificent evening, Mr. Stark,” she said, flicking one last glance at Iron Man before turning to walk away.

Iron Man didn’t lurch after her, but Tony could tell he _wanted_ to.

He could feel the kinetic energy under the suit. Iron Man eased forward half a step before halting. He about-faced, then paused, frozen, as if realizing they were in a room full of people again, head twitching from side-to-side, a fraction in either direction.

Then he leaned against Tony, almost hard enough to stagger him. Tony was forced to plant his feet and give him a less-than-gentle shove, _hey, hey, pay attention_. Steve twisted around, effortlessly graceful as he spun on a heel. He searched the room again, but Margaret Taron was gone. Disappeared into the anonymity of the crowd.

He took another step forward, then halted, going rigid, like he wasn’t sure if he dared to keep going. Slowly, he turned to look at Tony, blue-white eyes unreadable. He reached out and Tony stood still to let heavy metal rest on his shoulders. The gauntlets weren’t uncomfortable, just very _present_ , grounding weight. 

He couldn’t hear Steve breathe in the suit, but he could feel the tremble of barely-restrained panic. He didn’t know what to make of it. Steve had never reacted to strangers more than the polite why yes, I am a national treasure nonchalance that came naturally to him.

 _Not a stranger, then_. The realization hit him hard.

It still didn’t make a lot of sense, but Tony supposed after six months in the present—the _future—_ Steve would have made friends, acquaintances, outside the Avengers, outside S.H.I.E.L.D. But the reaction was wrong: old friends didn’t meet like that, even if one-half of the party was virtually invisible. He didn’t know Peggy Taron, but Steve did. Somehow. Maybe.

It was laughable to think of _past affairs_ , but—well, Steve had been in 2012 since early April. He’d only been part of the Avengers Initiative since May. That wasn’t a lot of time to simultaneously overcome the panic attack of the century and find love in a hopeless place, but Steve was charisma personified. It wasn’t impossible.

Tony felt a twist of—something, at the thought. _You’ve dated over 300 people in print_ , he reminded the hypocritical little bastard wailing unhappily in the corner about _mine_ and _mine only_. _You do not get to be judgy about this_.

He was gonna be judgy anyway, he suspected, but at least he pinned the rebellious side of him down and put his arms around Iron Man’s waist instead, holding him at arm’s reach. He didn’t ask _you okay?_ or _what’s wrong?_ because neither of those questions were yes-no answerable, but he didn’t broadcast outward alarm to anyone, either. For its part, the suit was the perfect shield, completely smoothing over the potentially attention-worthy incident.

He finally asked quietly, “Do you want to go?”

Iron Man looked at him with blue-white eyes. Tony knew Steve had heard it, but he didn’t respond meaningfully, turning his head to the right, listening for something. Someone. Then he slid his hands off Tony’s shoulder and stepped back, shaking his head slowly. Tony wasn’t sure if it was an answer or just a negation.

. o .

Steve couldn’t get out of the suit fast enough.

Tony could only stand aside in the Tower elevator and watch as he yanked the helmet off (8th floor); both gauntlets, quick succession (12th floor); the torso plate in one surprisingly fluid motion (15th floor); freeing the metal from his hips and stepping out of it (18th floor); and finally prying the boots off (22nd floor).

Five-second cool-down time. Tony was duly impressed.

Steve breathed in deeply, then hit the button for the 25th floor and stepped out of the elevator before the doors finished opening. Tony stared down at the dismantled Mark VII for a moment, then across the hall at Steve, who was making great strides away from him. Then Tony hit the full-stop button and took off after him.

Steve’s walking pace was almost five miles an hour. Tony had to run to close the distance and, despite grabbing the back of Steve’s shirt, he was being _hauled_ forward at the same brisk pace, shoes skidding on the floor. Steve stopped when he realized that he was hauling a human being and not a particularly recalcitrant tree, husking, “What’re you doing?”

“Crazy coincidence,” Tony began, not letting go of his shirt, “I was gonna ask you the same thing.”

Steve turned to look at him, gaze somehow more soul-searing than the suit’s. He frowned. “I. . . .” He paused, then turned around again, pulling. “Tony, I gotta go. I—”

“No, no, you don’t gotta.” Tony had to jog to keep up with him, jog-or-be-dragged. He huffed, “Steve Rogers, you stop right now!”

Steve ignored him completely for three seconds. Then he stopped again and Tony crashed into his back, but he didn’t fall. Steve stood immovable as a tree, saying almost dreamily, “Tony . . . Tony, she’s real.”

He turned around again, eyes unfocused. He entreated, “Don’t you get it? She’s here. She’s here.” With an excitement bordering on mania, he added, “It’s _real_ , Tony, this is—”

“Who’s real?” Tony added, even though he already knew.

Steve put both hands on Tony’s shoulders, putting pressure. “Let go.”

Tony didn’t budge. “Steve.”

“Tony, she’s _real_ ,” he implored, like Tony wasn’t paying attention. “It was a lie, everyone lied, oh God, Tony, it’s real, she’s real, she’s—”

Tony switched his grip from a fistful of Steve’s shirt to both his elbows, holding them. Steve wasn’t pushing him away, gripping Tony’s shoulders with desperate hopefulness in his eyes. “Everyone lied,” he breathed. He didn’t seem angry—he seemed ecstatic. Tony wondered if he’d been drugged, his eyes were so bright, so _full_. “They lied. They lied to me, oh, fuck, Tony, it’s real.”

“Steve . . . who is she?” Tony asked, keeping his voice level, no panic.

“It was a _lie_ ,” Steve said, not listening to him. The relief in his voice was so heartbreaking Tony had to close his eyes, couldn’t look at it.

“What was a lie?”

Steve fell silent, long enough that Tony looked at him. He shook his head in agitation, like Tony was trying to fuck with him. He pushed Tony away forcefully and Tony stumbled, not expecting it, but he didn’t turn and run. He shook his head, backing away, saying sharply, “Don’t lie to me, Tony, don’t—I trust you, I _trusted_ you—”

That hurt. “I’m—I’m a little lost, bud,” Tony admitted, deciding to be honest rather than placating. “Who is she?” he decided, sensing that was the key to it all.

“ _Peggy_ ,” he said, gasped, like he was suffocating, insisting rapidly, “she’s not dead, she’s—she’s alive, Tony, she’s _here_ , you saw—”

Tony was a genius. He didn’t need all his computing power to make the pieces click. _Shit_. “Steve. . . .” He didn’t know how to say what he needed to, was afraid to say _anything_ , to shatter the proverbial glass. He didn’t want to hurt Steve. But he couldn’t . . . he couldn’t _lie_. “Steve, it’s—it’s 2012.” Steve stared at him, disbelief and mistrust in his gaze, backing away when Tony took a step towards him. Tony stopped. “She’s . . . granddaughter,” he said helplessly. “Remember? Her grandmother, my father?”

“Howard,” Steve said, looking around like he would materialize. Tony’s throat closed up. “God, where’s Howard? I haven’t seen him, haven’t seen him in a while, I lost him. I lost them.” He shook his head more frantically and backed away from Tony, insisting, “No, no, no, she’s alive, he’s alive, they’re—” He moved unsteadily, bumped into the wall, sank down it, hands in his hair. “They’re—they’re alive. It was a dream. It was a _lie_.” Looking at Tony, he shut his eyes, like he couldn’t bear to see anything that wasn’t his own golden truth.

 _His own beautiful lie_.

“Tony—Tony, what year is it?” he asked, imploringly, like he would believe whatever answer Tony gave him. Tony had a feeling he _would_ , was terrified for a moment that he would be the one to break Captain America, not with a sword but a _word_. One goddamn word, and Steve would believe it, would go to his grave insisting that the beautiful lie was real.

 _1945_.

Separated by a small ocean spanning five feet of empty space, Tony said quietly, damningly, “It’s 2012.”

Steve flung himself to his feet, snapping furiously, “Damn it, Tony! Don’t fucking lie to me! I’m sick of being lied to!”

Tony edged closer. “I’m here. Okay? I’m here.”

Steve covered his face in his hands, shaking where he stood. “No. No, no.”

Tony stood a foot away from him, able to feel his anger and grief like a palpable thing. “I’m sorry,” he said, the only thing he could think of. “I’m so sorry.”

Steve didn’t lower his hands, but he didn’t pull away when Tony wrapped his arms around his waist, hugging him. “I’m sorry,” he repeated softly, pressing up against the cold, shivering super-soldier in his arms, trying to be what he needed. “I’m here. I’m here.”

Repetition helped.

Closing his eyes, he slid a hand to the back of Steve’s neck, squeezing gently. “You’re not alone. I promise.”

Steve breathed shallowly, pressing against Tony, hiding between neck and shoulder, arms sliding around Tony’s back and gripping his suit with too much force, irreparably damaging it. Tony didn’t care. Fuck the suit. He would have let Steve break his shiniest Iron Man suit if it helped. He wasn’t sure anything _could_ help. There was no guidebook for _how to cope with living in the wrong century._

It was an apocalyptic grief, the kind that only those listed as _sole survivor_ could begin to understand.

Tony assured softly, “I’m here.”

Steve gripped his shoulders with bruising force, shaking hard. Tony could feel the desperation under his skin, the urge to _run_ , to find the past he was looking for, but he didn’t move, clinging to Tony like his life—his _sanity—_ depended on it. Tony held him gently, cheek tucked against frayed golden hair, hoping to God he was enough.

He had to be. The thought of losing Steve was more than he could bear.

. o .

Tony watched helplessly as Steve emptied an entire case of Everclear, as close as any super-soldier could come to dangerously intoxicated, drinking it down like he was dying to forget. _God, big guy, slow down_ , Tony pleaded silently, as the stock dwindled and Steve just poisoned himself. He didn’t dare interfere, even with the suit—he didn’t want to put on the suit, felt strangely like the suit was at fault, somehow, because if Steve hadn’t been wearing it Tony might have _seen_ this coming fast enough to stop it—but he watched anxiously until the supply was empty.

It was Bruce who intervened. Steve was stronger than a bull, could have planted his feet and held his ground against hurricane-force winds, but he stumbled when Bruce pulled him away from the kitchen, away from temptation. He snarled and before anyone could act, grabbed Bruce, putting him in a headlock that could _kill._

Natasha was there in an instant, kicking out the back of his knee. They both went down, Bruce gargling for breath, Steve releasing him after a moment. 

Steve lied on the floor as Bruce scurried out of reach.

Clint, Tony noticed in a dream, a nightmare, had his bow up, an arrow notched. He wouldn’t kill Steve, but he had that hard glint in his eye that said, _I’m not afraid to use this_. Tony was grateful for them, beyond words, because he _was_ afraid to use his own suit, afraid to make things worse. _I don’t wanna hurt you_ , he thought as Steve pulled himself clumsily to his feet, Natasha keeping a safe distance between them.

No one touched him after that, and he didn’t go after them, stumbling around blindly for a few moments, like he couldn’t decide what he needed. He pawed at the balcony door, but Tony had—not unintentionally—left it locked. He could have overpowered the lock, Tony knew, but he wasn’t thinking clearly, instead setting his shoulder to the glass door and ramming through it, crashing to the balcony in a mess of glass, twitching like he would get up before lying, nearly insensate, in a growing pool of blood.

He wouldn’t bleed out, Tony thought numbly, reaching for the Mark VIII bracelet and shoving it around his wrist, but he couldn’t sit and watch anymore.

Rhodey said slowly, “Tony.”

Tony ignored him, grateful when the suit arrived, clicking into place.

“What happened?” Rhodey asked, so gently. Tony looked at him from behind glowing white-blue eyes, the mask dark and the head-up display brilliant red. When Tony didn’t respond, Rhodey walked over to a suitcase, kicked it over, and suited up in just under twenty seconds.

Tony had to cut down the suit-up time, he thought, waiting until glowing white-blue eyes faced him before inching towards the balcony. He stepped over broken glass and crouched next to Steve, who pushed himself upright shakily, fury etched onto his face. Rhodey stepped around them, leaning with his back against the railing, a brilliant sentinel, back-up, and Tony reached out tentatively, laying a heavy hand on Steve’s shoulder. He moaned in despair, collapsing back onto his stomach, like he could fight everyone and anyone right then but not Iron Man.

Tony didn’t know what to do, but Rhodey stepped forward and with utmost compassion lifted Steve up, holding him under the arms like he did it every day, no hesitation, no fear, just _it’s fine, this is fine, don’t worry_. He was worried, Tony knew, as the others were worried, too. It was reassuring: none of them knew what they were doing. They were just trying to help where they could.

The HUD helpfully outlined the embedded shards, but Tony didn’t feel comfortable pulling them out with the gauntlets. Instead, he advised, “Inside. Please.”

Nodding, Rhodey slid his arm around Steve’s chest, more carrying than guiding him back into the main room, dripping blood on the floor. He was grateful that Rhodey had silently volunteered to carry Steve as Steve spasmed again, like he would strike out at Clint, now feet away but with his quiver on his back, a silent arms-down statement. Clint shoved a coffee table aside so Rhodey could have room to maneuver Steve onto the couch. Steve breathed raggedly, eyes closed, ashen-faced.

Bruce, a fresh ring of darkening bruises around his neck, fearlessly stepped forward, a med-kit in hand. He passed it off to Tony, who stared at it like it was from another planet, before Bruce instructed gently, “He’ll heal around the glass, Tony.” Tony couldn’t hear him, because all of this—God, all of this was his fault. He was killing Captain America. He was killing _Steve_.

Rhodey said calmly, “Keep him steady. I can do it.”

It was, Tony thought distantly, a rather diplomatic way of saying _hold him down_. Tony moved cautiously, not afraid of Steve—he was in the armor, he was _untouchable—_ but desperately trying not to make anything worse. He slid underneath Steve’s head and shoulders, tucking a metal arm around his chest, not as a restraint but merely a comfort, something to cling to. Steve hung onto it, twisting like he would try to fight, but Tony lowered the faceplate and said, “Easy, buddy. It’s me.”

He squeezed gently, aware of his own strength, and insisted, “I’ve got you.”

Steve twisted again, trying unsuccessfully to plant his feet, gain leverage, like he knew he was trapped, but he didn’t claw at Tony’s arm, didn’t try to pry it off his chest. Rhodey pried with bare hands a shard from his shoulder and he barely reacted, shallow breathing the only indication he was in pain. Rhodey was efficient but considerate, never brusque, just quick. 

Steve finally gargled in pain as Rhodey tweezed a shard that didn’t want to come out of his upper arm, thrashing for a moment, and Tony could tell he was too drunk to channel his strength into it or he would’ve been off the couch and on his feet in seconds. Rhodey waited until he stopped moving to try again, using a little more force. It was then that Tony realized that Steve was healing around the shards, involuntarily tightening his grip around Steve’s chest, a quiet kind of horror making his head seem very quiet, like a busy street in the middle of the night.

Rhodey sat back. Tony realized time had passed, but without the noise of traffic-thoughts— _do something, Tony, anything—_ it didn’t seem possible. He thought someone asked him something, but he stayed behind the mask, safe and sound, one arm wrapped around Steve, safe-and-sound. It felt like a dream, like there was no way reality could touch their beautiful little-something so easily, but it had knives in their skin, and Tony didn’t know what to do.

The others gave them space. Steve made a few aborted attempts to free himself, but Tony held onto him, afraid of what would happen if he let go, _he’ll hurt someone_. Steve wasn’t a cruel person, but he was wild. So few people seemed to know any leash put on his neck was just a noose when the ground dropped out from under him. It wouldn’t save him. It wouldn’t tether him to reality.

With a full-body shiver, Steve rolled clumsily onto his side, facing the couch, his cheek on Tony’s Iron-clad thigh, his body huddled against the cushions as he hid underneath Tony’s arm. Tony heard the whir of one of his amped-up Roombas gliding around. It was comforting to listen to, broken sparsely by soft conversation, “Here, let me—” and “Thanks” as Natasha handed Bruce an ice pack.

“I’m sorry,” Tony said, to Steve, to everyone, because someone had to be.

Rhodey put a hand on his shoulder, a warm human hand, his suit once more in its case. He said, “It’s gonna be okay, Tony.”

Clint draped a blanket over Steve, covering him to the shoulder—Tony lifted his arm carefully to accommodate it, settling the heavy Iron arm down when it was done. Natasha and Bruce were talking quietly, but Tony wasn’t listening to them, any of them, sitting in the suit and feeling his own heart rate slowly return to normal.

The Roomba chased away the evidence. A sense of almost-normalcy settled over the room. Clint and Rhodey raided the kitchen for cookie supplies. Tony heard the mixer going, thought, _The best mixer has two hands_. He flattened his balled-up hand against Steve’s side. Steve’s eyes were closed, his breathing steady, his entire demeanor calm. They took their cues from their Captain: he was calm, so they were calm.

The Avengers were hyper-individualistic, so self-sustaining that dropping any of them in the middle of nowhere with nothing but the skin on their backs wouldn’t have placed them in necessarily dire straits, but Tony could feel the sense of calm that only unity brought.

 _We don’t solo anymore_.

It wasn’t about ability: it was about safety. Alone, they were all more vulnerable. Together, there was little they couldn’t do.

Relaxing into the cushions, Tony left his arm around Steve, kept his helmet on, and shut his eyes.

. o .

There was movement under his arm. Tony opened his eyes, feeling stiff and sore in the suit, looking down as Steve lifted himself up, shaking with the effort, slinking out from under his grip and landing on the floor with a soft _thud_. Tony watched Steve climb to his feet. He noticed Rhodey sitting in a chair nearby, reading. When he noticed Tony watching, he looked up, expression sober.

Rubbing the side of his head, expression tense and miserable, Steve stumbled off to the sink, almost drowning himself in an attempt to soothe what had to be a pretty spectacular hangover. Tony released the catch on his helmet, sucking in a breath of fresh, baked-good-laced air. Rhodey set his book down, looking at Tony, and Tony realized it was just the three of them. Tony thought, _You didn’t have to wait up_ , because that was exactly what Rhodey had done.

Rhodey said in a pleasantly normal voice, “There’s cookies, if you want any.”

Tony blinked at him, listening to Steve shut off the water, groaning softly as he stumbled around. He bumped into the counter and held onto it, steadying himself. Tony watched him as he pulled himself back together, moving more confidently. He went pale a few times, closing his eyes, but he found his inner equilibrium and kept moving around in a daze, unaware of his audience. Or ignoring them.

Tony said, “I’m good.” He looked down at himself, almost completely encased in armor. He stood, releasing the universal catch. The suit obliged and collapsed in on itself. He stretched, working out the kinks, grunting once in satisfaction as his back popped before flopping back down on the couch. He turned to Steve, who was staring at the Roomba floating around, then at the hole in the wall, grimacing apologetically. “It needed a new door,” Tony called out.

Steve turned to face him, jaw hard, _don’t lie to me_. “No, it didn’t.”

Tony shrugged, changing tactics. “Well, it’s getting a new door.”

Steve stared at him, waiting for—anger, retribution, something other than Tony’s calm. He looked away when he didn’t find it. “I’m sorry.”

“Tony jumped off a two-story balcony into a pool once,” Rhodey said conversationally. “Totally trashed.”

Tony covered his face with a hand.

“I had to fish him out,” Rhodey added in the same pleasant tone. “Drowned rat. Saddest damn drowned rat you’ve ever seen.” Steve shuffled over, sitting heavily on the opposite end of the couch from Tony, looking at Rhodey with something like wonder and wariness. “Wasn’t even on a dare,” Rhodey breezed on, voice fond, looking at Tony with a smirk. “Just did it. Damned stupid.”

“Buck jumped off a Ferris wheel,” Steve said unexpectedly, voice soft, hoarse. Rhodey cocked his head at him. “Y’know, those—” He paused, then continued like he’d decided it didn’t matter if they did or didn’t know what he was talking about. “Didn’t _jump_ , so much as climbed outside the car and hopped off, soon ‘s we were above the grass. Still hollered at him.”

“Oh, I _hollered_ at him,” Rhodey said cheerfully, pointing his book at Tony. “You remember that one?”

“‘Anthony,’” Tony said in a dull, recitation voice, “‘you beautiful butterfly, marvel of creation, my dear, sweet Anthony—’”

“I said, ‘Tony, you stupid goddamn bitch-bastard, you can’t dive in the pool, you will break your neck and your ass, and then I will have to listen to you complain about your broken ass while I am carrying you everywhere.’”

“. . . About the gist of it,” Tony mumbled.

Steve huffed, but it was unmistakably amused. “‘You stupid, goddamn bitch-bastard,’” he recited. Rhodey, to his credit, didn’t flick an eyebrow at America’s sweetheart disappointing his mother. Tony kind of loved the dissonance: prim-and-proper Steve Rogers, who had zero compunctions about swearing in certain company. 

And, Tony thought, feeling warmed at the thought, he’d decided Rhodey was welcome into that particular corner of his life, that circle-of-trust. “Buck almost broke his ass,” he said companionably. “Sure howled about it. Biggest punk-kid you’d ever meet. Loved getting in trouble. Just don’t tell his mother.” He smiled, closing his eyes.

“Your poor mother,” Rhodey said, looking at Tony and shaking his head. “I can’t imagine raising your bitch ass.”

Tony huffed, rising to the challenge: “I was literally _nothing_ but a delight, universally beloved. It said so on my report cards. ‘A pleasure to have in class.’”

Rhodey brayed with laughter. “I bet you were,” he said calmly. Looking Steve over, he asked, “What about you? Were you a pleasure to have in class?”

Steve shrugged, reaching over, almost idly, to lay a hand on Tony’s thigh, comforting. Grounding. Tony rested his own hand on top of it. Then Steve moved his hand away and shuffled over, hooking his legs over the couch and resting his head there instead, like it was the most normal thing in the world. 

“I was a punk-kid and everyone knew it,” Steve said, closing his eyes. Tony draped an arm over his chest carefully. Steve reached up, held it, squeezing lightly. “Especially my art teacher. I almost sent her to an early grave.”

“Oh, Tony _killed_ it at MIT,” Rhodey said. “You should’ve seen him. Baby-faced trust-fund smartass.”

“You can just say you love my ass, Rhodey,” Tony said lightly. “Although if you wanna keep telling me how beautiful and smart I am, I’m fine with that, too.”

Steve stroked his arm slowly. “I bet you were beautiful,” he assured.

Something tightened in Tony’s throat, but he managed to keep his tone fairly composed as he replied, “Well, of course you would, you’re America’s sweetheart, it’s in the job description.”

Steve hummed, relaxing under Tony’s arm. “I was exceptionally beautiful,” Tony allowed modestly, feeling Steve chuckle silently before he assured:

“I’m sure you were, Tony.”

“I need you to picture the most beautiful man on Earth and imagine him weeping because he will never be as beautiful as I am, and that’s how beautiful I was.”

“It’s true,” Rhodey said gravely. “As the most beautiful man on Earth, I can verify that I do weep every time I see Tony and realize I will never embody ‘dumbass’ more thoroughly than him.”

“The fact that you have my back is truly the most touching aspect of our relationship,” Tony said dryly.

Steve said nothing, breathing deeply. Tony looked down at him, his eyes shut, face relaxed. At ease. _I just wanna forget_. “Yeah, well, you’re the most entertaining drowned rat I’ve ever fished out of a pool, so that helps.” Rhodey leveraged himself up of his chair and sighed. “You know where to find me,” he said, resting a hand on Tony’s shoulder and giving it a light shake in passing. Seriously, he added, “Don’t hesitate.”

“Thanks, Rhodey.”

Rhodey sauntered off, the door sliding shut behind him. The room wasn’t silent—the pleasant mechanical whir of the Roomba, the fainter sound of the air conditioning—but it was quiet, peaceful. Tony asked, “You awake, bud?”

Steve said, “Yeah.”

“You wanna go to bed?”

A long pause. “I don’t know.”

Tony let Steve hold his arm, silently contemplating, and said, “We’re okay.”

Steve was silent.

“We’re okay,” Tony insisted.

“Are we?”

Tony squeezed him. “Yeah.” With a light tug, he suggested, “C’mon, big guy. Let’s go to bed.”

“Mm.” Steve shuffled upright, nearly pitching forward, his hand rising to his head again, grimacing. “Ow.”

“If it’s any consolation,” Tony said, standing next to him, winding an arm around his waist, “it should be gone by morning.”

“Didn’t know I could still get hungover.”

Tony didn’t reply, leading him along, wordlessly dimming the lights in the room to the full-dark setting he used at night. It wasn’t pitch-black, but it was nighttime, _bedtime_. The routine of it was soothing. Steve moved unsteadily, reminding Tony of a funhouse, painting a fairly vivid picture of his worldview, but Tony kept him balanced, and he didn’t fall.

_I gotcha, big guy._

_I’ve got you._

. o .

Everything was normal.

Perfectly normal.

If Tony noticed Steve drifting away from him, Steve responded brightly, his normal, generally effervescent self. He was a well-adjusted transplant from the twentieth century. He was the model citizen, America’s icon, heroically self-reliant, rock-steady in a storm. He was everything everyone needed him to be and more. Always more. There was no limit to what Captain America could do. If the world needed him to keep spinning, by God, he would make it turn, no matter how titanic the challenge.

But Tony saw him in the dark, the light he didn’t want to be seen, when there was no brilliant shield to cover him, when he wasn’t aglow in his own artificial firefly-light, and he saw someone most people didn’t know existed. The man from the ice, the man from the ‘40s who’d survived the world’s most ruthless war only to be thrown back into the fight, this time without a single person on his side, without a soul alive who knew the world he’d lost like he did, the man who killed and the man who lived to touch the stars.

He watched Steve pace. Steve looked over at Tony belatedly, like he wasn’t expecting him to show up, here, of all places. The conference room was pretty spacious. As far as pacing-places went, it was a good choice. Concealed. Only a handful of people had open access to it; the rest needed permission from those who did have permission to enter. It was his own hideaway, but it wasn’t really hidden from the world. He couldn’t escape the spotlight. Tony wasn’t sure he wanted to, as he stood in his brilliant star-spangled suit, like it was the only rock-solid thing he had left.

Maybe it was.

He was drowning, and Tony didn’t know how to save him. All he knew how to do was cross the room and, when Steve let him closer, hug him, clinging to his shoulder straps like it was something that could keep them above water.

Steve wouldn’t let him drown. Tony knew that. He would cut the rope before he let Tony drown. When Steve pulled away, Tony could feel it, the way he pulled into himself, walking away.

Tony knew that the most overt sign of drowning wasn’t noise, panic: it was the silence, the unnatural stillness, the painfully subtle line between _everything is fine_ and _nothing is_.

Tony was terrified every time he let Steve out of his sight that he wasn’t going to resurface.

. o .

It was Monday, the day after Rhodey’s unhappy return to life in DC, when Tony caved.

“I can’t believe I’m actually saying this to you, but I’m worried about him.”

Fury sat in his Director’s chair, looking at Tony with only mild surprise. “Wasn’t expecting to see you today,” he preluded.

“I don’t like schedules.” Leaning behind the chair in front of Fury’s desk, Tony added seriously, “I need you to read my lips: I’m worried. I’ve got all kinds of bad vibes. And I know where he goes when he wants to disappear.” Nodding at the office, he said, “You’re his fake-dad. Do something.”

“Fake-dad.”

“Faux-father?” Tony spun the chair around, feeling edgy. He sat down and said with iron in his voice, “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t desperate. You know he cares about you. He’ll listen to you.”

“He’s not listening to you?”

Tony hated how canny Fury was. “I didn’t say that.”

Fury didn’t push it. “And what, exactly, do you expect me to do, Mr. Stark?”

“You’re his commanding officer,” Tony said, like that explained it. “I don’t know, Nick. If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking you.”

Fury regarded him coolly. “What happened?”

 _Panic attack to end all panic attacks_. “He’s not adjusting,” he decided.

“It’s been six months,” Fury replied. “Would you be perfectly adjusted?” Then, sensing how painful it was for Tony to be here, Fury took pity on him, leaning back in his chair, opening his chest. “There’s only so much I can do, Mr. Stark. What we do here offers a sense of normalcy. I could bench him. Do you think that would help him adjust?”

 _Yes, actually, if it keeps him alive_. But he remembered what had happened the last time they had tried to keep Steve out of the field. _Unhappy_ was an understatement. Restless, adrift, furious—these were closer to the truth. He wanted to work, work hard. 

_I just want to forget_.

“Who’s Margaret Taron?” he asked, struck by inspiration.

Fury stared at him blankly. “She was at the event,” Tony explained. “The Kennedy fundraiser on Thursday.”

“Margaret Taron,” Fury repeated. He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Steve knew her. Recognized her. I don’t know.” Fishing, he added, “She said her name was Peggy.”

Fury’s expression went smooth. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Leaning forward, Tony asked, “What’s _oh_ , Director?”

Fury was silent for so long Tony almost asked him again. At last, Fury said, “When I met Mr. Rogers for the first time, he had little to say. Mostly just ‘yes, sir.’ But he mentioned Peggy Carter. He had a date with her.”

Tony tried to imagine it, standing in a futuristic suit in a room full of people he didn’t know and seeing a woman who looked—not like Pepper, but similar, maybe, then she introduced herself ( _Pepper, just like my grandmother_ ; fuck), and she was younger than she should have been in this strange new world because she was the woman he _knew_ , the woman he _remembered—_

“Oh,” he repeated lamely.

Fury looked at him calmly. Tony recovered enough to force out, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It wasn’t my place to say.”

Anger was building in Tony’s chest. Anger, because—“Oh, _now_ you have scruples?”

Fury’s jaw firmed. He spoke stiffly. “It wasn’t relevant to you, Mr. Stark.”

“It _became_ relevant,” Tony barked. “When is it going to occur to you that maybe, just _maybe_ , it would be helpful to know certain information beforehand?”

“If I believed that information would have been important in an imminent or dangerous capacity, I would have told you.”

Tony narrowed his eyes. “Would you have?”

Fury nodded.

Tony leaned forward. “What else aren’t you telling me?”

Fury’s gaze was glacial. Tony’s voice was steely as he insisted, “What aren’t you telling me, Director?” When Fury didn’t answer, he tried a different approach: “Who is Peggy Carter?”

“Clearly, someone very important to him.”

Snarling, Tony leaned back, saying in disgust, “Tell me something I _don’t know_.”

“You’re not the only one who cares about him.” When Tony opened his mouth to repeat his claim, Fury continued calmly, “Barton, Romanoff, even Banner—they tried to get him to stay with them, away from here. But he went with you. You—the loner. I won’t lie—you were my last choice.”

Tony was surprised at the lack of disappointment in his voice. “Thanks.”

“I figured you two would probably get on each other’s nerves.”

“Opposites attract,” Tony said without meaning to.

“You two aren’t so different,” Fury replied, deliberately not reading into that. Tony was grateful. “This may seem hard to believe, but these past few months—he’s been happier than I’ve ever seen him. And I was there the day he woke up. It wasn’t pretty.”

“How’d you tell him?” When Fury frowned uncomprehendingly, Tony clarified, “How’d you break the ice?” Tony winced at his own choice of words.

Fury, though, answered in a level tone, “How would you have told him?”

_Hi, Captain America, welcome to the twenty-first century, you’ve been asleep for sixty-seven years, any questions?_

That sort of flippant reply would have come to him easily four, five months ago. Aloud, all he could say was, “I don’t know.”

“We didn’t, either,” Fury confided. “It’s not. . . . There’s no precedent.” Then, mulling it over, he added, “You know how you survive a car crash, Mr. Stark? You increase the collision time. The more abrupt the impact, the less likely you’ll survive. We wanted to break the news slowly to him. Increase the collision time.”

Tony put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, suddenly unsure that he wanted to hear any of this. “Okay,” he said aloud, needing Fury to keep going, anyway.

He obliged: “It was going to be a shock. No matter how we approached it, there was going to be one hell of an emotional impact. Not just because of the length of time—you have to understand that he died, Mr. Stark. He went under, and we brought him back to life. That kind of shock is hard to imagine.”

( _The loudest sound he’d ever heard reverberated through his chest, and Tony lurched upright with a gasp, staring at a steel-gray sky, heart-poundingly_ alive.)

“I can imagine,” he said slowly.

Fury regarded him silently for a few moments. “We thought it would be better to ease him into it,” he said at last.

Tony put his face in his hands. He didn’t want to hear it. He had to. “What’d you do, Nick?”

Fury let the name slide. “A prop room. We made the mistake of adding a radio.” With a hint of real frustration, he added, “Who could have predicted that he would have attended a very specific baseball game in 1941?”

“Haven’t you heard of Murphy’s law?” Tony asked, voice muffled, despair warring with a desperate need to _know_.

Fury ignored the jibe. “Radios were rare, televisions were rarer—” _televisions were for the rich—_ “and the odds of attending one game four years prior were supposed to be negligible, borderline impossible. It was just a detail. We wanted to let him wake up in the 1940s, then worry about the time-gap.”

_Don’t lie to me!_

Tony couldn’t look at Fury, couldn’t make himself stop Fury from adding, “It didn’t work. One unforeseen error, and our house of cards hit the floor.”

“What’d he do?” Tony’s voice didn’t feel like his own. It was so calm. Normal.

“. . . He ran.”

Tony pressed his hands against his eyes, wishing he couldn’t imagine it.

“We caught up to him in Times Square,” Fury added, in the manner of finishing a thought. “Needless to say, he wasn’t happy.”

Dropping his hands, Tony looked Fury dead-in-the-eye and said searingly, “Do you know _why_ he acts like a dangerous animal? Because you treat him like one.”

Fury sighed. “He is three generations removed from his original time, orders of magnitude stronger than our best athletes, quick as they come and a _soldier—_ you think we were wrong to treat the situation cautiously? Captain America was a hero in his time, but we have no illusions that there isn’t a man under that suit. And do you know what makes someone dangerous, Mr. Stark? It’s having nothing to live for, and nothing to lose.”

Tony was on his feet and out the door before Fury could say, “Mr. Stark—”

 _Mr. Stark was my father_ , he thought scathingly.

The door slammed shut behind him.

. o .

The dangerous animal was lounging on the floor in the main room, cheek pressed to his folded arms, snoozing under the midafternoon sun. Bruce, typing intently nearby, had his glasses and concentration face on, scarcely looking up as Tony stepped into the room. He hadn’t expected to find them, hesitating near the doorway, like the peace was a thing he could shatter, everything Fury feared could happen. _It could_ , he thought, looking at the new and improved glass door leading to the balcony.

He resolved, suddenly and adamantly, that nothing that happened in the Tower, _left_ the Tower. If S.H.I.E.L.D. knew. . . .

Tony inched towards Steve, making no pretenses. Bruce looked up briefly but didn’t say anything, the bruises on his neck visible but not terrible. They would be there for a few days, but if he was upset at being near Steve, he did an admirable job not showing it. 

As for Tony, he approached without so much as a stutter in his step, crouching down and resting a hand on Steve’s back. He didn’t stir, sleeping deeply, a rare healing kind of sleep that he only indulged in occasionally. He wouldn’t wake up for nearly any provocation, shy of kicking him or yelling in his face, neither of which Tony wanted to do. Besides: he’d found what he’d come for. His heart rate was already slowing.

Letting out a relieved sigh, he straightened, looking over at Bruce and asking in a normal voice, “You okay?”

Bruce looked up again, over his reading glasses. “Is that a question or an invitation?”

Shaking down his sleeve—normal; so very normal—Tony said, “I could go for shawarma.”

Bruce looked at his laptop, musing, “At ten AM?”

“They’re open,” was all Tony said.

Bruce nodded, finishing something up and shutting his laptop, setting it aside. “Okay,” he said. “I’m in.”

. o .

“How’s it feel?”

Bruce swallowed, holding up a hand, _hold on_ , before asking, “How’s what—?” Tony gestured eloquently at his own neck. Bruce smiled wryly. “Like I got on a super-soldier’s bad side.”

“He’s got good sides.” Tony didn’t know why he felt so defensive, around _Bruce_ of all people, but he had to say it. “You know. Balance.”

“I’m not mad at him,” Bruce assured. “I think we’ve all done at least one thing we regret. He apologized about a hundred times.”

“Hm.” When Bruce tilted his head curiously, Tony waved a hand and said lightly, “He only apologized to me ninety-nine times. Now I feel slighted.”

Grinning fully, Bruce took a bite of his sandwich, adding with as much delicacy as he could with a mouth full of food, “Besides, I’m the literal giant green rage monster, it seems a little pot-kettle to get upset for pushing my luck.”

“You haven’t hulked out in a while.”

Shaking his head, Bruce swallowed and said clearly, “No, I’ve been good. He’s been good.” Waving a hand, he admitted, “Terminology gets kind of confusing. It’s sort of like having someone else in your head, but not in a terrifying or creepy way. Just like . . . your friendly neighbor Steve.” A pause. “Your friendly neighbor Kevin,” he decided. “Some random guy. Not our Steve.”

“I kind of miss the big guy,” Tony admitted, taking a bite of his own pseudo-sandwich. “He’s such a badass.”

Bruce sighed, shaking his head. “I . . . _broke_ Harlem, Tony. And a good portion of central New York City.”

“I know.”

“I don’t like breaking stuff. Hurting people.”

“You don’t hurt people.” Bruce looked at him flatly. “Okay, maybe you hurt some people. But that’s our job. We’re supposed to punch Hitler in the face. Even if Hitler is a giant alien mothership. _Especially_ if he’s a giant alien mothership.”

Bruce squinted thoughtfully. “Your knack for metaphors is unparalleled.”

“Thanks. I try.” Taking another bite of shawarma, he insisted, “Listen, Brucey. Brucey-boy. You’re kickass. Literally. You kick ass. And that’s either my first or second favorite thing about you. If you start losing sleep over aliens you punched in the nose, I’m going to start losing sleep over the aliens _I_ blew to pieces, and we can’t have two insomniacs in the same lab, we’ll reinvent Godzilla.”

“You can’t reinvent Godzilla.”

“Not with that attitude.”

Huffing, Bruce finished off his shawarma and added, “I just hope I can stay . . . Bruce Banner, for a long, long time. I don’t want another alien invasion. I’m good. I’m real good, actually, I specifically put _do not call me for alien invasions_ on my requests’ list.”

“Fury doesn’t like that kind of stuff,” Tony said, his voice mercifully flat.

Bruce shook his head, sipping from his water. “No, he doesn’t.” In a musing tone, he added, “I wish we could pull Tasha and Clint from the A-list. They’re gone all the time. They’ve missed movie night twice now. _Twice_ , Tony.”

“This family is falling apart,” Tony deadpanned. Then: “When did she become _Tasha_?”

Bruce shrugged, hiding his blush behind his glass. “Natasha’s a mouthful.”

“It is.” Amused, Tony added, “You know Clint will _literally_ kill you if you get within a three-foot radius of her.”

Bruce nodded emphatically. “Oh, trust me, I have no interest in becoming a human pincushion.” Clearly amused, he added, “She seems to have made an exception for Cap.”

 _Because it pisses me off_. Tony shrugged a shoulder, taking a sip of his drink. “When _you_ save the free world and become America’s sweetheart, then you can have Cap privileges.”

Bruce hummed thoughtfully. “Cap privileges.”

Tony was silent for a beat, toying with a napkin. “I’m scared to lose him,” he admitted, surprising himself with how honest it was.

Bruce didn’t miss a beat. “Tony, I have never seen anyone more in love. He’s not going anywhere.”

A mix of wry and dry, Tony said, “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Then, seriously, he added, “It’s not _us_ I’m worried about.”

A longer pause. “I’m not a therapist,” Bruce said, “but . . . it could help. To see one.”

“I do,” Tony said.

Bruce smiled. “Yeah? Good for you.” Then, nodding to himself, he added, “Yeah, Tony, that’s what you should do. You know, this stuff . . . it’ll kill you, if you can’t find a way through.”

_I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out._

Tony blinked, surprised at how . . . completely and utterly normal Bruce looked. Reaching out unconsciously, he put a hand on his wrist and squeezed firmly. 

Smiling ruefully, like he knew exactly what Tony was thinking, Bruce added, “I’m not there anymore, Tony. I’m happy now. Really. It took a lot and I still have my days, but . . . I’m not there.”

“I’m glad,” Tony said, nodding sternly, like he needed Bruce to understand just how goddamn grateful he was for _this_ outcome. “You ever get there again, you talk to us. Got it?”

Bruce nodded, squeezing his hand. “You, too.”

. o .

Later, they stood in the elevator, huddled together.

“I’m sorry.”

Tony closed his eyes, holding Steve tightly. “Don’t,” he entreated. “Don’t apologize.”

“I’m sorry.”

Sighing, sliding a hand into his hair, Tony shushed, “It’s okay now. It’s okay.”

Steve trembled against him, grasping at him, gently, so gently, barely touching him, like he was afraid to hurt him. “I’m okay,” Tony assured. “You’re okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

Steve pressed his forehead against Tony’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

Tony sighed fondly, closing his eyes, leaning back against the wall, the full-stop engaged. “Okay, buddy. It’s okay.”

“I’ll be good.”

Tony was glad his eyes were already closed. They still burned. “You are good.” Steve made a soft, wounded noise. Tony insisted, “You’re good. I promise.”

“I feel like I’m one step away from losin’ my mind.”

Tony scruffed his hair lightly, cradling the back of his head. “You don’t have to take that step.” Holding him as close as he could, he added, “Just . . . stay with us. Stay with us. It’ll be okay.”

Steve gripped him a little harder, nowhere near enough to bruise, holding onto him. “I love you,” he said helplessly.

Tony opened his eyes, even though he could only see golden hair, pressing a kiss to it. “I love you, too.” Sliding both hands down his back, stroking up, down, he added softly, “I wish you weren’t hurting.”

“I’ll get better.”

Both hands in his hair, holding him, soft, warm, all-consuming. “Yeah. Yeah, you will. And I’ll be here. We’re gonna be okay. Both of us.”

Nodding, Steve pulled back so he could look Tony in the eye, adding, “I don’t wanna hurt you.”

Tony closed his eyes, but he was too late. Steve kissed the tear that slipped free, murmuring, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

 _It’s okay_ , Tony parroted silently, gathering him close, holding on, being held.

 _We’ll get better_.


	14. LOST IN SPACE-TIME

_“Natasha?”_

_Standing alone in a sultry red dress in the middle of the ballroom, Natasha replied, “Who’s Natasha?”_

_Tony frowned and looked around the empty ballroom, asking not-Natasha, “When’s the party?”_

_“The party’s over, Tony.” Looking down at her wrist for a nonexistent watch, not-Natasha added, “It’s late. I have to go.”_

_“Don’t go.” Tony reached out and caught her hand. “Where is everybody?”_

_Not-Natasha sighed. “They’re dead, Tony,” she said. “We’ve been through this.”_

_“What? No. How’d they—what happened?” The room was beginning to spin. “Where’s Steve?” he asked, releasing her so he could turn in a full circle. When he completed it, she was gone. He inhaled deeply. “Natasha?”_

_“You shouldn’t be here, Tony,” Bruce said quietly. “It’s late.”_

_Tony turned around and stared at him. “Bruce—where are we? What’s going on?”_

_Bruce frowned. “Bruce?” he repeated, trying out the word. “It’s Alex, Tony. You know me.”_

_Tony stepped towards him. Panic wanted him to stay back. “No, you’re Bruce Banner.”_

_“Alexander Turner,” not-Bruce said patiently. “Is everything okay, Tony?”_

_“I don’t know,” Tony said, hating the admission. “. . . Where’s Steve?”_

_Bruce’s expression softened. “Tony, he’s . . . he’s been dead for a while now.”_

_“He can’t be dead.”_

_“He died in 2038.”_

_Tony recoiled. “2038?” he repeated. “No. No, Bruce, it’s 2012—”_

_“Here, Tony, let’s . . . let’s go home, watch some movies, okay? You wanna watch a movie?” Not-Bruce stepped towards him like he was a dangerous animal. “We don’t have to talk about it right now, okay? I shouldn’t have brought it up. I know it’s—it’s a lot, every time.”_

_Tony stepped away from him, afraid to be grabbed and dragged down. Thor rumbled at his back, “Anthony?”_

_Tony spun around, grabbing at Thor’s arms, feeling like he was drowning, desperate. “Thor,” he breathed._

_Looking over Tony’s shoulder, Thor asked not-Bruce, “What happened?”_

_Not-Bruce shook his head. “Another episode.”_

_“I’m still here,” Tony intruded, but he had the feeling they weren’t listening to him. He clung to Thor. It didn’t feel right, none of the warmth and solidarity he expected. “Thor, please—”_

_Thor looked down at him gravely. “You should go home,” he said. “It is not right to linger in the halls of the dead.”_

_Tony stepped back, looking around and taking it all in. The room was still set up for an event, fancy dining ware, a stage ready for a band, everything in order, all the little name cards on the tables. He stumbled over to one and picked it up._

Nick Fury  
July 4, 1950 - January 17, 2029.

_Groaning in despair, he picked up another._

Maria Hill  
April 4, 1982 - January 17, 2029.

_He flickered through the cards, circling the table. With shaking hands, he found a card that read:_

Bruce Banner  
December 18, 1969 - December 13, 2035.

_He looked over, and not-Bruce was a different man. He had the same hair and eye color but different proportions, sharper lines, lacking the same warmth he’d come to associate with Bruce, like he couldn’t even smile the same way. His expression held grief and worry. “Tony, let’s go home,” he suggested gently._

_“Who are you?” Tony asked, backing away from him, looking at Thor. Thor, who regarded him as a stranger._

_“Alex Turner,” not-Bruce repeated patiently. “Alex, your friend, your buddy, you know me, Tony. We went skiing last week. Remember? You fell into that tree well—” Tony had a sudden memory of cold-wet-snow rushing up to meet him, gasping for breath as someone trampled over to him before gloved hands dug him out. The memory felt wrong, like it couldn’t be his. He knew why. It was still fall and it didn’t snow like that in New York, not in October. “We went to the lodge and ate an entire batch of snicker-doodles,” not-Bruce continued, a smile on his face. Tony could smell, taste the cookies, as clearly as if he’d just eaten one. “It’s me, Tony. You know me.”_

I know you, _Tony echoed silently, piecing together another memory from thin air. He had climbed into a strange upright pod instead of a bed, surrounded by a real-time projection of stars. This-is-aerodynamically-better-for-you was both a condolence and an explanation as he vanished into that strange dark place. He asked shakily if Alex would—stay, for a minute, while he acclimated. Alex agreed, talking to him from the other side of the pod, invisible but so very comforting. “You know, I’ve heard Alpha Centauri is out of this world,” Alex said lightly. “You wanna check it out? I know, your people only went to the Moon—maybe Mars, you wanna go to Mars? We’ll go to Mars. You’ll see why it’s not so bad here.”_

_Swallowing, Tony looked at Alex and asked hopelessly, “What year is it?”_

_Alex and Thor—still Thor, thank God, Tony might die if that constant wasn’t the same, but he didn’t look at Tony like he knew him anymore, and that hurt—exchanged a glance. “Tony,” Alex said slowly, keeping his distance but wearing a softened expression. “We don’t have to do this tonight.”_

_Tony . . . Tony had to know. “Tell me.”_

_“It’s 2079.” Tony turned. Clint was leaning up against the wall, expression neutral. It didn’t take long at all for Tony to realize it wasn’t really Clint, the image fading faster, like he could see through the curtain now that he knew the trick. “You’ve been asleep for a long time,” not-Clint added apologetically, stepping forward. Tony felt crowded, surrounded, backed into a corner._

_He stepped away from them, bumped violently into a table, rattling glasses and silverware, knocking over the primly-arranged nametags. “Sorry,” he blurted out._

_“It’s okay,” Alex replied calmly, hands up. “You’re okay, Tony.”_

_He wasn’t. He was shaking like a leaf, gripping the table and staring at the names._

Clint Barton  
September 1, 1964 - October 2, 2032.

Natasha Romanoff  
November 22, 1984 - October 1, 2032.

_He ran around the table, the room spinning around him. He thought, Ring around the Rosie, pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall Down._

Steve Rogers  
July 4, 1918 - August 5, 2038.

_The animal noise that escaped him was pure, knifing grief._

. o .

Tony resurfaced with a gasp, twisting in bed.

“Tony?” Steve asked, voice thick with sleep. “What’s wrong?” Steve rolled over, flailed an arm blindly, flinching when he made contact before setting his arm across Tony’s chest and murmuring, “I’m here.”

Tony held onto his arm, shaking uncontrollably, staring at the ceiling and trying to reconcile _it’s 2079_ with Steve’s warm, living presence next to him. Steve shuffled closer, wrapping his arm around Tony properly. “’m here. I gotcha.”

Tony clung to him, turning in his embrace. He asked cautiously, “Steve?”

“Mm-hm.” Brushing a kiss against Tony’s temple, Steve added, “I’m here. You’re okay.”

Tony shuffled closer, letting himself be smothered a little, hiding underneath Steve’s sprawling embrace. “Don’t leave,” he entreated, barely-there.

Steve heard it. He always did. “I won’t.”

. o .

In the cold light of day, it still felt real.

It was because of Steve. Steve, who drifted away from him at some ungodly early hour, always on the move, leaping off staircases, jogging around the city, tirelessly throwing himself into his work at S.H.I.E.L.D. Steve’s fleeting presence was a reminder that it wasn’t _really_ a dream.

Tony wasn’t running away from him. He wasn't. He was just being proactive at work.

He was grateful for Pepper. Kissing her on the cheek, he fell into step beside her. “You’re uncharacteristically early,” she mused.

“I missed you,” Tony said. It wasn’t completely a lie. He smiled, then tapped his chest, the metal comfortingly heavy underneath his blazer. “And I’m ahead of schedule. Mark IX is on Mars.” _It’s not flight-worthy, but it’s partially wearable._ The code was something they’d never dropped and even though Tony knew there were fewer safe places than the Avengers Tower, he could never be too sure.

“Oh?” Pepper’s surprise was real. “Mars? I thought it was on Venus?” _Pre-construction._

Tony slipped an arm around her waist, walking with her to the board room. “I skipped the bells and whistles.”

“Bold of you.”

Tony shrugged. “I’m feeling utilitarian.”

“Risky. Next you’ll be moving into a high-rise instead of an actual skyscraper.”

Tony huffed, releasing her and stepping forward, letting the scanner read his palm. The door to the conference room opened automatically. “Dream bigger, Pepper. If I live long enough, one day I’ll have my own planet.” Stepping into the room, he flashed his award-winning smile at the board members and silenced the procrastinating demon inside himself that chanted _I want to hit Saturn by midnight_ over and over. It was 9 AM. He had fifteen hours. He could probably get the suit in the air with twenty hours. Maybe forty. Maybe ninety. It was always hard to say. Either way, Saturn by midnight was almost impossible, but that didn’t stop him from dreaming.

Full assembly. Jupiter.

Flight-worthy. Saturn.

It was hard not to drool at the thought of flying the Mark IX. The Mark VIII looked worn and torn and aching for retirement in its little box, while the Mark IX was all sleek lines and black-chrome finishes.

Tony hadn’t decided if he would keep the natural color or paint it red and gold. The red and gold were iconic, but he was never known for taking the safe route in anything, business or personal. Besides, painting took a full day: it had to set. Tony didn’t want a full day standing between him and the Moon. He wanted to be up in the air.

He didn’t hear a damn word in the meeting, listening to the little people talk about their little empires while he did mental loop-de-loops in his new-and-improved suit.

. o .

_Mercury_. The idea. Pre-pre-construction. _The concept. The risks. The rewards._

 _Venus_. The blueprint. Pre-construction. _The groundwork._

 _Earth_. Boots and gauntlets. Early-phase construction. _Core power. Core flight_ _._

 _Mars_. Chest- and back-plates. Middle-phase construction. _Core shielding. Core strength._

 _Jupiter_. Helmet. Late-phase construction. _The head and heart of the operation._

 _Saturn_. AI. Advanced-phase construction. _Alpha, Beta, Gamma systems._

 _Uranus_. Weapons. Final-phase construction. _The last resorts_.

 _Neptune_. Post-construction. _Infinity and beyond_.

. o .

Thirty-six hours later, Tony walked the Mark IX to the edge of the balcony. 

He lifted himself up onto the railing and rolled forward, plunging into space. He fell like a diver in a swimming pool, kicking the thrusters and arcing so smoothly into a curve it made him want to laugh, to shout, to cry. 

Everything wrong with Mark VIII was absent in Mark IX. Things he hadn’t realized were wrong—weak points, exploitable areas that he could smooth out, that he could _make better—_ were better. There were miniature, almost invisible wings folded along the undersides of his arms, sleek and silver, carrying him more effortlessly than his bare metal arms ever had. He moved fast with minimal thrust, zipping along at breathtaking speed.

Arcing skyward, he chased the stars, flying effortlessly to 20,000 feet, 30,000 feet. He turned off the thrusters and glided, actually glided, no power whatsoever, for five miles on air. Then he kicked them back on, floating up to 35,000 feet, 40,000 feet, the miles melting away below him. He leveled out at 60,000 feet, not trusting the suit, not yet—it was Saturn-worthy, but he wouldn’t take it all the way until he was sure it could withstand the ecstatic, terrifying, life-taking existence at 90,000 feet and beyond.

 _Stratosphere_.

Soaring along, higher than any plane, Tony marveled at the Mark IX in the way it was meant to be marveled: in the air.

He was up in the air so long he felt dizzy by the time he descended. It wasn’t lack of oxygen—as he initially feared, running scans—but lack of _food_. He’d been up in the air for nine hours. He was shaking with it, the shock of coming down from 60,000 feet, of flying the Mark IX after nine days of construction. It was so beautiful he didn’t want to land, didn’t want to come back to Earth, afraid of what he would find waiting for him. Obligations. Needs. Things that went beyond the deep blue sky, the rising sun, the endless clouds.

It was endless up top; it was finite and fragile down below.

Landing on the balcony was easy: the suit did it automatically, wings folding upwards, hissing as it pressurized, letting him gasp fresh air for the first time in hours. He didn’t step out of the suit, walking in his own little dream through the glass door. No one was home: they were all gone, _the party’s over, Tony_.

It was, he thought sadly, a damn shame. He wondered in a scientific corner of his mind what had happened on those disastrous dates. Stumbling into the kitchen in the suit, he couldn’t remember the exact numbers, trying, trying to remember the numbers. _It was just a dream_. He knew it was a dream, was only his mind conjuring up what would make sense to it, but it felt . . . important. Cathartic. To understand what had happened on those terrible days that had taken the lives of his fellow Avengers.

He asked, “J.A.R.V.I.S., what were the days?”

“Days of what, sir?”

 _Days they died_. “Never mind.” He couldn’t make himself ask the question, mouth dry, head pounding. He’d been up for too long. He felt like a diver with the bends, everything excruciatingly sore after being encased in metal for so long. The Mark IX was breezy, moved easy, but it was essentially a plaster mold, meant to keep him flat, even-keeled for flight. _Aerodynamics_ , he mused, pouring himself a glass of water and then staring blankly at it, unwilling to remove the facemask.

“Hm,” he mused, looking over as the door slid open.

Bruce paused, literally mid-step, staring at him like he was a ghost. _What year is it?_ Tony wondered. “Wow,” Bruce said. That was the right response: the Mark IX was gorgeous. Tony was rapidly developing an affinity for the night-black chrome-coloration. It looked good. It was nearly invisible in the air. “Tony?” he said.

“Hey, Bruce,” Tony replied in the Iron voice, filtered, separated from reality. “What year is it?”

Bruce frowned, checking his watch automatically. “Uh, 2012.”

Tony nodded once. “Thanks.”

“Any time.” A beat. “Why do you ask?”

Tony didn’t answer, looking down at the glass of water contemplatively.

 _Take off the suit_.

 _I don’t want to_.

He walked over to the couch, still encased in armor—it breathed, it _lived_ , it had stardust sprinkled on its skin—and sat down heavily. “I’m gonna take a nap,” he announced, lounging with his feet up on the couch, _paint me like one of your French Iron Men_. “Don’t need me.”

“I’ll try not to,” he thought Bruce said, but the suit was warm and safe. He was asleep in less than thirty seconds.

. o .

Tony didn’t know or care what time it was.

All he cared about was his ravenous hunger, his pounding head, the growing need to take a piss. He could have ignored the first, maybe even the second, but he refused to sully a suit not equipped for the third. He almost shouted with pain as he unlocked the suit, every cramped-up muscle screaming in concert as he shifted his metal legs off the couch and onto the floor, _thump, thump_. Stepping out of it was a challenge, but he was a brave, strong, talented man—his inner life coach said as much, _C_ _’mon, Stark, you can do this—_ and with grace and dignity on his side, he climbed Bambi-like to his feet and staggered forward, every limb responding as if it had been asleep moments before. 

Thankfully, he’d planned out the balcony level to be a hub of human activity, so he didn’t have to wait for the elevator to find reprieve. When he returned, he was struck by how strange it was, the empty suit arranged on the couch like a human being. _The Thinker doesn’t have anything on you_ , he mused, staring at the suit admiringly. Then he felt the vertigo, nearly enough to take him to his knees, so he focused on clawing his way along the counter, grabbing his glass of water and drinking it down.

That made his stomach hurt more, not less. His desire to hunt for food diminished as he leaned on the counter, letting it support his weight. He had almost worked up the strength to forage—crackers sounded like a reasonable proposition—when he heard the door slide open again. Rallying himself, he pushed off the counter and drew in a deep breath, schooling himself: _I am a total badass in complete control of my life._

He faltered at the sight of Clint, limping visibly, expression harried. He saw Tony and grimaced.

Tony had the sudden overwhelming urge to take off, to fly back to that peaceful place high above, reverse time, change fate, _everything’s fine, everything’s safe_. There was no hunger or fatigue or soreness up there: that didn’t come until he came back down. He was part of the star-scape up there, safe, untouchable.

He fought down the urge. “What the hell happened?”

“Business,” Clint said stiffly, making his way past Tony to the fridge, rooting around. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You’re not a very convincing liar.”

Clint huffed. “I’m tired, Stark. Go bug someone else.”

It didn’t feel like ten in the morning, but that was what the clock told Tony. “Thought you were a morning person,” he couldn’t help pointing out.

Clint grunted. “I’m a morning person when there’s a damn night in the middle,” he said, shooting Tony a dismissive look. “Cap’s upstairs. Go bug him.”

Tony did, except Steve wasn’t in Tony’s room. The room down the end of the hall was locked. “Cap?” Tony tried. “You in there?” He actually knocked, as if Steve’s super-hearing couldn’t pick up on his voice. “I’m here to bug you for information.” Knocking continuously, he called out, “Oh, Captain, my Captain.”

The door slid back. Steve stood, straight-backed, looking right through Tony. “What?” he barked. Then, deliberately softening his tone, he added, “What do you want, Tony?”

Tony reached up to cup his face, craving warm human contact, _hey-hi-I-missed-you_ , an involuntary thing. Steve pulled back, looked away. 

As suddenly as it had opened, the door was shut again.

Tony stared at it, disbelieving. “Steve?” he called out. “Hey. Open up.” Knocking firmly, refusing to be deterred, he said loudly, “I can do this for a long time.”

He wasn’t a coward or a liar, but after a timeless interval of unremitting unresponsiveness, he let his sore hand fall to his side. “Fine,” he said sourly. “Don’t talk to me.”

He expected the door to slide back open, for Steve to reappear with softness and apology in his eyes, offering nothing but a warm embrace. Tony wanted it, wanted it a lot, actually, but nothing changed.

Tony was back in the kitchen. Clint was sitting at the table, munching on a mouthful of Captain Crunch. “Okay, now I’m really curious,” Tony said, pulling out a chair in front of him and taking the box, shaking out a dry handful and stuffing it into his mouth like popcorn. Grimacing, he added through a dry mouthful, “This stuff’ll kill you.”

Clint was silent. “Don’t do this,” Tony said, surprised at how pleading his voice was. “I hate being on the silent side of a cold shoulder.”

Clint finished another mouthful. “If he won’t talk to you, it’s not my place to say.”

Tony’s chest tightened. He wished he hadn’t asked. He felt—incongruously angry, all at once, burning with frustration, annoyance. It wasn’t _fair_ , that he was the one who had to check in. They were adults, they didn’t _need_ him to check in on them, any more than they needed to check in on him. How could they, when he was 60,000 feet above them, three hundred miles away? It was silly to be offended by their cold shoulders. They owed him nothing. _He_ owed them nothing.

He told himself that as he pushed back from the table. 

Suit-up time was down to 4.8 seconds. That was damn impressive, but it felt less remarkable in a house full of silence. Natasha wouldn’t care about the suit beyond the utilitarian. Clint and Steve had made their attitudes abundantly clear.

_Where’s Thor when you need him?_

. o .

Roaring with pleasure, the King of Asgard lofted a writhing, screaming Bilgesnipe over his head and shouted, “You shall not win this day, Bilgesnipe!” before flinging it onto a growing pile of its fellow writhing, screaming Bilgesnipe.

The occasion was simply known as “Thursday.”

. o .

For his part, Bruce was playing up the mellow hipster scientist in his third-favorite coffeeshop. (His first and second choices were far more popular with the general public, which meant he could often be found at his third choice. Unlike the more emblematic Avengers, he was rarely accosted for autographs or selfies, except by canny under-25’ers who recognized their true leader.)

Bruce looked up from his laptop, a blueberry muffin on a napkin next to him. He let out an expression of chagrin when he saw Tony, wearing the suit underneath a jacket, helmet down, steel legs in place. “Am I needed?” he asked hesitantly.

“No,” Tony said truthfully, aware of the sudden attention and the almost audible turning of gears as people connected _Iron Man plus strange not-green man equals IronHulk_. Thankfully, Bruce’s presence acted as a deterrent: people didn’t seem inclined to bother Tony with the big guy around, because he was pretty sure 99% of the public thought Bruce could hulk-out on command. _Pester at your peril_ , he thought, reaching for and finishing off the muffin. Bruce made a sad expression. Tony rolled his eyes and said, “Hold on.”

Bruce went back to typing sedately on his laptop, for all the world a college philosophy professor enjoying time off between classes. Tony was so struck by the image that he had to ask, “Do you have a secret life?” He dumped a small mountain of muffins, all flavors, on the table. Bruce blinked at the pile, tentatively reaching for another blueberry muffin, while Tony picked off a cranberry muffin.

“Is that a trick question?” Bruce asked between bites.

“No.”

Bruce chewed another mouthful thoughtfully. “I mean, yeah,” he said at last, clenching both fists, elevating them enough to be seen but not quite over his head in gladiatorial triumph. “But it’s less _superstar_ and more _super-villain_.”

“I meant a day-job,” Tony said, amused.

“Oh.” Bruce picked off another blueberry muffin—Tony had grabbed three to be safe. “Yeah. I work remote.” He indicated the laptop. “Got a team in the Arctic and a team in the Antarctic that I’m on a consulting basis on. They collect the data, I help program the algorithms to sift through and analyze it.”

“Why the poles?”

“I like polar bears.” Shrugging, he added, “It felt like favoritism to limit myself to the North. The South has been surprisingly rewarding.”

“Next you’ll be working remote in the Koreas.”

Bruce wrinkled his nose, letting out a nervous chuckle as he typed. “Yeah, me, a politician. I’m a scientist. I deal with data, not people. There’s a reason I’m not _in_ the Arctic or Antarctic.”

“If you’re a human being, you’re a politician,” Tony said, picking off a banana muffin. “You can’t escape the game.”

Bruce shook his head. “I’m also a poorly-traveled astronaut,” he pointed out. “I live on Earth, after all. Part of the Solar System. Ergo: I am an astronaut.”

“Diogenes would be very proud.”

Bruce huffed. “If the Hulk lent his loyalties to either side one minute early, we’d have World War III. That kind of slight wouldn’t be easily forgiven.”

“It’s gonna rain someday, buddy.”

Bruce looked right at him, searching. “Awfully pessimistic of the futurist.”

Tony picked up a cinnamon muffin and took a bite. “I’m a part-time futurist. Full-time survivalist. I make umbrellas for a living because it always rains.”

“So, you _want_ me to start World War III?” Bruce asked skeptically.

Tony set the muffin down. “No,” he said stoutly. “It’s naive to expect peace to last forever. There’s a big red clock over our heads. We can’t read it, but it’s ticking down, all the same.”

Bruce was silent for a long moment. “We’re all gonna die, Tony,” he said at last. “Living like there’s a clock running down—that’s tough. Maybe it’s ignorance to pretend we can make peace last forever, but it’s healthy. We need a sense of peace. A sense of safety. It’s basic to our survival.”

 _I know when you die_.

Tony didn’t say it, but the quip was heavy in his chest. He couldn’t remember the day or the year, but he remembered a coincidence: _you died in the same month you were born_. 

December.

Tony hadn’t found his own card, but why would he? He was alive. The sole survivor.

Aloud, he finally asked, “What would change if you knew?”

“If I knew what?” Bruce set his laptop aside, giving Tony his full attention. His gaze was piercing in its intensity. Tony didn’t look away.

“The end.”

Bruce leaned back in his chair, considering it. “I’d prioritize,” he said at last. “I’m banking on having at least a month left to finish the Pole projects. If I’ve got a full ninety days, I’d want to get some young bright minds interested in soil restoration. Spend my last Christmas with my friends. Wherever, really. That part doesn’t matter to me. If I had a hundred and twenty days, I’d work with C.E.R.N. and see how far we could push Earth-based particle accelerators. Maybe it’s overly optimistic to think we could harness fusion power in a month, but if I had a hundred and twenty days, that’s where I’d want to spend the last thirty.

“If I’ve got a full six months, I’d travel. South America, Australia, maybe a couple European countries. I know that’s selfish. But there isn’t much more I could do in six months other than set future projects in motion. I don't want to tie myself in strings trying to fix a hundred-and-ninety problems in a hundred-and-eighty-two days. It doesn’t work. I want to push forward the things I can move, not claw at the mountains I can’t.

“If I had a full _year_?” He took a sip of his drink. Then, with an embarrassed shrug, he admitted, “I’d want to find a partner. Maybe that’s mean, but it wouldn’t be marriage, just—someone to spend time with. You know? I’d like to love someone like that. I’d love to be loved by someone.”

Tony blinked, stricken, unable to speak. Bruce nodded to himself, picking up the last blueberry muffin. “I don’t make five-year-plans,” he confessed. “I don’t expect more than the next thirty days. If I don’t get thirty, if I get twenty, or ten, or five, then . . . I say, ‘You know what? You started something. That’s better than nothing.’”

Tony stared at him. Hungry. Yearning. “That sounds very peaceful,” he admitted.

Bruce shrugged. “Living in the moment,” he said simply. “We plan our lives without realizing our entire life is right here.” Leaning forward, he squeezed Tony’s wrist. “If I don’t wake up tomorrow, I’d be more upset that you’d be sitting here alone than I would that I didn’t do everything I _might_ be able to do.”

Tony imagined it—an empty chair, a laptop craving a brilliant mind to answer its questions, kids on opposite sides of the world clamoring for Bruce’s attention, but Bruce wasn’t there. He was alone. It was very lonely. “We don’t really know what we can do,” Bruce said calmly, “because we don’t know how much time we have to do it. If I live a hundred years, I’ll get to a lot more than if I die in a year. But that doesn’t mean what I did in that year was worth less. It was the most I could do in a year. That was meaningful work. It’s meaningful because it was done, not because it wasn’t more.”

“You’d make a great philosophy professor,” Tony said, needing levity, the heaviness in his chest unbearable.

Bruce smiled wryly, rocking on the legs of the chair. “I can’t claim credit. It’s Buddhist. Live in the present. Expect nothing. Do what you can. It’s a lot of very simple truths that we ignore because we think we can live outside ourselves. I’m not a futurist,” he added apologetically, “but we haven’t invented the equivalent for a person who lives in the present.”

“Maybe that’s just a person,” Tony suggested.

Bruce nodded, seeming satisfied. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s what we’re supposed to be. Like meditation. Our bodies thank us for slowing down, because we’re not supposed to set ourselves on fire. We’re supposed to live pretty slowly, for what could be described as a painfully short period of time. That’s painful to a lot of people. But I think it’s good-natured: they want to do more than is probably possible. It’s painful to come to terms with the three whole problems you have time to work with, rather than the ninety-nine you can’t hope to complete. I’m not immune. I get frustrated, you know, open too many tabs, want to do it all. You get it.”

Tony nodded. It was surprisingly little-known that Bruce Banner had an IQ so high he’d broken every standardized test they’d ever thrown at him, as easily as if he’d written and rehearsed the answers beforehand. He had an incredible mind. It wasn’t the test that defined the brilliance of the person taking it, but Bruce’s absolute mastery of it showed that he was something special, regardless. (He was also very, very good at crossword puzzles, which Tony found a far more interesting and relevant point of a measurable intelligence.)

As a fellow certified genius, Tony could appreciate what he’d dubbed “the nine hundred and ninety-nine tab problem”: the computer froze and eventually crashed without loading any of them. Tony’s solution was to develop a quantum computer, throw greater computational power at the problem. Bruce’s was simpler, a three-step approach. _Don’t open them all at once. Open one at a time. Stop at three. Move forward when one problem was finished. Only ever three at a time_.

Maybe, just maybe, Tony could solve a hundred problems with enough power, but he was pretty sure he’d be a lot more burned out at the end of it. Bruce’s solution appealed to a certain _finish what you started_ mindset. Even if that meant handing off the baton. Especially—legacy, that was where humanity’s true power rested. Other species perished as individuals. Humans persisted.

Bruce said, “What you do, Tony, is noble. But it’s good to sit back and enjoy the sunshine while it lasts, too. 

“We might get lucky. It might last forever.”

. o .

Tony went to the Central Park Zoo. 

It was a little Zoo. Just a few acres of land in the middle of bustling New York City. But it was nice, a pleasant October afternoon. He sat on a bench and watched the sea lions. People passed by, kids tugging on their parents’ hands, camera-toting tourists, pressing up against the glass, entranced by the sight. 

The Zoo, Tony had read with no small amount of relief, had suffered no damages in the Chitauri attack. He’d done a good at keeping the perimeter.

( _Anybody gets past, you turn ‘em back or you turn ‘em to ash_.)

He didn’t even know what he’d been keeping safe—couldn’t remember the last time he’d been here—but he was grateful that he’d kept the seals safe. They were oddly charming. 

He’d never thought of himself as a seal person, but he sat with a tablet in hands. Instead of sketching an Iron Man suit, he drew one of the lions perched on its rock, eyes closed regally. He wasn’t a professional artist, would never sell his work for millions—although he probably could, he thought ruefully—but he enjoyed the simple act, the simple lines, the simple result. It was a reasonable likeness. He drew a cartoony sun, rays jutting from it, in the top right corner. It was pointless—a photograph would have captured a far truer likeness—but he wasn’t a professional photographer, either.

He liked being an amateur.

No one bothered him—no one even looked twice at him—because he was just a man lounging on a bench watching the Central Park sea lions. The legs of the suit were black. An observer would have to look twice to realize what was wrong with the picture.

The gray NYU hoodie fit over the top half of the suit surprisingly well.

. o .

In another world, Tony suspected, he and a youthful Zygo Tech CEO were engaged in a passionate love affair disguised as a tech competition over who would reach the exosphere first, trading insults in the form of innovations like old-school archrivals.

In reality, the good-mannered octogenarian bellowed, “STARK!” as soon as he stepped through the office door, exclaiming, “Where in God’s name have you been?”

“Missed you, too, Pops,” Tony said, hoodie on but unzipped, the black sheen of the suit underneath it clearly visible. “How’re the kids?” 

Gray-haired, bespectacled, and possessing the manner of a lively if clueless extraterrestrial, Daniel Lee was a character, a man with no biological children but an expansive collection of adoring techies. Leaning against the doorframe, for all the world an insolent teenager, Tony jumped as Lee slapped an open palm on the desk.

“Forget the damn kids! You missed my birthday.”

“Happy 84th?” Tony tried, surprised at how meek his own voice sounded.

Lee barked, “Pha!” and said, “Shut up and come to the luncheon next week, wouldja? These old ears of mine can’t stand to hear about the newest ‘Airphone’ again.”

“It’s ‘iPhone,’ Pops.”

“I don’t care _what_ it’s called, it won’t block the damn spam calls, so it’s a nuisance to society and my peace of mind.” Waving a hand impatiently, he added, “Sit down, I wanna hear this from the big man himself.” Tony braced himself silently, but Lee just said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Say it ain’t so: you broke the 50k mark.”

Tony grinned, showing teeth. “70k.”

Lee slapped the desk again. “Dammit, Stark!” he said exultantly. “You’ve gotta tell the old man when you launch the new suits, I wanna be there. If I have to find out from my kids one more time, I will revoke your blue card.”

The blue card was Tony’s access to everything Zygo Tech, a privilege he’d never expected—and, shamefully, hadn’t reciprocated; but, to be fair, Lee didn’t live at Zygo, and only Pepper Potts had the Avengers Tower equivalent of a blue card—but happily embraced. It was fun to see what the Zygo kids were up to. They’d taken after a startup in Boston that built autonomous robots capable of walking and even picking themselves back up, designing similar models with a focus on flight.

“You’d never revoke my blue card,” Tony said.

“No,” Lee said in a growl. “But humor an old curmudgeon, would you?”

Tony nodded. “Front-row seat for the Mark X,” he promised, meaning it.

Lee leaned forward, eyes bright. “Mark _X_ ,” he repeated. “You’ve been busy.”

“We can’t all sleep the day away, Gramps,” Tony reminded lightly.

Lee pointed an accusing finger at him. “Watch your mouth.” Then, shaking his head, he added in gruff amusement, “When’s it debut?”

Tony shrugged. “When I feel like it.” Then, sliding the hoodie off his arms, he jumped when Lee whistled loud enough to break his ears.

“Hot _ziggity!_ Is that the IX?” he asked, nearly tripping over his chair. “Oh, Stark, the kids are gonna die! That’s fantastic!”

Tony puffed up his chest, beaming as quietly as he could, ears ringing. “It’s not painted yet,” he said dryly. “But I kind of like the unfinished palette.” He flipped a switch. The helmet slid into place, glowing blue-white eyes regarding Lee, who hooted again.

“Hot dog! I’ll be damned.”

Tony snorted. “You’re an enigma, Lee.”

“And you are one clever son of a bitch, Stark,” Lee said, holding out a hand. Tony gripped it firmly with a metallic one. “That is a beauty. Wow.” He put his free hand on Tony’s shoulder, gave it a firm shake—it didn’t budge the suit—and said cheerfully, “Okay, I forgive you for missing my 84th birthday.”

“85th’s right around the corner,” Tony said, speaking in the filtered Iron Man voice. “Maybe I’m just fashionably early.”

“You keep tellin’ yourself that.” Then, waving a hand, he said, “Move, move,” and Tony stepped back, into the hall. He put a firm hand on Tony’s back, ushering him along. He loved to throw an arm around Tony’s shoulders out of suit, but the Iron Man suit was too broad and high for him to reach. Propelling him along, he rattled off, “Wait till they see _you_.”

The reaction was gratifyingly extravagant: the first living souls they found dropped a box of papers. Lee barked, “It’s Iron Man, get over it,” like Tony strutted around Zygo Tech every day. “You’d think they’d never seen a full-sized automated suit before,” he huffed at Tony.

The kids were over the moon, abandoning the little robot standing in the corner of their gym-like lab to swarm at a respectful distance. “This is Iron Man,” Lee introduced, stepping aside. “Duplicate it and I’ll give you twenty bucks.”

Tony huffed, surveying the twenty- and thirty-somethings gathered around him. “I bite,” he warned them, just to make them take a collective step back.

Lee slapped him on the back and then shouted in pain. “Ow!”

“Triple-reinforced,” Tony confided. It was quadruple-reinforced, but it felt like bragging to say as much. Besides, the playful level of secrecy was fun.

Shaking out his hand, Lee growled, “Play nice.”

Then he scampered off. Tony regarded the small crowd impassively. When no one seemed inclined to make a move, he said in the filtered voice, “Greetings, mortals.”

. o .

Lee’s kids always put Tony in a good mood, mostly because they had exactly the right amount of deference and enthusiasm for the technical details. They were as eager to show him their life-sized robots as they were to talk to Iron Man. 

He deigned to show them how the wrists rolled, not quite revealing the bridges beneath the armor but indicating that he had wide-range motion. “Nobody wants to be a tin can in the air,” he confided. _Don’t make it too constrictive._ The repulsors were completely unrevealing—if he opened the gauntlets, he could explain the nitty-gritty of it all, but he wanted them to reinvent the wheel, to learn as they went—and he didn’t bother showing them the feet thrusters at all.

They were well on their way already. While he deigned to take pictures, he was pleased that they didn’t ask for any measurements. 

Zygo Tech was Tony’s front-runner for the next Iron Man tech, but they weren’t looking to launch market-worthy suits any time soon. Frankly, neither was he. Iron Man was a very personal project, extended only to himself and a small handful of others.

For all his showiness, Lee was smart: charismatic to even his worst enemies, sending birthday cards and keeping in touch as often as he could drag his work associates to a luncheon or event. He didn’t have the personal drive to create an Iron Man suit, but he loved the adventure of it all, sharp enough to understand what the kids broke down for him. In many ways, he was Tony Stark in forty years: loud, tastefully irreverent, and a genuine pleasure to have around.

It didn’t hurt that Stark Industries had personally invested in Zygo Tech, ostensibly to spy on them but mostly to have an excuse to stop by socially. As their robot carefully placed the final cup on a tower of red solo cups, Tony felt the pure joy of a backyard rocket launch as someone promptly grabbed the robot under the mechanical arms and held it back so it didn’t crash forward into its house of cups.

They got a picture of him standing in the center of a five-robot assemblage, arms around two of the robots while the other three were arranged in front, all a good six inches shorter than Tony in the suit, the smallest just under four feet. _Kids_ , he mused, surprised at how fond he felt for the robots. He’d always liked his robots, but there was something especially real about the human-sized robots. Something tangible, something real. They couldn’t emote, but he still felt protective of them, like he needed to make sure nobody knocked out AXIS or ATLAS.

It wasn’t until he saw the picture—posted on the website with his permission—that he realized he wasn’t painted red-and-gold. He was as silver-black as the robots. If he wasn’t substantially taller and more human-proportioned, it would have been easy to mistake him in the lineup as another part of the crowd.

He wanted it. To be lost in a crowd. To be seen in all his grandeur and still remain invisible.

. o .

“And then I _grasped_ the Bilgesnipe, thusly—” 

Lofting a protesting Bruce over his shoulder, Thor finished, “And I shouted, ‘You shall not win this day, Bilgesnipe!’ and cast it down.” He tossed Bruce onto the couch with the same lack of effort most people would use for a throw pillow. “I have restored the honor of my people,” he added lightly. “Tonight, they feast on the fruits of my labor.”

“Your giving heart knows no bounds,” Natasha said dryly. “Don’t you think, Tony?”

“Stark!” Thor beamed, holding out his arms and asking, “Have you come at last to challenge the King of Asgard?”

Pausing pointedly behind the kitchen counter, putting a barrier between himself and the Norse god, Tony said behind the mask, “Still like my face, bud.”

Thor frowned. “I have no interest in beheading you.” Wheedling, he added, “Just one tournament!”

“I have no idea how long an Asgardian tournament lasts—”

“Nine years. Give or take a day,” Bruce chimed in. “On the tenth, the victor drinks for a month.”

“I’m definitely good,” Tony asserted.

Thor didn’t pout, but it was a near thing. Then, with obvious joy, he declared, “Captain!”

Tony turned and saw Steve standing in uniform, looking at Thor calmly, thoughtfully. “King of Asgard,” he mused, deliberately adding an almost derisive tone. Stepping into the room, moving with the same fluid movements as Tony expected from him, he added slowly, “The _uncontested_ King of Asgard.” He let his gaze slide to Tony, still in the suit. His expression was unreadable. Tony didn’t move, grateful for the wall between him and the world. It felt almost childish, but it also felt safe. _I am untouchable_. 

Steve closed the gap between him and Thor slowly, circling. Thor stood unmoving in the center of the floor, immovable object. Bruce wisely scrambled off the chair and hurried to the far side of the room. Clint was nowhere to be seen. Natasha sat on the counter, cross-legged, a bowl of ice cream in her hands, utterly unconcerned. Idly, Steve pushed a chair back a few inches. Natasha said, “My money’s on Thor.”

“Are we picking sides?” Bruce asked, pressed against the wall, looking like he wanted to make a run for the door but didn’t dare trip a wire. “I’m team ‘don’t break anything.’”

It was a challenge if Tony had ever heard one.

Thor lunged forward with crocodilian speed and Steve leaped upwards, clean over him. Then Steve said, “Race you down!” Tony had a moment to understand, suddenly, _exactly_ what he was about to do. Then the door was flung open, Steve _vaulted_ over the railing, and disappeared into the jet-black night.

It was so goddamn unexpected that Tony couldn’t move for an instant. Then Thor was loping towards the door, huffing as he launched himself over the rail, shouting faintly, “I will not be bested by tricks!”

Tony flew through the glass, too horrified to pause. He looked straight down, feeling dizzy. Then he saw a flying squirrel, gliding along as Thor plummeted like a rocket in reverse for his goal. He thought, _I_ _n a vacuum, a feather and a bowling ball strike the ground at the same time_.

He didn’t free-fall. He swept down, straight down, vertiginously down.

He heard the impressive _boom_ as Thor landed on the streets below, creating a small crater, but he was too mesmerized by the flying squirrel feet below him, descending far more slowly than he would have in perfect free fall. “Wing-gliding?” Tony shouted.

Steve must have expected him because he didn’t flinch, didn’t turn, falling at the same rate, completely at ease.

Tony descended carefully, snagging the back of Steve’s shoulder straps in an iron fist, immediately taking on his weight as clearly as if he’d caught him mid-jump. He let Steve dangle beneath him, shouting, “Are you _insane_?”

Steve called back, “Everything’s fine, Tony.”

Tony gave him a shake and retorted sharply, “And if your party trick hadn’t worked? Huh?” He pulled up, putting distance between them and the gawkers below. Thankfully, they were duly impressed with the human meteor in their midst, crowding around while Tony kicked on the thrust and zipped up, past the Tower, past the highest rooftops.

Tony leveled out and held Steve in one iron fist. “You just thought I would catch you, didn’t you?” he demanded, the wrong emotion, _Steve’s fine, Steve’s okay—_ “What if I wasn’t able to, huh?” Steve hung from his grasp, ignoring him. Tony gave him another shake. “You’re an idiot, you know that?” Steve reached up behind himself, grasping Tony’s wrist, but that was about the best he could do, unable to get any leverage.

“All right, Tony,” he said at last, sounding a little breathless. “It’s all right.”

Fuming, Tony said, “It is _not—_ ” and promptly wrapped his other arm around Steve’s chest as he writhed, trying ineffectually to free himself. “We’re three thousand fucking feet up, Rogers!” he shouted.

Steve unclipped the harness.

Tony felt the tension on the line release, his free arm the one and only thing keeping Steve airborne.

Tony fell backwards to compensate for the sudden change, holding Steve against his own chest as the shoulder thrusters engaged, stabilized them above a horizontal angle. He felt Steve’s weight, not on one hand but on top of him, fingers scrabbling and grasping at his metal flanks hard enough that they would have crushed the Mark VII. Maybe not the Mark VIII. And certainly not the Mark IX. It was a surficial grip, a useless, fragile thing that would fail if Tony rolled over, but he didn’t, hovering in space on his back, suddenly very aware of Steve’s weight, of what he was _doing_.

He exhaled static and tried to find his voice.

He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to voice the angry, fearful, clamoring things inside his head.

Steve’s fingers finally connected around his waist, but it still felt fragile. Tony realized all at once how deep the trust had to run, because there was no way to hold onto the suit. Even the hip-plates were seamless. If Tony let go, Steve might be able to balance for a while if he stayed level, but he would slip off the second Tony moved. It was like walking on a tightrope—three thousand feet off the ground. It had to be perfect.

Tony could feel Steve shaking, subsurface tremors, separated by sheets of armor. He loosened his grip, less crushing, more holding, secure. “Okay,” he said quietly, more to himself than anyone, separated from the world by a layer of glass. “I’ve got you.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said roughly, speaking more to the chest plate than Tony, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You scared the fuck out of me.” Tony softened his words by pulling gently at the back of the suit, scruffing and releasing, a mimicry of soft scratching. _I gotcha. I’m here_. “I’m sorry,” he echoed quietly. “I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s okay.”

“I overreacted.”

Steve huffed softly. His breath was visible. It was cold, this time of year. Colder still three thousand feet off the ground. “Don’t we all?” Steve said.

“I’m winning awards for how much I overreacted.”

Steve sighed. “Can we go down, Tony?”

There were other landing pads at the Tower, less impressive balconies. Tony chose an unobtrusive spot to touch down, holding onto Steve as his own metal soles met the floor. Steve shrugged out of his grip, with an ease that surprised Tony, but it shouldn’t have: with solid earth under his heels, he had all the leverage he couldn’t find dangling in space.

Feeling very small, Tony watched as Steve slid back the door manually, breaking the lock without so much as a _sorry_. Tony didn’t care. He wished Steve would break the whole damn room. _Get even_. It didn’t make sense, even in his own head. He followed, light, silent steps, afraid to take off the suit. He was justified in the suit. He was _right_ in the suit.

He was certain of it, even if he couldn’t say why.

It wasn’t until they were in the elevator that Steve hit the full-stop. Tony stood silently, immovably, in his own corner, watching Steve through the mask. Steve kept his back to him, standing in front of the control panel, shoulders tense. Tony didn’t know what he wanted to say. What he _wanted_.

_What do you want?_

He deactivated the suit. Steve didn’t move for a long moment. Idly, Tony pushed the briefcase aside. At last, Steve hit the release button. The elevator rose again.

It only took three steps, three small steps, for Tony to close the gap and wrap his arms around Steve’s icy belly. He got straps and the harness, icy cloth instead of icy skin, a shield, a wall. Tony understood, suddenly and emphatically, the kind of frustration those grasping fingers found trying to hold onto smooth metal. _I can’t feel you_.

The elevator doors slid open. Steve turned and, without looking at Tony, grabbed the IX, lifting it like it didn’t weigh 184 pounds. It was magnetic; he hooked it onto one of his shoulder straps, carrying it on his back and stepping out of the elevator. Tony followed him, standing in the darkened hallway.

At last, Steve marched down to Tony’s room, waited a beat, stepped through the open door. He didn’t say anything— _there is no key; the key is a lie—_ as he unhooked the suit in the same fluid motion, setting it by the wall. He inhaled deeply, turning to face Tony with a flat, battle-ready expression.

Tony let the door slide shut behind himself. He stepped closer to Steve, another small step, his own footsteps louder than the suit. Reaching up, he pushed the unclipped harness from his shoulders. It was brilliant in its simplicity: it would fit under the shield. Tony hadn’t noticed it when Steve leaped out the window, although his ears were ringing so loudly that Tony might not have noticed if a three-hundred-pound gorilla had followed him over the edge. It hit the floor with a heavy leather _thud,_ muted, a material he didn’t recognize but felt surprisingly secure. It had S.H.I.E.L.D. written all over it, just like the rest of the suit, noticeably patchwork. 

“I froze,” Steve said.

Tony looked at him, blue eyes dark in the dim lighting. “Clint got hurt,” he added dully, “because of me.” Sucking in a deep breath, he shook his head. “I don’t know what happened.”

Tony reached up carefully, slowly, _you can say no_ , for the collar of the suit. Steve didn’t step away, just shut his eyes. With great care, Tony unzipped it.

“He could’ve gotten killed.” Tony eased the jacket from his shoulders, icy fabric, frost-bitten fabric, the white undershirt hugging his skin. “He could’ve died. That would’ve been on me.” He shivered. Tony paused, waited, before pulling it the rest of the way off. He didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t sure there was anything he could say. “I—I don’t think I can lose anyone else, Tony.”

He looked right at Tony as he said it. “I get that . . . it’s my line of work,” he said slowly, like he was speaking to someone else. His voice was soft, open. “You know, I get that, I understand. We’re in a war. People die in a war.” He folded his arms over his chest, biting his lip, looking over Tony’s shoulder. “I understand. I understand that.” He shivered, then, another full-body tremble, continuing in the same calm voice, “I’m not. . . . I’m fine.”

Tony reached out, not for his face, but for his belt, looping a hand through the empty hook. Just holding it. Tethered. It was ice against his fingers, the metal cold. “I’m fine. I’m fit for duty,” Steve said. Pleaded. “I’m not crazy. I swear to God, I’m not crazy.”

Tony tugged him closer. Steve went slowly, his skin icy against Tony’s fingertips. He trembled, but his voice was strong, clear. He spoke to the ghost over Tony’s shoulder. Tony didn’t turn to see it. He knew it wasn’t there. “Please don’t do this. I don’t wanna be insubordinate. I’m one of the good ones. I won’t run. I promise. You don’t know what it took to get here.”

Tony rested his cheek against a frozen shoulder. Steve blew out a breath, fingers scrabbling at the back of Tony’s shoulders, searching for purchase. Gripping Tony’s shirt tightly. It was still warm, protected by the suit. “It won’t happen again,” he pleaded, shivering again, pressing against Tony hard, searching and finding warmth. Tony set his hands low around Steve’s waist, holding him. His teeth chattered as he said, “Swear to God, it won’t happen again.”

“Shhh.”

Steve gasped, breathing rapidly, holding onto him. He lurched out of Tony’s grip. Tony watched, shaking himself, the wild energy of it all hard to contain, let alone process. Pacing, pacing, Steve finally looked at him and deflated, all the fight melting out of his shoulders. He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at Tony in silent disbelief, agony.

He drew in a deep breath, silently centering himself, exhaling slowly. As Tony watched, he pulled himself back together, rallying himself. His tone was heavier but more grounded as he asked, “Is Thor okay?”

“Yes.” Binary, yes-no questions. Tony could handle that.

Nodding to himself, reaching up to rub the base of his throat, a glancing brush, Steve asked, “What about—”

“They’re okay.”

Steve nodded again, setting his hand back down. Looking at Tony, he asked, “Are you okay?”

Tony considered that. “I don’t know,” he said truthfully.

. o .

In another world, Tony suspected, it was hot and steamy and passionate, a dream come true.

In reality, it was Steve’s hands anchored around his waist, hot water pouring over them, both of them in their underwear while Steve sat on the shower ledge—handy, that—and Tony soaped up his hair. He couldn’t remember how many other lives he’d led, how many times he’d brought a stranger this close. Closer, even. It seemed like a very long time ago. The arc reactor’s faint blue glow—protected, always protected, he looked after his metal heart—reflected on Steve’s face as he looked up at Tony, eyelids sliding shut as Tony scratched lightly at the base of his neck.

He could _feel_ the tension, corded up, spring-loaded. Gradually, he felt it melt away, knowing far too little to help, rubbing gently at his shoulders, his back, as the hot water did the rest. His own back felt like it was relaxing for the first time in days, unwinding, unlocking.

He’d lost track of the hours. Lost track of the time. 

He scruffed Steve’s hair near the nape of his neck. Steve rested his forehead against Tony’s stomach. He breathed steadily, warm breath, living breath, alive, _alive_. Tony shivered in relief because that was the unnameable thing.

 _He’s still alive_.

“Saturn-worthy,” he said. Steve leaned back, looked up at him, cocking his head. Tony slid his hands to cup his face, explaining, “Your suit. It’s Saturn-worthy.”

Steve hummed and pressed his cheek against Tony’s palm, eyes closed. Trusting. 

Tony had a vision of him on the Quinjet after Kunar, bloody, barely-conscious, leaning into the lit Iron Man gauntlet like—

 _He wanted it to fire_.

Tony swallowed, saying softly, “Hey.”

Steve blinked up at him, eyes at half-mast. “Hm?”

 _Don’t die_. “Stay with me.”

Steve nodded, head still in Tony’s hands. “Always,” he murmured. “Always, Tony.” 

Tony relaxed, because there was so much doubt in Steve’s life, so much uncertainty and fear, but his promises were absolute.

. o . 

The greatest thing about New York City, Tony decided, was that it was the city that never slept.

He hadn't been about to push Steve, but he'd been surprisingly grateful when Steve had asked lightly, “You still do midnight snacks?”

They could have eaten at the Tower, but Steve had thrown on the oversized NYU hoodie and Tony had shrugged on his own, decidedly less tacky jacket. “I’m getting you an MIT hoodie,” Tony decided, crunching down on a tortilla chip.

“I didn’t go to MIT,” Steve said breezily, picking off another chip. He’d already decimated two piles, but he was letting Tony have first dibs on the third stack. It was impressive how fast he could pack away enough food to feed a family of four. And it was just an appetizer.

“You didn’t go to NYU,” Tony pointed out. Then: “ _Did_ you go to NYU?”

Shaking his head, Steve said, “Wasn’t really on my mind. Damn expensive, too. Who had $400 lyin’ around?” Then, smiling wryly at Tony, he added, “The Starks, probably.”

Tony shrugged. “Guilty as charged. Got a bit more expensive.”

Arm draped around the back of the booth, Steve guessed, “Couple thousand.”

Tony crunched on a chip. “Higher.”

“4,000.”

“Start at ten.”

“ _Ten_ _thousand_ dollars?” Steve repeated disbelievingly.

Curious, Tony fished out his phone, Googled a standard inflation converter. He almost spat his drink when _$150,000_ showed up. “Okay, not your ten thousand,” he said, sliding his phone back into his pocket. “Half that.”

“It’s five grand?” Steve asked, staring at Tony like he was pulling his leg. “ _Five_ grand?”

Tony made a so-so sound. “Four-and-a-half.”

“What, do they inaugurate you as President of the free world at the graduation ceremony?”

Tony huffed. “I hate to break it to you, but that’s only one year.”

“It’s _twenty grand_?” Steve looked down at his hoodie in wondering horror. “No fuckin’ wonder these things cost $60,” he said at last, Brooklyn drawl clear. “Twenty grand for a piece of paper.”

“I mean, technically, it’s only, like . . . nineteen thousand dollars.”

Steve put his head in his hands. When that wasn’t enough for him, he pulled the hood up and over his head, resting his covered head on his crossed arms. Tony waited. When Steve didn’t emerge, he set up a chip and flicked it. It bounced off the top of Steve’s hoodie. “Ten points to Gryffindor,” he declared cheerfully.

Steve looked up from his huddle. “Is that another college?” he asked.

Tony snorted, setting up another chip and flicking it over his head. “No. It’s a fictional house.”

He set up another chip, but it missed, landing on the table. “Quit playin’ with your food,” Steve said in his disapproving _America’s sweetheart is disappointed in you_ voice. Snatching the chip, he ate it in less than two bites.

“Bet you could catch it,” Tony challenged. He didn’t wait for confirmation, flicking another chip. Steve caught it deftly. 

“Wanna know what it’s like?” Steve asked. Moving the chip in a slow arc, he set it down in front of Tony. “When you can move fast as a car, some of the fast stuff seems like slow stuff.”

“Oh, we’ve got fast cars.”

Steve waved a hand dismissively. “Yeah, I know. Hundred miles an hour.”

“Try three hundred.”

Steve narrowed his eyes. And then, purely to spite Tony, he caught the next chip in his mouth. “Three hundred?” he muttered around it.

Tony blinked at him, floored. It was one thing to see him catch a chip, another to see him do it with his mouth. “You’re nimble.”

Steve swallowed the chip, then dragged the basket over to himself. “Nope, I’m putting my foot down,” he said, but his smirk gave his enjoyment away. “I can return fire, you know.”

“Please don’t kill me with a corn chip.”

Steve laughed, surprised and delighted. “Oh yes,” he said gravely. “I will fell Iron Man—Tony fuckin’ Stark—”

“Not my actual middle name, but I’m considering a name change.”

“Should call you Tony Won’t-Shut-His-Fuckin’-Mouth Stark,” Steve said, grinning, all teeth.

“Honestly, I am less surprised that you are into me than I am at your language.”

Steve shrugged. “Parlo otto lingue.”

Tony blinked, floored. “What?”

Slowly, Steve repeated, “Parlo.” Crunched down a chip. “Otto.” Another chip. “Lingue.” He finished the basket, sliding it near the end of the table and shrugging. “Latin roots, Stark. Sound it out.”

Tony said, “Italian?”

Steve smiled, a close-mouthed smile. “I’m surprised you didn’t know. Parlez-vous français?”

“Oui, je te comprends.” 

Steve beamed. “Nice.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Dork.” With surprisingly little effort, he got his feet up onto Steve’s thighs, relaxing more comfortably in the booth. It seemed like a deep oversight on his part. Steve happily accommodated him, resting a hand on them, more out of simple enjoyment than any concerns about being spotted. They were far from the most attention-seeking people at the bar.

“How many languages do you speak?” Tony couldn’t help asking.

Steve toyed with a toothpick. “I already told you. Parlo—”

“I don’t speak Italian.”

“Otto lingue.”

“Otto.”

Nodding, Steve said, “You know Spanish?”

“Otto.” The gears turned slowly. “Ocho.” It clicked: “ _Eight?_ ”

Steve looked a touch embarrassed, rubbing Tony’s calf. “It’s just a hobby. Bet you speak twenty.”

Tony stared in blank amazement. “No, no I do not.”

Steve cocked his head. “Ten?”

Sighing, Tony admitted, “More like three. Four in a pinch.”

Steve grinned around the toothpick. He looked deeply amused. “Four?”

“J.A.R.V.I.S. speaks two hundred,” Tony said, not quite defensively. “The world’s best universal translator.”

“Four,” Steve repeated, laughing again. “Thank God.”

When Tony cocked his head at him, Steve explained, “I kind of figured, you know, all the . . . advancements, everybody would speak at least a dozen. Wanted to do my part. Also came in handy, you know, over in Europe.”

“You are honestly too pure for this world.”

Steve blushed, but his voice held a mischievous note as he repeated dryly, “Pure.”

“It means ‘wholesome,’” Tony said instructively. “‘Good.’ ‘Kind-hearted.’”

The faint blush deepened, but the generally dark room hid most of it. “I know what it means,” he muttered, looking at the table. “I’m not pure. Everybody—everybody thinks I’m this kind of hero, larger-than-life, like—like I’m some kind of . . . I don’t know. I don’t feel like I’m on a pedestal, I feel like I _am_ the pedestal.” He drank deeply, looking at the table, lost in his own thoughts. “I’m not perfect, you know.”

Tony nudged him with his shoe. “Yeah, you eat Oreos whole.”

Steve pinned his feet down with an arm, shaking his head. “I’m serious.”

“So am I. Cretin.” 

Steve huffed a laugh, looking at him and relaxing into the booth. “It’s a whole cookie, Tony.”

“First off, it’s not a cookie, it’s an Oreo. _Second_ , you are supposed to enjoy it as it was meant to be enjoyed.”

“There an instruction manual on the box?” Steve asked, smiling.

“I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but an Oreo is a fruit. You don’t eat the peel and the core at the same time.”

“You don’t eat the peel.”

“An Oreo is _like_ a fruit,” Tony huffed, nudging him again with his foot. “It’s a goddamn metaphor, Rogers.”

“That’s a simile.”

Tony dropped his face into his hands. “God, I’m dating a fucking nerd.”

Steve crossed his arms on the table and rested his chin on them. “Is this a crisis of the soul? My Oreo etiquette?”

Tony reached over and tugged the hood over his eyes. Steve’s smile was still clear, wolfish. “I can reform,” he assured. “It’s not a deal-breaker.” Then, pointedly, he added, “You know, we had Oreos, back home. Kind of comforting, knowing that they’re still around.”

Tony lifted the hood. Steve looked up at him, hair ruffled, all melting amusement. “Now you’ve foiled my masterful disguise.”

Sighing, Tony said, “Goddamn nerd.”

Steve sat up and kissed him, which, Tony decided, was officially the very best way to lose an argument.

It was short, just a momentary breach of their unspoken tasteful-distance-in-public guideline, but Tony still felt warm to his toes.

“I love you,” Steve said sincerely, lounging in the booth, happy as could be.

 _I love you, I love you, I love you, I love—_ “I love you, too.”

. o . 

“Hey.” Tony tugged on the back of Steve’s hoodie, halting him mid-step. He paused, turning around.

“Can I help you?” he asked lightly, smiling.

“Yeah.” Sliding under his arm, Tony said simply, “Just be with me.”

Steve held him, arm around his shoulders, in the cold October air. “Okay,” he said softly.

He released Tony after a moment, but they walked side-by-side. Every time they paused at a stoplight, Steve wrapped an arm around his back, tugged him into his warmth, his safety.

There was no safer place in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Italian (I), French (F), and Spanish (S) translations in chronological order:
> 
> Parlo otto lingue. - I speak eight languages. (I)  
> Parlez-vous français? - Do you speak French? (F)  
> Oui, je te comprends. - Yes, I understand you. (F)  
> Ocho. - Eight. (S)
> 
> Bonuses!  
> 1\. I'll give you three guesses who "Daniel Lee" is.  
> 2\. Zygo-Tech is a pun on "Zygote."  
> 3\. Roman numerals are intended to be read as the Arabic equivalent: so if you see "Mark X," it means "Mark Ten."


	15. PEACE OF MIND

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *pops champagne cork* Happy one-month anniversary to OMA! This incredibly out-sized project has been one of the most rewarding fics I've ever written. It's certainly the most ambitious in a 30-day time-frame.
> 
> Cheers to more adventures. I'll see you in the next chapter. <3

“You ready?”

Tony sighed behind the mask. “Your Christmas present to me is going to be ‘peace of mind.’”

Steve looked up at him. “That all you want?”

“I _am_ the man who has everything.”

“Maybe I’ll change your mind,” Steve replied breezily, looking down at the clouds and the ground, fourteen thousand feet below them.

“If I don’t let go, we can pretend this lapse in judgment never happened," Tony pointed out.

“If you don’t let go, I’ll unclip the harness,” Steve said calmly.

Tony groaned. “I regret this.”

“Just trust me. It’ll work.”

“This is a bad idea.”

“It’ll work, Tony.”

Tony hovered in space, belly to the Earth, trying to come up with a good reason to abort mission. His excuses were few. It was a perfect morning, crisp blue sky, minimal wind, a cool ten degrees Fahrenheit in the air. For October, he couldn’t ask for better weather up top. Steve’s flying squirrel suit was surprisingly unobjectionable. Tony had triple-checked the harness. To S.H.I.E.L.D.’s credit, he’d made no modifications.

The harness was a cross-breed between a skydiver’s backpack and a wing-glider’s suit. It fit over Steve’s back, dark blue straps crisscrossing over his chest while the wings opened kite-like across his back. The magnetic wing-clips met at points on his wrists and ankles, allowing him to open or close the wing-flaps by extending or folding his arms. The whole assemblage was lightweight and small enough to fold up flat under his shield when it wasn’t in use. It was brilliant.

(With one caveat. When Tony had asked how he could move freely with the flying squirrel setup, Steve had admitted that he didn’t need to: he could attach all four clips mid-flight. He’d demonstrated by somersaulting and popping back to his feet full-squirrel, arms outstretched to show the wings. Tony might have laughed if he wasn’t reeling at the implications of “mid-flight.”)

“This is stupid,” he repeated.

“It’ll work, Tony,” Steve insisted patiently. He had to be nearly frozen, but he looked up at Tony with amusement and warmth, cheeks wind-burned. “Trust me.”

Rallying himself, Tony drew in a deep breath and conceded. “All right, Squirrel. Ready for take-off in five . . . four . . . three . . . two. . . .” He gripped the harness tightly in an Iron fist. _This is stupid. This is so stupid_.

“One.”

He let go.

The weight on his arm disappeared. 

Almost of their own volition, his thrusters eased off as he reduced power and twisted around. Then he fell earthward. He saw the altimeter on the HUD flying through the numbers, but it was a distant amusement. He felt weightless, effortless.

Steve had the clips in place—Tony’s insistence—but he didn’t open his arms, keeping the wings flat at his sides. That was dangerous, but Tony wasn’t worried. It was an irrational fear, born from falling and hitting the ground too hard. They were safe up top. Everything was safe. As long as they were in the air, it was okay.

He cut the thrust completely. Then he was weightless.

They fell at the same rate, separated by a few meters. Steve kept his arms at his side, like a diver. Tony leveled out with him, his own limbs automatically extended to brace himself, x-formation. Steve glanced over at him, smiled radiantly, then twisted, belly down. He caught himself on air.

Tony kicked on his own thrusters, leveling out. He exhaled, feeling dizzy. He’d been holding his breath, instinctively braced for impact. He almost couldn’t catch it, grateful that the suit could handle itself, stabilizing itself. He wasn’t sure how long they drifted along, but eventually he drifted closer, ducked underneath.

Tony floated up until they collided, gently. He felt his heart beat in his chest as Steve wrapped an arm around his neck loosely, pulling himself down and lying flat on Tony’s back. Increasing the thrust on the suit increased his apparent weight, reassuringly present. They floated upwards a quarter of a mile before Tony felt like he could breathe again.

He looked at the altimeter, saw 7,900 feet. His heart pounded. They were almost eight thousand feet off the ground—over a _mile—_ and if they fell—if the suit _failed—_

Steve squeezed his neck carefully. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

Tony couldn’t speak. He could feel it trembling on his skin, cold with fear despite the warmth of the suit. It was the only thing standing between him and the edge of existence. It felt suddenly treacherous, like he’d never looked down before. He made the mistake of tilting his head down to stare at the ground.

Steve consoled, “Easy, Tony. Easy, it’s all right.”

Tony was gasping audibly, like he was suffocating. He didn’t know what to do, he had to—he had to _get down_ , he was going to die up here—but if he fell, if he dropped from the air, he was going to die—

Paralyzed with indecision, he felt gray approaching the edges of his vision, but Steve’s arms weren’t around his neck anymore, his weight on Tony’s back reassuringly present. Tony heard something click. Then he felt Steve slip his arms under Tony’s, locking his grip around his wrist. And then, like it was the most natural response in the world, Steve rolled off, sliding around so he was hanging underneath Tony instead. The jerky movement almost threw Tony off-balance, but the thrusters were faster, stabilizing them.

Arms trapped at his sides, frozen with fear and something nameless, something terrible, Tony felt Steve shift his grip until he wasn’t holding his own wrist but the underside of the shoulder plates. Steve's entire weight rested on his literal fingertips, but his voice was calm and clear and even as he said, “Okay, bud. I’m here. I gotcha.” Digging his fingers in, he lifted himself so he could press his cheek against the side of the helmet. “Stay with me. It’s just me. It’s gonna be okay.”

Steve held himself up for a long time, longer than any mortal man could have, but Captain America was tireless. He was still there when Tony turned his head and pressed his faceplate against the meat of Steve’s shoulder. “Hey, buddy,” Steve repeated gently, voice dripping with relief. “I gotcha, I’m here, I’m right here. I ever let you down?” There was a light, playful note to his voice. Tony sucked in air raggedly, jerking his arms around to grab onto him but aborting when he wobbled. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, I’m here,” Steve assured, squeezing the shoulder plates. “Don’t worry about it. I can do this all day.”

He probably could. 

It took Tony two minutes to get his breathing under control and try again, moving more steadily, curling his arms around Steve’s back. Steve’s grip didn’t loosen. Tony clung to him, desperate for the warmth, the weight. He got half his wishes. He couldn’t feel Steve through the suit, but he could feel his weight. He was real. He was real.

 _We’re okay_.

He gasped desperately and J.A.R.V.I.S. helpfully upped the suit’s ventilation, like turning on a fan, not enough to send him reeling but enough to provide the illusion of opening a car window. He couldn’t open the helmet. It was cold and breathless up here. He’d start suffocating for real. Steve wasn’t bothered, but Steve was Captain America. _He can probably fly_.

Gripping Steve’s suit in Iron hands, he gasped, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“No, Tony, don’t apologize,” Steve told him, gently chiding, _no, buddy, don’t do that, it’s okay_. “It’s okay. I promise.” The faintest tremble in his arms was the sole reminder of the passage of time. He reaffirmed his grip, slipped—a couple millimeters, only noticeable because Tony was holding him so tightly—and chuckled at himself. “Sorry,” he said hypocritically. “Sorry, sorry, it’s okay, don’t worry, I’m right here.”

 _Don’t fall_. Almost in a dream, Tony gave the thrusters more power, straightening from a horizontal to a vertical plane. They leveled out, standing on air, but Steve didn’t move, his shoulder and a patch of blue sky all Tony could see. Blue, blue for days. 

Blue was a good color. It was safe. Water wasn’t blue: it was dark gray or green or sometimes silver. The tropical cerulean was as comforting as the morning sky to him. Blue was a good color. In another life, he thought it would be nice if the Iron Man suit was blue, and realized it could be.

 _Iron Patriot_.

Blue. Blue for days.

“You know, sunrise is the prettiest time of day,” Steve remarked, holding onto him, _holding_ him. Tony knew he couldn’t hide in his shoulder forever, the hint of a bright white star visible, but he’d be damned if he moved a second sooner. “Love all the—the reds. And the golds.” Exhaling, he added, “Gotta love your blues, too.” All but crooning, he said, “You are such a goddamn miracle, Tony, I forget myself sometimes, forget that the world could ever touch you. I’m here. Okay? I’m right here. I’ll stay forever if you want me to. It’s nice. This suit, God, Tony, it’s amazing. You should be proud.”

“I am proud.” His own voice was soft. Steve chuckled warmly.

“Yeah, yeah you are. That’s my guy. Modest. I love that about him. So many people, they wouldn’t know how to handle it all, how to be as bold and brilliant and alive as he is, but Tony Stark. . . . He just does it. He’s _vivacious_. He’s more alive than any person I’ve ever met. It’s incredible. It’s absolutely incredible.”

Tony squeezed him gently. Hungrily. He almost didn’t care what Steve was saying—although he very much did, actually. He hoped that his photographic memory wouldn’t disappoint him, because he wasn’t about to ask J.A.R.V.I.S. to record his frantic breaths or this little-everything between them—because it was the cadence that mesmerized him. The utter calm. The complete sincerity.

“No one else in the world than I’d rather be with right now. Wish you could see yourself the way I do, Tony. Before, you know, ‘fore we flew together, I, uh—this is embarrassing, but, hell—I’d sit out on the balcony, and if I was lucky I’d see it, a streak of yellow light, and I’d think, ‘Hey, that’s Iron Man.’ And I’d think to myself, it’s a damn shame that I’m the only one watching, because everyone deserved to see you. And I’d also think, I’m the luckiest guy alive, because I thought to look, and you were there. Sorry if that’s, you know. Weird.”

“It’s not weird.” Still soft. Barely there. Tony was rarely soft-spoken, but he couldn’t make himself talk louder. It didn’t matter. Steve heard him.

“Good, good. Kind of funny, isn’t it, the hang-ups? Maybe it’s like you said. Got all my wires crossed. The scary stuff ain’t so scary, you know, not like—well, once you’ve, you’ve seen enough, it starts to feel like that’s how life is. You grow calluses. But the soft stuff, oh, that’s scary. Because that’s stuff you love, stuff you don’t wanna lose. I don’t wanna lose you. I was scared to lose you. You’re—you’re the brightest star in my sky, Tony. That’s what it’s like. You’re the one I always look for.”

Tony pressed the helmet more firmly against his shoulder, overwhelmed with affection. “I wanna know you,” Steve said sincerely. Tony dared to release his hands, the metal barely conforming, no sign that he’d even been there. Tony felt them settle on the back of his head, cradling it. His own arms stayed firm around Steve’s waist. “I wanna know what movies you like, what you like to sing along to, what’s your favorite color. I wanna _know_ you. I wanna know what you’d like for Christmas,” he added, giving Tony’s head an affectionate shake, cradling the helmet. “Man who has everything. Bet there’s still stuff you want.”

“Experiences,” Tony admitted, surprising himself.

“Experiences,” Steve repeated quietly. “Yeah. Yeah, you know what, that makes sense.” He slid his hands down the suit in a mimicry of rubbing Tony’s back, icy cold. “How you doing, Tony?”

Tony sucked in a deep breath. “Less like I’m gonna puke, so that’s a start.”

“That’s a good start,” Steve said earnestly. “Sounds awful, with the mask.”

“It is.” Tony swallowed. “My favorite color is blue.”

“Blue?”

“Blue.”

“You know that’s the world’s most popular favorite color, right?”

“How do _you_ know it’s the world’s most popular favorite color?”

A bashful half-shrug. “Internet.” A beat. “So helpful.”

“Be careful. It bites.”

“It’s amazin’. Feels like magic. All that knowledge, just . . . there. In your hands. You could get six generations in a room, never have the same kind of knowledge you get from the Internet. Isn’t that amazing?”

“When you put it that way.”

“Your way with words is rubbing off on me,” Steve said breezily. “Soon I’m gonna start cursing at the Ninja.”

“What did that poor blender ever do to you?”

“You every try to clean the damn thing? Almost took my thumb off.”

Tony closed his eyes, inhaled deeply. He said, “I have to childproof my own home.”

“Nah, it healed up fine. No stitches, either.”

Sighing, Tony said in a murmur, “I’m _very_ proud.”

“Yeah, although I gotta say it almost gave me a heart attack the first time I tripped over one of those little Robo-things. Thought it was a big rat.”

“Roomba?”

“Yeah, Roomba. Stepped out of a room and _fwoomp_. I think I hurt its feelings. Didn’t break it, just its feelings.”

“It doesn’t have feelings, Steve.”

“It seemed offended.”

Tony pressed closer. “I love you.”

Steve cradled the back of his helmet in his hands, arms draped over Tony’s shoulders. “I love you, too." They hovered in space for a time, silent, steady, until at last Steve asked gently, “You wanna go down?”

Tony nodded and started to lift his head. Steve made a soft noise of discomfort. When Tony paused, Steve explained, “I think my face is stuck to your face.” There was laughter in his voice, even as he yelped when he yanked his head to the side, ripping free. “Ow! Geez Louise, Tony.” The whole left side of his face looked sunburned, his grimace momentary, his small smile containing a wry warmth as he added, “Never stuck my tongue to a flagpole, so I guess that’s something I can finally cross off my bucket list.”

Tony couldn’t release him to cup his face. He knew the gauntlets would be as ice-cold as the rest of him. He still wanted to hold him properly. “That looks painful,” he said, mouth dry.

“It’s all right. Just kind of tingles,” Steve said, using one glove to gently rub at it. There was frost on his fingertips. “Means everything’s fine,” he added cheerily. “Probably be all healed up by the time we get down.” Putting his arms back around Tony’s indubitably frozen metal shoulders, he instructed, “Okay, boss, all you.”

Tony drew in a steadying breath and eased up on the thrusters. They descended a few feet before he halted again, breath stuttering. Steve said calmly, “You’re doing good. Take your time, all right? No need to rush.”

Tony yearned to hide in his shoulder again, but he didn’t want metal on suit. He wanted Steve, just Steve: no squirrel suit in his fist or gloved hands prying at the backs of his metal shoulders. He descended again, even more slowly. Steve said, “Yeah, see, there you go. Like a hot air balloon.”

It took Tony a moment to find his voice. “When did you ride in a hot air balloon?”

“Never. Just seemed kind of fun.” Tony kept descending, slow and steady. Barely a mile an hour. It still felt fast, because there was nothing under his feet. They were falling slowly. “You know, planes back then, they were mean. You’d get where you wanted to go, but they weren’t what you’d call a luxurious experience. Of course, that’s not fair to the Wrights, ’cause they got us up, few years before I was born.”

It was surreal, but true. “1918.”

“Mm-hm. Victory baby. Kind of. We’d won the war to end all wars. An amazing time to be alive, cusp of human innovation, wheel of progress, all that. Growing up, it seemed like the whole world was coming alive with technology. I remember the first time I saw a roofed car. We didn’t have a car, but it was kind of novel, the idea of it, not having to worry about getting rained on. Looking back, it all seems like a great experiment, realizing we had problems and we could solve them differently than our grandparents did. My grandparents were born in the 1870s.”

“Old man,” Tony said, speechless. He knew Steve had been frozen for almost seventy years, but it was far more disarming to hear a tangible example than the abstract idea of it.

Steve, thankfully, laughed, that sweet, oddly dissonant laugh. It didn’t seem like Captain America would laugh so sweetly, but maybe Tony shouldn’t have been surprised that he did. He had a heart of gold. “I never met ‘em, so they were old to me, too. My Ma, though—you’d have liked her. Really nice. Very sweet.” He paused, then added warmly, “She’d sing. Not very often, but when she did, it was nice. A reminder that Ma was home and things were good. We lived in the age of wonders.

"You know, things were. . . . They weren’t all that simpler. Fewer technologies, more working hands. The politics were still politics, people were creative, our attitudes were at times unfashionable. The, uh, the social side of things were, you know, things were different.”

Tony’s curiosity was an itching thing. “What do you mean?”

Steve fiddled with the back of his shoulder plate, rubbing a gloved thumb against it. “It was different,” he said carefully. “Um.” He seemed at a loss, at last admitting, “I know things have changed. I don’t—I don’t want to, you know, to be insensitive.”

Tony said, “That’s a good answer.”

Nodding once, Steve added carefully, “A lot’s changed. A lot has changed for the better. That part—that makes me happy. To know that it did get better.” A long pause. “You know, there’s a lot I still don’t know.”

“Internet,” Tony reminded.

Steve shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t wanna ask what’s insensitive. That’s like asking your Ma what ‘fuck’ means.” He rubbed at Tony’s shoulder idly, like he was searching for peace. “Nobody cared,” he said at last. “It was. . . . Nobody cared. Then things got out of hand. Rumors spread. Then it was very illegal to be—what’d you call it?” He paused, then finished, “Gay.”

Tony stared at him. Curious. Wary. “Is this your gay crisis?”

Steve blinked at him, all big Bambi eyes and slight frown. “What the heck is a gay crisis?”

Tony didn’t want to explain it, like it would come true. “Sound it out?” he tried.

Steve huffed. Suddenly he was the one burying his face between Tony’s neck and shoulder. Iron Man’s neck and shoulder. “You’re gonna get stuck,” Tony pointed out, but Steve just sighed.

“I’m glad things have changed,” he murmured, ignoring Tony. “Otherwise, you might’ve slapped me for kissin’ you, and it’s—it’s the soft stuff, you know? I don’t care about the scary stuff. I care about you. I care about the team, too. But I didn’t want to lose you, to lose us. Went back and forth on it, took long walks, thinking about it. I mean, I knew—I had an idea of your reputation,” he said dryly, “so, I thought purely from a shock-value stance, it might not be the worst thing that ever happened to you.”

Tony huffed at the thought. “Yes, it was, in fact, a deep-seated fear of mine that Captain America might kiss me one day.”

“Shaddup,” Steve grunted. Tony patted his back consolingly. Steve sighed again. “It—it meant a lot, you know. That you weren’t. . . .” He trailed off. They were getting closer to the ground, now. Steve rallied himself. He always did. “It meant a lot, that you weren’t mad.”

Tony scruffed the back of his suit lightly. “Why would I be?” he asked.

It was rhetorical, but Steve answered anyway. “Because I was more sure about throwing myself on a grenade than I was about telling you how I felt.”

Tony mulled that over for a long moment, releasing his handful of suit before squeezing it again. Soft scratching. “Did you really throw yourself on a grenade?”

“It didn’t go off,” Steve said dismissively. “It was a fake.”

“Did you know that?”

“. . . No.”

Scruff, release. Scruff, release. “I’m glad it was a fake.”

A long pause. “Me, too.”

. o .

“You weren’t kidding. Good as new,” Tony mused, holding Steve’s head in his hands wonderingly, all traces of redness gone. Steve looked at him with soft appreciation, a lazy little smile on his face, sitting at the table and reaching up to rest his hands on Tony’s elbows. Tony flinched involuntarily from the cold. Steve pulled his hands back, apology written on his expression. In response, Tony sat on his lap—Steve’s eyebrows lifted a fraction—and wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck. To his icy hair, Tony murmured fondly, “Capsicle.”

Humming agreement, Steve kept his hands to himself. “You don’t have to—”

“I want to.” Squeezing his neck gently, he settled more comfortably on Steve’s thighs, resting his chin on top of his hair. It was spiky, not as soft, but it would warm up. Steve shivered. “Shh,” Tony said, like he could will the cold away.

“S’okay,” Steve assured, tentatively pressing his cheek against Tony’s collarbone. He stayed there for a long, lovely, almost sleepy moment before pulling back to look Tony in the eye. Tony held his face in his hands, brushing his thumb idly over warm, unbroken skin. “We should. . . .” He looked at the door. Tony didn’t let him go. He looked back at Tony, then murmured, “Shouldn’t. . . . They’ll find out.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Tony asked quietly.

Steve worried his lower lip. “I don’t know,” he admitted, looking torn. _They already know_ , Tony didn’t say. He knew Steve knew. “I. . . .” He tucked his arms around Tony’s waist tentatively, cold fingers pressed to the shirt over his hips. “I don’t wanna. . . .” He sighed, frustrated. “I don’t know,” he repeated quietly.

It was a gamble, but Tony took it, pulling him forward gently, resting his chin on top of Steve’s head again, arms folding around his neck. “It’s okay,” he said. “You trust me, right?” Steve nodded mutely against his shirt. “Yeah.” Feeling safe, protected, warm from the suit but cold from Steve’s arms, he added lightly, “You’re my sweet guy. I love that about you.” Nesting his hands in Steve’s hair, he murmured, “Don’t worry about them.”

Steve nodded again, a tiny movement that felt huge. “You okay?” he asked Tony’s collarbone.

Tony inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with sea level air. Steve smelled like ice and ozone. “Keep asking,” Tony suggested. “One day I might say yes.”

Steve squeezed him gently. “I’ll be with you. Until you are.”

“Might be here a while, big guy.”

“‘m not going anywhere.”

Tony closed his eyes, leaning against him, sharing body heat. Steve shivered, warming himself up. Tony didn’t even look when the door opened and, after a meaningful pause, shut. He didn’t care who it was.

They all knew. And he felt peace with it.

. o .

Tony painted the Mark IX red and gold. 

It took a day to dry, but he didn’t mind having a day of rest. He embraced the time on the floor of the world among the little people and their little problems, safe from the breathtaking expanse of stars and sky above. It was almost too huge to tame— _1.64 million feet to the exopause—_ but as he stood in front of gleaming red, gleaming gold, and slid into the suit, he felt strong. Safe. _This is home_.

He stayed low, loping around the city, admiring it, the little people, the little world. Lights. Darkness. Lives in motion without his force of will to propel them. He was apart from them, but he was there to witness it all. It felt precious. It felt safe this low to the ground, grazing his Iron hands across buildings, using rooftops to launch himself forward. _Parkour_ , he mused. Then he somersaulted into space and caught himself on air.

He waited to feel afraid, uneasy, but it was all shades of blue. 

He hated baths. Baths were dangerous. Baths were drowning. 

He loved showers. Showers were safe. Showers were completely under his control.

He feared falling. He loved flying. Flying was his favorite shade of blue. Even the Chitauri couldn’t condition him to fear it.

He wouldn’t let them.

. o .

It was the middle of the night.

Tony’s phone didn’t ring, but Steve was on his feet, suited up, in less than sixty seconds. He put his shield on his back, said, “I gotta go,” and disappeared.

Closing his eyes, tired beyond words—he didn’t want to go, didn’t want to _fight—_ Tony asked, “What’s the situation, J.A.R.V.I.S.?”

“Sir?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Tony clarified, loathing wakefulness. He was warm and safe and at home. “What’s the deal?”

“I am not picking up on any alerts, sir.”

That rubbed Tony all the wrong ways. “Check again.”

“I cannot find any distress signals, sir.”

Tony rolled over, stretching miserably, yearning to fall asleep. “Patch me through to Fury,” he said wearily.

Fury’s phone rang four times. “ _Hello?_ ”

The uneasy feeling was back. “Everything okay on the home front?”

“ _It’s 2 AM, Mr. Stark_.”

“Wasn’t my question.”

“ _Everything is fine. I am going back to sleep_.” He hung up.

Tony planted his face in the pillow again. He groaned. “God dammit.”

“Sir?”

“Go to bed, J.A.R.V.I.S.”

“Certainly, sir.”

J.A.R.V.I.S. was silent. Tony stayed flat on his belly, face in his pillow. It smelled a bit like Steve, because Steve sometimes stole his pillows and cuddled them. And by sometimes, Tony meant “often.” His whole bed was beginning to take on a delicious duality, his own scent underwhelmed and forgotten in favor of the newness, the sheer novelty of having none other than Captain America cozied up under his sheets at night.

Captain America, who was decidedly absent. Tony ached to fall back asleep, came within a millimeter of it, but he couldn’t slip over the ledge. He stayed there, awake and increasingly guilty. He knew he had to get up, had to find out _what_ the shit was going on, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to stay in bed.

He stayed in bed.

He fell asleep.

. o .

Cold arms slid around him.

Tony grunted. He felt a moment’s hesitation, a retreat, but he reached up blindly for a cold arm, holding it. He felt Steve shuffle closer. Steve shivered enough to wake Tony more fully. Stroking against the grain of the hairs on his arm, Tony rubbed the same patch of skin over and over, almost lulling himself back to sleep. Steve draped a leg over both of his, holding him, protecting him. Tony let his eyelids slide shut, trying to let the warmth of the sheets and the shivering super-soldier lure him back down into the dark wash of dreams.

Steve clung to Tony loosely, like he was afraid to get a good grip on him, to squeeze him too tightly. Tony had seen the power in those hands rip at reinforced steel. He didn’t want to know what it could do to flesh and bone. But he had no fear, because Steve wouldn’t hurt him. He rubbed Steve's arm again, so tired but unable to sleep. Steve wouldn’t stop _shaking_. It was actually annoying. Tony hated himself for being annoyed, but he couldn’t sleep, and he wanted to.

Finally, trying to be patient, he said, “Steve.” Steve didn’t answer, pulling in one slow, shuddering breath after another. “Steve.” Not a twitch. Turning in his arms was almost impossible with Steve’s weight partially on top of him. He felt iron creep into his voice as he said, “Up. Off.” Where names didn’t work, orders did: Steve released him, scooting back slowly, like he was just waking up to Tony’s presence. Maybe he was. Tony couldn’t believe he was doing it, but he grabbed the pillow near him and twisted so he could shove it at Steve’s chest. He directed, “Hold that.”

Steve curled his fingers obediently around it, hugging it close, burying his face against it. Tony felt like a class-A jerk, wanted to apologize instantly, but he was only a mortal man: his patience ran only so deep. Besides, he told himself, as he turned back to the wall, eyelids sliding shut, he hadn’t kicked Steve out of bed. That was charitable.

It took a long time for Steve to stop shivering. Tony drifted off.

. o .

“Nick and Eli.”

Tony turned slowly in his desk chair, still holding a screwdriver. Steve leaned against the lab's doorframe, arms folded, wearing his own suit of armor. The Captain America uniform looked patchwork in the full light of day. It had been restored but only so far. He needed a new one. Tony didn’t know if he would ever take one. Phil Coulson helped design that suit. It felt wrong, sacrilegious, to change it.

“Nick was thirty-seven,” Steve explained. “Elias, forty-one. Alpha-tier, nineteen years of service each. Field guys.” A pause. Tony set his screwdriver down slowly. “I knew Elias. Not well, but—I knew him. I was glad I got him to the plane. I thought—if I could save one, I was glad it was Elias. I know that sounds terrible.”

 _Priorities_ , Tony didn’t say. “I understand."

“I can remember. More than I ever used to.” Steve dug his nails into his arm. “Sat down with Eli a couple times. Asked him, ‘Why S.H.I.E.L.D.?’ He said, ‘It’s the only place that’s changing the world in real-time.’ Always thought that was a good way of putting it.” A pause. “It’s why I liked the Army. Real-time change. No bureaucratic bullshit.” Then, with a self-deprecating head-shake, he added, “Nobody’s free, but S.H.I.E.L.D. is freer than most.

“I didn’t know Nick personally. Read his file. Bright guy.” He reached up to rub his throat. “Wish I’d sat down with him, but, you know. You don't always get a chance to put a face to a name. I knew I was gonna lose him before we got out of the compound. I didn’t want to tell him. I couldn’t tell him. How do you tell someone they’re gonna die?”

Tony closed his eyes. When he opened them, Steve’s expression was still flat. “I didn’t have any illusions," Steve said quietly. "He was bleeding out." He reached up to scrub his face, lingering on his jaw before folding his arms again. It was the little things that gave him away. His voice was still so goddamn steady. “Wasn’t my jaw. That was kind of numb.” He didn’t touch it again, but he shifted his arms like he wanted to. “I couldn’t make myself say the words. Wish I’d said ‘em.” He shut his eyes. “Nick knew. He knew he was gonna die because I wasn’t telling him it was gonna be okay. He knew I’d given up on him.”

“You didn’t give up.”

Steve looked at him, eyes dark blue, not empty. Shielded. 

“I couldn’t leave him.” Steve pushed himself off the door and stepped into the lab. He kept his distance from Tony. “I owed it to him.” He paced the same patch of hard, cold floor, over and over. “It’s not about the family. Nobody should be left out in the cold.” He was quiet for a long moment, thoughtful. “Elias was my fault." 

Looking right at Tony, he explained, “Nick was. . . . Nobody coulda saved him, not after—but Elias was still alive. I knew he was in trouble, but he was talking, and—I had to get him _home_.” His voice thinned, an anguished little sound. Tony looked away. In a dull monotone, Steve finished abruptly, “Anyway. He died.”

Tony looked back at him, saw the sudden way Steve closed the book, like he couldn’t bear to hear his own story. Steve’s entire demeanor was calm, rock-steady. “I can—I can feel him.” He reached up, patted the back of his neck. “Hear him talkin’. Can’t make out the words anymore.” He dropped his hand. “Doesn’t matter. He’s dead.” Looking at Tony, he added, “I know he’s dead, but I—I hear him. Sometimes. And it makes me think . . . I’ve gotta try. You know?”

Tony rocked in the chair, trying to process, offer something. Anything. It all tasted like ash in his mouth. “That where you went?”

Steve looked down, ashamed, but he’d come this far. He nodded once. “Not to the compound. That’s a long way’s away.” He chafed his fingertips against the arm of the suit, like he’d tear it off, but didn’t. It was his own armor. The only thing holding him together. “S.H.I.E.L.D. The hangar.”

Tony rocked slowly. It was good to stay in motion. In motion, he was controlling something. “Quiet night,” Steve added conversationally. “Not many people around. Checked the Quinjets.” He scratched his throat. “Couldn’t find the—couldn’t find ‘em.” Dropping his hand, he said again, “Quiet night.” Looking at Tony, he waited. Hesitated. Then he said in the same calm tone, “Is it crazy, Tony?”

_Am I crazy?_

Tony was afraid again, afraid to say all the wrong things. He was afraid to not answer. He was afraid to take too long. Finally, mouth dry, he admitted, “I don’t know.”

Steve smiled ruefully, the slightest uptick of his mouth. “Me neither.” Nodding, he dropped his crossed arms, adding, “I’m tryin’ not to run every time I hear _fire_ , but. . . .”

Tony stood, walked over. Steve straightened like he’d let himself slouch, let his guard down. 

Tony tucked his hands into the dark blue straps on the back of the suit. “It’s okay. If you run.” Pulling Steve close, pressing his cheek to Steve’s shoulder, he added quietly, “Just come back.”

Steve tucked his own arms around Tony’s back, heavy, warm. Grounded. “Always.”

. o .

“How do you save someone who’s drowning?”

His therapist leaned on the arm of his chair casually. “Depends,” Jeremy said. “You can throw them a lifeline, but drowning people can’t grab onto it, so you need good aim and no small amount of luck. Best bet is to call in the lifeguard. 911.” Nodding in concession, he admitted, “That’s a bit of a non-answer, but you don’t want to put yourself in harm’s way to save someone else. Someone who’s drowning is more likely to pull you down than help save themselves.”

“What if there is no lifeguard?”

Jeremy nodded thoughtfully. “Sometimes there isn’t. Doesn’t mean you should sacrifice yourself to save someone else. You do what you can. And you recognize when it’s going to do you harm to do more.” Gently, he added, “Even lifeguards fail. The best isn’t always enough.”

Tony sat in silence, cross-legged on the couch, shoes on the floor. He was comfortable, Jeremy hadn’t told him he couldn’t, and it had appeased Tony’s inner rebel. So had switching chairs, to test if Jeremy had meant that Tony could sit wherever he wanted. He had.

There was something comforting about the guy. Jeremy was in his late forties, athletic and well-adjusted. He was a few years older than Tony but a whole lifespan of different experiences apart. Jeremy’s life companion was a German Shepherd named Blue, whose ruff-furred visage graced nearly every photo in the room. Tony stared at Blue, happy lolling tongue, big black splash on his face. He let the image re-center him.

“It’s okay to fail,” Jeremy went on. Tony glanced at him. He nodded again. “Coming to peace with that, it’s tough, but it happens. Accidents, disasters—we try hard to get the outcomes we want, but sometimes we can’t. And that’s when we have to come to peace with what we can’t do. We have to learn to live with the outcome.”

“What if you can’t live with the outcome?”

Jeremy paused, then said carefully, “You know that saying, you only know your limit once you’ve passed it? Not really true. We recalibrate, build a new normal. We endure. Doesn’t mean we ever should have to. Doesn’t mean we deserved it. But we can survive the unsurvivable. It’s never the same as before, but it can be ours, again. It’s not easy, but if we have to confront it, we do.”

Tony rubbed his mouth. “I don’t want to confront it. I want to stop it.” Looking right at him, Tony insisted, “I can’t watch it happen.”

Jeremy leaned back in his chair. “You’re good-hearted, Tony,” he said at last. “Got a lot of drive to do the right thing. That’s good. Something you should hold onto. We want to be the solution. That’s a great thing. It’s good for us: helping out, looking after each other. It feels great, it has a great outcome. We trend towards the heroic. 

“But it’s not on you if you _can’t_ help.

“If someone drowns, you weren’t responsible, whether you didn’t see it coming, act in time, or act differently. Sometimes, we don’t have what we need to change nature’s course. Coming to terms with that, that we couldn’t control the situation, that we weren’t able to change the outcome, is important for our own lives, our sense of peace. It’s good to try. To do what we can to help. But if we don’t get the outcome we hoped for, it isn’t our fault. Not being able to stop something bad doesn’t mean we were responsible. It just means we tried. And that’s a reflection on our own goodness.”

He followed Tony’s gaze to Blue and smiled. “Dogs are good because they know that. They do what they can and don’t worry about the rest. If the worst comes to pass, they recalibrate. Doesn’t mean they don’t love us deeply. They know they’re dogs. In a big world, they know they can only do so much.”

“Wish I had a dog.” It was small, barely there. Tony didn’t look at Jeremy as he said it.

“Yeah? You should get one.” Tony looked at him dubiously. Jeremy smiled. “Dogs are great.”

“How old’s Blue?”

“Six this November.” Sighing deeply, Jeremy added, “Gonna take him on a road trip this weekend. He’s a great car dog. Put down the backseat and he lolls around.”

“Wish I had a dog like Blue.”

“Shepherds make great pets. Very loyal.”

“I can barely take care of myself sometimes,” Tony admitted, more than he wanted to say, but Jeremy’s expression didn’t fall. He leaned on the arm of the chair, listening, not quite prodding. “Dogs need routines.”

“You mentioned roommates.” Gently prodding, Jeremy said, “You ever think about asking if they wanted a dog? Takes a village to raise a kid. Dogs aren’t much different.”

Tony mulled it over, looking back at Blue. “You should bring him,” he said suddenly. “I wanna meet him.”

Jeremy followed his gaze, then said comfortably, “Sure. He’s a good car dog. He likes to meet people. He’s big,” he warned. “Eighty pounder.”

“Sounds like a great dog.”

“Yeah, Blue’s great.” Then, gently, he said, “Things work out, Tony. Sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves is to say, ‘I will do what I can and see what happens.’ If it goes well, we got everything we wanted. If it doesn’t, we adapt. We’re good at adapting. It might take a long time, but you’ve seen that in your own life. We can make a new normal and find joy in it. 

“You’ll find peace. I believe that, absolutely.”

. o . 

After the session, Tony had the irrational urge to go get a cone of ice cream and hang out on the beach and take a nap in his favorite sweater so he could marinate in the feeling of getting the white noise out of his head for a while.

It never felt like the cure, but it felt like . . . peace. It was why he’d gone in the first place. He’d surprised himself by looking forward to future appointments. Jeremy never mentioned his dual celebrity status as Stark Industries’ CEO or Iron Man unless Tony brought it up first. Tony had the feeling that Jeremy genuinely knew very little about him outside their sessions. It was nice. To be anonymous.

He also craved warmth in the brisk October air, so he dipped into his second favorite coffee shop, picked up his favorite brew, and found an unobtrusive corner to enjoy it. He took his time, texting Rhodey, _Wanna help me find a dog?_

Rhodey responded when he was halfway through his cup. _You’re getting a dog?_

_Thinking about it._

_Hell yeah._ A pause. Tony took a sip of his drink. _Pretty busy thru Halloween. Nov 3-4?_

_I’ll mark my calendar._

_It’s a date_.

. o .

Tony didn’t bring up getting a dog at home, but he was also busy admiring the Mark IX, which was always amply distracting. So distracting that it was Bruce, holding up a box of New York’s finest dough, that finally made him realize it was dinnertime. “It’s three-thirty,” Tony informed him with utmost confidence.

“Try six,” Bruce replied, tapping the box invitingly. “We’re one short for Monopoly.”

Tony flicked the faceplate down. “I am the king of Monopoly.”

They had the board set up on the floor in the balcony room, Natasha and Clint setting up the cards while Thor, incongruously wearing Bruce’s glasses, read through the instruction manual. Steve leaned on his hands nearby, watching Thor struggle with a patient look on his face. “I do not understand,” Thor said gravely, squinting at the tiny print. “These glass orbs do not help me.”

“What’re you—? Give me those,” Bruce huffed, bustling over. Tony wandered into the kitchen, adding his box of pizza to the small mountain on the table.

Thor waved a hand dismissively, plastering the sheet to his stolen glasses. “These rules are unclear.”

Steve leaned over and snatched the glasses off his face. “Ah!” Thor exclaimed. “Banner, your glass orbs are useless.”

“Please stop calling them orbs.”

“Panes?” Thor tried, looking up at him. Steve held out the glasses to Bruce, who snatched them back and shoved them on his own face. “Foolishness,” Thor declared cheerfully, crumpling up the instructions and popping the paper ball into his mouth. “This tastes horrible,” he declared, chewing loudly.

“Geez, Thor, don’t eat it,” Steve rebuked him.

“I thought this was customary?” He pointed accusingly at the holographic screen. Tony wasn’t sure what cartoon he was referring to. He grabbed himself a nice brandy, sensing he’d need it to get through the next six hours, give or take. 

“Go spit it out,” Steve insisted, slapping Thor firmly on the shoulder. “It’s not food.”

“It is extremely inedible,” Thor agreed calmly, still chewing valiantly.

Steve sighed and, wearing his _guess I’ll be the adult_ face _,_ grabbed a handful of Thor’s shoulder armor before hauling him forcefully to his feet. “Go spit it out or I’m dealing you out.”

Thor obliged, flicking the trash lid down and saying, “That is truly a horrible tradition.”

“It’s not a tradition,” Steve told him. Clint snickered. Steve glared at him. “Don’t encourage him.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” Clint said lazily, leaning on his own hands, mirroring Steve’s earlier pose, insolence personified.

And that was too much. To Tony’s amazement, Steve raised both eyebrows and deadpanned, “Ex-fuckin’- _scuse_ me?”

The room went dead silent. Even Thor, drinking a glass of water, froze.

Then Natasha said lightly, “Cap said a bad language word.”

“Shaddup,” Steve grunted.

“Cap said a bad woooord,” Clint echoed, cracking the lid on his own beer and cackling as Steve’s ears reddened.

“All right, fine, I said a bad word,” he grumbled, sitting on the floor with a sulky expression. Tony couldn’t hide his own smile. “Sue me.”

“Bad language?” Thor repeated with genial curiosity, reclaiming his seat on the floor.

Steve held out a hand, went through the full spectrum of human emotion in ten seconds, then said shortly, “Nobody. Absolutely nobody. Repeat it.”

Tony was so goddamn tempted he thought he’d suffocate, but even Clint held it together—barely—and Natasha smiled, the tiniest, most secretive smile Tony had ever seen. God. He loved these fucking nerds.

He packed away a couple slices of pizza fast as he could, not wanting to miss out or hold up the game, but he needn’t have worried: Clint said, “I gotta say it—” and Steve lunged for him. Cackling, Clint tried unsuccessfully to keep from getting picked up and thrown over Steve’s shoulder. Tony stole Steve’s seat in the circle as Steve dumped Clint unceremoniously onto a couch.

“Anybody else?” he asked calmly.

Thor hopped to his feet. Steve pinched the bridge of his nose.

“We’re not joustin’, we’re playin’ Monopoly,” Steve said, his disgruntled voice very much heavy on the Brooklyn drawl. Tony grinned. “ _My_ spot,” he told Tony grumpily, sliding his hands under Tony’s arms and setting him down a couple feet to the right. “Nobody taught any of you any manners,” he told the class.

“I have manners,” Bruce chimed in. He shrunk visibly when Steve glared at him.

“If the pre-show’s this great, I can’t wait to see the halftime show,” Tony chimed in lightly, glad he’d given up the suit, for a few hours, at least. Swiping the top hat piece, he added, “I’m gonna wipe the floor with you guys.”

“We’ll see,” Natasha said cryptically, leaning over to snag the thimble.

. o .

Tony won. He was very proud.

. o .

In a perfect world, Tony would celebrate his victory with a romp in the sheets.

In reality, Tony slid the door to the balcony open, the main room three-AM-quiet, the others long gone.

It was forty-two-degrees Fahrenheit outside.

Steve stood in his uniform, leaning against the railing, looking out at the city. Without turning, he said, “You should go back inside.”

Tony shrugged. “Should, could, would.” He sat on a cold chair nearby, watching him. “Can’t sleep?”

“Slept for sixty-seven years, Tony. I think I’ve had my fill.”

“That seems impossible.”

“Which part?” Steve turned to look at him. Then, stiffly, he repeated, “You should go back inside.”

“Does it bother you, me being here?”

A ripple of tension passed over Steve’s back. “No.”

Tony nodded to himself. “Okay.” He waited, soaking in the cold night. It felt like clarity to his sleep-warm mind. Arms folded across his chest, longing for a sweater, he said, “Sweater weather.”

Steve nodded. “Sweater weather,” he echoed. The suit had a thermal layer, Tony knew. That was all Steve had ever told him. He’d never mentioned how effective it was.

He’d frozen to death wearing a suit with a thermal layer.

A terrible, irresistible curiosity prompted his unfiltered mouth to ask, “Did you freeze or drown?”

Steve turned to look at him slowly. His posture was loose, deceptively easy. Tony winced, backpedaled, “You don’t have to answer that.”

Steve watched him with dark eyes, thoughtful eyes. At last, he turned back to the railing. He said nothing for a long time. Tony waited, blowing out a breath to watch it mist in air.

“I don’t know.”

Tony blew out another breath like smoke. Deep. Even. Easy.

“You ever been in a car crash, Tony?” he asked in a distant, detached, steady voice. He didn’t wait for a response. “Everything kind of happened at once. I don’t know what. . . .” He trailed off.

Tony drew in a long, steady breath. “I’m sorry.”

Steve didn’t respond.

“Hey, Steve?”

Steve tilted his head, not quite turning it. 

“It’s okay to not be okay,” Tony said quietly.

Steve turned back to the city. Tony heard the railing creak under his fingertips before he eased up on it.

“You don’t have to pretend,” Tony added.

“I don’t.” Tony waited. Steve obliged him with a soft explanation: “It’s not fake. I am happy here.” Flexing his fingers, he said, “I’m happy when I forget.”

Tony stood slowly. Walked towards him at the same slow clip. Six small steps.

“I wish you couldn’t see me,” he said at last, voice strangely detached. “I don’t think. . . .” He sighed when Tony wrapped his arms around him. “I don’t think this is the side of me anyone wants. Needs.” He gripped the railing, muscles tense, muscles trembling. He eased up on the railing. The trembling worsened. “I just want to forget, you know?”

Tony rested his cheek against the back of a cold shoulder. “I know.”

Steve brushed a hand over his arm, gloved hand, cold hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Steve sighed. Tony insisted, “I didn’t fall in love with Captain America. I fell in love with _you_. Just you. I don’t need the suit. I don’t need anything but you.”

Steve turned slowly in his embrace. Tony released him, cupped his face, shook his head back and forth gently. Steve’s eyelids slid shut. He released a soft breath. “Big tough guy,” Tony said softly. “I know. I understand. You gotta look after everybody.” Pulling his head down, pressing a kiss to his forehead, he murmured, “Gotta look after you, too, you know? It’s okay. To not be okay.”

Steve ducked his head slowly, pressing against Tony’s shoulder, breath warm on Tony’s neck. Tony slid his hands into Steve’s hair, holding him there. “I’m not gonna love you less because you’re human,” he murmured. “I’m gonna love you and love you and love you. . . .”

Steve kissed the side of his jaw. Tony closed his own eyes, overcome with affection. “I don’t wanna lose you,” Tony whispered.

Steve kissed him on the lips. Tony held his head in his hands, desperate to keep him. Brushing a kiss against Tony’s cheek, Steve assured, “You won’t.” Squeezing Tony, gathering him close, he added in his deep, endlessly reassuring manner, “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

And Tony believed him.


	16. HOW FAR WE'VE COME

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good evening/morning, champs. <3
> 
> This chapter is "non-linear," so please note the dates. Also, some of these sections are told from Steve's POV.
> 
> P.S. I bolded the present-day segments so they'd be more identifiable. :) All present-day segments are from Tony's POV.

_Friday, May 4, 2012_.

“Hey, Cap.”

Chin in hand, Rogers tilted his head up, leveling a hazy, unimpressed look at Tony. “You got a place to stay?” Tony asked, taking a bite of shawarma. When Rogers stared at him, Tony fidgeted verbally: “I’m not inviting you to stay with me, I just wanted to know where the leader of the free world bunked.”

Rogers’ eyes narrowed. For a moment, Tony thought he would offer a short but colorful admonishment, _F_ _uck you, Stark_. But Rogers just reached for his own shawarma and took a bite, excusing himself from a response.

“Kind of trashed your Tower,” Banner remarked, filling the conversational gap.

Tony waved a hand dismissively. “It’s got ninety-three floors.” Rogers turned his cheek on his palm, returning to his original statuesque pose, looking supremely bored with the whole thing. “You’re welcome, by the way,” Tony said, more out of an unnameable desire to keep his attention than anything.

Rogers looked at him flatly. “Sorry to steal your thunder,” Tony explained, running his mouth, too jittery to keep a lid on it. “I know it’s your gimmick to make the sacrifice play.”

“My gimmick?” Rogers repeated, voice dangerously low, quiet.

Tony printed no retractions. “Next nuke’s all yours, buddy.” Stretching his arms over his head, he cracked his back lightly and pointed out, “Although you shouldn’t lay on it. Not as effective as throwing it into a space portal, using a suit of armor. Not that I would know anything about that.” He folded his arms on his chest, sizing Rogers up. 

Even hunched forward and covered in his beaten-up armor, Captain America still cut a striking figure. He reminded Tony of a Greek statue, never truly in repose, waiting to spring. He turned his head down again, refusing to rise to Tony’s bait.

Banner steered the conversation back to safer ground. Barton joined in, keeping the ball rolling. Rogers was conspicuously silent, but he didn’t abandon the table. Too polite for that, Tony knew. Tony was shaking under the table with something nameless. His hands trembled in his lap. He knew he lashed out when he was unsettled, knew he was unsettled because he’d flown to space with a nuclear weapon on his back, but he couldn’t stop himself from poking at the most volatile member of the team.

He wished he’d hit Rogers to wipe that flat expression off his face.

In retrospect, he _really_ wished he’d offered the invitation sincerely. Even if it meant swallowing his pride, he would gladly have done it to keep himself from watching Cap stagger forward, the smallest stumble, _One small step,_ three weeks later.

. o .

_Friday, May 25, 2012_.

Alone in his blissfully air-conditioned lab, bobbing his head to Donna Summers’ _Hot Stuff_ , Tony Stark tinkered with the Mark VII 2.0. 

It was only three in the afternoon, but the suit was already approaching flight-worthy Saturn. He was anxious to get his full-body suit of armor back, but he was also anxious to stay on the ground for the next-forever. 

Luckily, he didn’t have to decide which outcome he preferred. The work was easy and breezy. With disco blasting his troubles away, he found himself in a good mood for the first time in weeks. He drank not to make himself happy but to keep the good times rolling.

Meanwhile, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, shrouded in pitch-black midnight darkness, Steve Rogers limped alongside the Zeravshan River, using a big stick he’d pried off a pine tree as a makeshift crutch. He’d landed in the pines, not the water. That had saved his life. From on high, water was as deadly as concrete, but trees had give-and-take. He’d fallen so many times from low-heights that he’d almost forgotten what it felt like to fall and hit the ground hard enough to _break_.

He’d never planned to take a 3,000-foot swan dive.

The pilot had blown the helicopter a second before he’d realized, _T_ _his is a trap_. He was more annoyed than angry at first, that he’d been careless, that he hadn’t triple-checked the identity of the pilot. He’d trusted his intuition, trusted his gut. When the game changed, it was already too late. His complacency cost him.

(He’d been pissed, too, that the last words he would ever hear could have been the pilot’s cry of “ _Hail Hydra_.”)

Wandering along the shore, grateful for his night vision, Steve found civilization. He kept his distance, making sure nobody touched him accidentally, keeping quiet about the throbbing, red-hot, unbearable pain in his back. The serum had enabled him, allowed him to pull himself back to safety, almost by his fingernails. It wasn’t easy—he only spoke a little Uzbek and less Tajik, but he had enough Russian under his belt to communicate who he was and that he meant no harm—but he found his way back to S.H.I.E.L.D. 

He lied to them, too, every field agent standing between him and a safe place to collapse. He didn’t find it—between time zone differences, the shock of mission failure, the cleanup, the reports and the silent but no less critical need to be seen as hale and hearty in front of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, he was busy from the second he landed until Fury finally caught up to him, ninety-six-hours sleepless on a Tuesday morning. Patience tried, Steve was angrier than a nest of hornets at the announcement that he was going to be entertaining goddamn Tony _Stark_ for reasons his sleep-deprived mind couldn’t puzzle out.

Howard’s kid, he’d decided—sitting in a chair with his jaw clenched tight, eyes shut, a mockery of sleep—was going to be the death of him.

. o . 

**_Friday, October 19, 2012_.**

Arms over his head, Tony shimmied along to Gloria Gaynor’s sultry classic _I Will Survive_ , enjoying himself. It wasn’t exactly steamy outside in the cold October air, but the lab was nice and toasty. He’d been hard at work all day, putting on one of his feel-good playlists while advising J.A.R.V.I.S. to keep out the rabble-rousers, including poor sweet Bruce. To be fair, even Pepper couldn’t override the Alpha-410 codes. His tech. His rules.

_I’m the boss._

Besides, Tony Stark was many things—absolutely brilliant, stunningly handsome, arguably one of the world’s foremost movers-and-shakers; and that was on the days he wasn’t saving the world—but professional dancer was not on his resume. Still, he had soul, a natural rhythm, a genuine enjoyment that allowed him to put his heart into it. Really, he was great at dancing. Even better after his second glass. 

The gleaming Mark IX yearned for a pilot, action-ready, but he was happy to stand around, lollygagging, giddy with the realization that he had the weekend ahead of him. He’d deliberately blocked the time off, made sure no eager beavers tried to grab a scrap of his attention that he didn’t personally bestow on them.

This was _Tony_ time. And Tony time was sponsored by disco-rock.

Flailing gently, eyes closed, he didn’t hear the door slide open. Didn’t matter—nobody had access to the Alpha-410 overrides, so it must have been a product of his mildly-inebriated imagination. He rounded out the song. J.A.R.V.I.S. said, “A marvelous performance, sir.” Tony grinned toothily, eyes shut.

When he heard footsteps, he didn’t open his eyes; he recognized the weight to them. It amazed him that he could recognize someone’s gait—but, to be fair, Captain America was superhuman, his walk preternaturally smooth. 

When Steve hugged him from behind, Tony made a soft appreciative sound. “How’d you override Alpha?” he asked, rubbing Steve’s arm.

Steve shrugged and tucked his chin over Tony’s shoulder. He was warm and rock-steady and fresh from the field, still in uniform. “I asked nicely.”

“Did you bribe my AI?”

“How could I?” Steve lofted back. “He’s your AI.”

“I’m reprogramming him.”

“Inadvisable, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. piped in.

Tony snorted. Steve nuzzled his shoulder. That was unfair. Then he kissed the side of Tony’s neck and that was _really_ unfair. Reaching up to pat his cheek in playful dismissal, Tony said good-naturedly, “Uh huh, sure, you think you’re cute. Don’t take his side. Take my side.”

Steve hummed. “I don’t take sides.”

“Bullshit, who won the Revolutionary War?”

“Yanks,” Steve said, then laughed, squeezing Tony and releasing him. “That’s cheating.”

“I don’t cheat, I make new rules,” Tony said, turning smoothly and looping his arms around Steve’s neck, holding him in place. Steve’s smile was soft, close-mouthed. “I hate that you actually are cute,” Tony told him. Steve’s ears reddened, a hint of teeth in his smile. “It’s really unfair. To society. How’re we gonna keep up? Huh? You think we can all keep up with this?” He let his hands unclasp so he could hold Steve’s face instead, wagging it back and forth gently. “Huh? Big dumb punk like you, thinkin’ you can make the rest of us look bad? What do you have to say for yourself, mister?”

Steve smiled lazily, sliding his arms around Tony’s waist. “It’s a good thing I have you to keep me humble,” he said, with enough sincerity it made Tony’s teeth ache. Tony set his hands on Steve’s shoulders. Steve added lightly, “ _The_ Tony Stark. You know what a goddamn miracle you are?”

Half-serious, Tony said, “Remind me.”

Steve kissed him, full on the mouth. That was even better.

. o .

_**Friday, October 19, 2012.** _

Tony had never flown this high without the suit. With idle wonder, he looked down at Steve, hanging by a proverbial thread. He voiced the unspoken: “It ever scare you?”

Steve looked up at him, expression calm, frost in his hair. “It ever scare you?” he echoed. Tony didn’t mistake it for teasing.

“Occasionally,” he admitted. “When I’m up top, coming back down can be scary. Or exhilarating.”

Steve reached up and Tony caught his free hand, hauled him up. They had it down to a science: Steve switched his grip from both of Tony’s hands to one of his shoulders. Once he had that shoulder, Tony could wrap both arms around Steve’s waist, let him rest his feet on Iron Man’s boots as Steve locked his hands around Tony’s neck loosely. Voila. Standing on air.

“I trust you,” Steve said simply. He squeezed Tony’s shoulders. Tony could feel the pressure, barely. “I trust me, too,” he admitted.

Tony cocked his head. Steve smiled secretively. “Squirrel suit,” he reminded him. Tony huffed in amusement. “You let me go, I’m just gonna glide and glide, Tony. It’s a helluva ride.”

“You’re an adrenaline junkie, you know that?”

Steve smirked. “What gave it away? The Iron Man suit or the 300 alleged affairs?”

Tony sniffed in mock offense. “Some of them were real.”

Steve’s eyebrows lifted. “Tony Stark? He’d never.” He smiled slyly. “Everybody knows he’s only got one true love: Pepper Potts. Love story for the ages.”

Tony sighed affectionately. “She’s too good for me.”

“A redemption story,” Steve teased, squeezing his neck gently. “She’s makin’ you a better person. You’ve slowed down, you know. Word is that you’re only at 308.”

“Technically, 306.” When Steve cocked his head, Tony elaborated, “You’re 299, 304, and 307, so. 306 unique individuals.”

“I’m flattered.”

“You should be. Captain America. NYU fling. Iron Man.” He grinned as Steve flushed, visible in the darkness as a shadow. “Kind of nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Steve Rogers: Iron Man.”

“You are the only Iron Man that’s ever gonna be worth the name, Tony,” Steve said seriously. “Nobody—absolutely nobody—can be Iron Man. That belongs to you.”

“Flatterer.”

“It’s not flattery if it’s true.”

Tony sighed. It seemed noisy, almost staticky, behind the mask. “I’m gonna drop you if you make one more semantic argument.”

“No, you won’t,” Steve said breezily, eyes twinkling in the reflected blue light.

“You never know. I’m unpredictable.”

Steve deliberately lifted his arms from Tony’s neck, folding them over his chest, barely wobbling with the shift. “Uh huh.”

Tony’s grip tightened traitorously around Steve’s waist. “I will. I will drop you.”

“You will,” Steve agreed calmly.

“I will,” Tony parroted, but he didn’t loosen his grip.

“Any time now.”

Tony sighed again. “I hate you.”

Steve patted his arm consolingly, standing on Iron Man’s feet, barely wobbling, subsurface movements the suit picked up on. His balance was stellar. Tony knew that he himself would have lasted a mere 0.1 seconds in Cap’s place before losing his balance, sliding off, and plummeting earthward with nothing but a howl of surprise.

Steve leaned back in his arms casually. Tony tightened his grip. “Stop that.”

Steve set his hands on Tony’s arms, squeezing them hard enough to be felt. “Give me a reason to be afraid,” he challenged, “and I’ll be afraid. Until then.” He gripped one of Tony’s hands. In a smooth, almost unspooling movement, he slid off Tony’s feet. Tony flared the thrusters so they didn’t drop, hovering in space. Steve dangled underneath him, for all the world a man on the edge of the world and grinning up at him. “I trust us.

“And if anyone, Tony, you should know that you can survive the fall.”

. o . 

_Friday, August 3, 2012_.

Tony awoke alone. 

Warm ocean air drifted in through an open window somewhere in the villa. He loved the early morning sounds, birds in the distance, waves rolling across the sand, another beautiful day in Oahu, Hawaii. They’d all been beautiful, even on the days it rained. Everything was beautiful here, removed from the noise of the city, the existence of other people. It was like their own private island—they had to drive twenty minutes to reach civilization, exactly what Tony had wanted; just space, _space_ to breathe and live without being boxed in on all sides—and Tony loved the feeling.

He didn’t bother throwing on a shirt, wandering across hardwood floors to fetch coffee. 

There were hints of his and Steve’s happy little beach life everywhere: beach towels draped over the back of a chair, a small stack of books on a cushioned reading nook near the unlit fireplace, Tony’s little Roomba floating around, Steve’s sketchbook left trustingly unattended (closed: but unattended) on the kitchen table. 

There were other hints, too: their favorite foods in the fridge, pillows arranged to their liking in on their unmade bed (unmade: because Steve awoke before Tony, most days). They had between them a handful of souvenirs, shells that Steve found on the beach and a small but tasteful arrangement of surprisingly flattering Hawaiian tees Tony picked out. 

They’d tried as much as they could, wanting to enjoy the experience, but Tony had seen the world, done-it-all. He felt as comfortable doing nothing at all while lounging around the villa as he did on the days they spent exploring the rest of Oahu, including a day at a waterfall. They spent long hours on the beach in full darkness with just Steve’s night-honed eyes to guide them. 

For the first time in forever, Tony felt like he was well. He harbored a pleasant sort of anticipation for each day, for his own life.

Tony still had his Iron Man suit, the Mark VII, tucked away near the door, but he didn’t feel the need to put it on. 

He loved just _holding_ Steve’s hand, trusting him to lead the way. A few times, Steve offered to carry him. Tony felt like the happiest person in the universe as he tucked his arms around Steve’s neck and let himself be carried piggyback style by none other than Captain America.

It had been nice, too—Tony thought, wandering towards the pool and yard, coffee in hand—to see Steve unwind, to have a chance to unlock his own muscles. Working remote wasn’t nearly as taxing as attending board meetings and toiling in the lab. Minor aches and pains settled out of him as he basked in the Hawaiian sun. He felt like he could breathe deeply again, a world removed from the pain he knew. He saw the physical effects even more pronounced on Steve, whose purpling jaw faded away, whose tense shoulders relaxed noticeably over time. It was magic to heal. It was even more magical to heal slowly, not on a time crunch but in their own indulgent way, naps at odd hours and laughter late at night.

If he was twelve percent in love with Steve on the day they arrived, he was fully ninety percent of the way by the last day.

Steve was still nowhere to be found on the deck or in the yard, but that was fine by Tony. He slid the door shut behind him, leaving it unlocked—God, it was good to leave things unlocked, to have that much trust for the empty world around him—and wandered across the deck towards the gate. 

They’d spent a few hours in the pool, mostly dipping in their feet as they chatted, neither overcome with a strong desire to submerge themselves in what amounted to a very large bathtub. Tony thought it was funny how easily they drifted into the ocean, a comparatively meaner, more sinister environment, but it felt safer. Natural. A different shade of blue. 

Tony still couldn’t take a bath without panicking. Steve seemed skittish in response to his wariness, venturing in on his own briefly before emerging to chat with Tony, like it was perfectly normal to be scared of a swimming pool.

They were still slow with the ocean. Someone was the first-penguin-in-the-water. Most days it was Steve. On those rarer days when it was Tony, Steve watched him with soft eyes, trusting eyes, hesitating only a moment before joining him. Tony thought it was its own kind of healing. It was only on the days when Tony ventured first that he remembered that Steve hadn’t drowned in a bathtub like he had; it had been the ocean, mean and unpredictable and unknown. But it was a different shade of blue: arctic waters and tropical waters were only distantly related. Once the lukewarm water touched his feet, he relaxed, practically dove in headfirst. 

That was Steve Rogers: if it didn’t kill him, he made it his own. The war was his war. The ocean was his ocean. The sky was his sky. He didn’t run from them. He just respected the risks.

Tony admired that fearlessness and trust. It was like watching a demigod interact with the earth. He wasn’t afraid of his own mortality. He was just aware of it, of what would happen if he cut the string.

Lost days. Hours on the beach, hours laughing and talking and falling asleep on each other. 

Tony hoped they’d find laughter back home, too. 

He’d buckled down mentally, accepting the inevitable end to their safe little adventure as inevitable, but even he was sad as he pushed open the gate and walked the short barefoot distance to the shore. 

He was in nothing but his boxers—red, because he was on brand; Steve had laughed at that, and that was nice, too—and ventured towards the soft, lulling, easy shoreline. He loved the ocean. The ocean was beautiful.

Tony waded ankle-deep in the water. He didn’t know how long he stood there. But at some indeterminate time later, he glanced to his right and saw Steve in the distance. He paused when he saw Tony watching, then loped, not quite running, not quite walking, a long steady jogging pace that cut the distance between them. Tony waited until he was a few yards away, cantering to a halt, before saying, “Running away from me already?”

Steve’s grin was toothy. “You know I can’t stay away forever, chief,” he said, his voice a warm, deep, you’re-the-first-person-I’ve-talked-to timbre. Tony already missed it. “When’d you get up?”

Tony stepped out of the water, warm sand under his toes. Reflexively, he checked his wrist for a nonexistent watch. “After you,” he replied.

Steve nodded, wearing a pair of dark blue swimming trunks, smirking at Tony’s attire. “Now I feel overdressed.”

Tony made a show of sipping his coffee, wearing his most unimpressed look. “Yes, well, we all have our moments.”

Steve scrunched up his nose, a happy little micro-gesture that Tony already missed— _fuck, I already miss you—_ and said, “One day, Tony, I’ll get with the times.”

Tony sighed, then said, “Please don’t.” When Steve frowned and cocked his head, he added, “I need your weird brand of relentless optimism. It keeps me youthful.”

“You,” Steve said, sauntering over, lazy, happy, “are gonna make one hell of a silver fox, Tony.”

Tony laughed, making a show of protesting as Steve closed the gap, “Swear to God, Rogers, I’m gonna leave you here. Can’t do it anymore.”

Steve wrapped his arms around Tony’s bare waist, squeezing so gently it made Tony want to cry. Tony barely feigned resistance, cupping his coffee in both hands instead of indulging in all that soft, sun-golden skin. Steve rocked them like he couldn’t contain his own joy. Tony came within a millimeter of tears, but then Steve said, “One condition.”

“Hm?”

“I stay, you stay.”

Tony sighed. The idea was beautiful. Dropping his forehead against Steve’s bare shoulder—no longer making a show of _gross, Captain America cooties—_ he muttered, “Don’t tempt me.”

Steve drew him closer, almost chest-to-chest. The light blue glow of the arc reactor was visible on his skin. “I’m glad we came,” he said softly.

“Me, too,” Tony admitted, then sniffed. God dammit.

Steve held onto him for a long time. Tony composed himself, at last giving him a gentle push back and saying, “All right, champ, let’s go.”

“Go where?”

Tony smiled slyly. “I am a man of promises,” he said seriously, “and I thought I’d save the best for last.” Steve’s brow didn’t smooth out, but there was a curious gleam in his eyes. “I want to see Captain America meet his first dolphin,” he announced.

Tony honestly thought the highlight of his Friday was going to be watching Steve pet a dolphin with the world’s most entranced and humbled expression on his face.

And then, after a deliciously filling meal, they took a sunset swim, because they were rebels. Tony found a new first place for “highlight of the day.”

It was contender for highlight of the year as Steve kissed him for the first time and the rest of the world melted away.

. o . 

_Friday, August 31, 2012_.

“Ever heard of Norilsk?”

Steve shook his head, impatient, itching in his own skin. 

“Northernmost city with over 100,000 people on the planet,” Fury explained conversationally, walking alongside him towards the storage unit, past the third level of security. _Security Level 8 and above_. Lowly Level 4 Captain America barely had clearance to get directly to Fury’s desk, but with Fury’s Level 10 clearances, they moved easily, effortlessly through the facility.

Steve was listening to Fury, he always listened to the Director, but he was on a one-track mind that went _get the palladium, get the palladium, get the palladium_. Everything else was a buzz in his ears, secondary, _tertiary_. First track was _get the palladium_. Second track was _Tony needs it_. “Not a nice place,” Fury added seriously. “Up in the Arctic circle. Siberia. You know Siberia?”

“Russia, sir.” _Get the palladium_.

“That’s right. You’re fluent.”

“I am.” _Tony needs it_.

“Norilsk is a closed city,” Fury went on, scanning in for yet another level of security. The door slid back easily. Heavily. They were in the lowest level now. “Invitation only. It’s taken some time, but we have a pair of friendlies that live there. They work for Norilsk Nickel. It’s the world’s leading supplier of palladium.”

 _Get it_.

“This isn’t a mission,” Fury preluded. “This is a reconnaissance.” Fury didn’t like him alone on missions anymore. That was fine by him. _Get the palladium. Tony needs it_. “We want to touch base with the friendlies and re-establish good will with Norilsk Nickel. A bit of a diplomatic visit. You’re diplomatic. You’re Captain goddamn America.”

 _I’m Captain goddamn America_.

“Agent Romanoff is our first choice to pair off,” Fury continued. They moved past a series of vaults, contents hidden behind steel doors. “We’d like to keep this operation small-scale, if possible. Nothing alarming. A few drinks, some kowtowing. Keep the peace.”

 _Keep the peace. Get the palladium. Tony needs it_.

They stopped in front of a nondescript vault. Fury scanned in again. An entire shelf of shiny metals in tubes gleamed. Only three of them resided on the shelf Fury picked. “We will, of course, up your Security Level,” he said, taking one of the containers in his hands with a reverence reserved for priceless, irreplaceable things. Steve sobered to see it. He almost couldn’t accept it when Fury held it out. “Need you to know exactly what’s going on. All I want from this is confirmation that our ears on the inside are all right and the Russians aren’t feeling cold-shouldered.”

“I can handle that, sir.” _Get the palladium. Tony needs it_.

Fury held out the tube. Steve took it reverently. “We can secure more,” Fury added calmly. “It’s not cheap.”

“Thank you, sir.” Steve all but trembled in place, holding himself still, making himself still. _Don’t run. Don’t run_. “Is there anything else you need, sir?”

Fury looked him dead in the eye—one eye; the other was an eyepatch—and said, “If anything— _anything—_ happens, I want you to abort-mission. No heroics. Norilsk isn’t the nicest city on planet Earth, but last I checked they weren’t committing any war crimes.

“You get in, you shake hands, you check inventory, you get out. Understood?”

Steve nodded once. “Perfectly, sir.” A beat. It was painful, but he forced himself to wait. Fury was many things, and foremost here, he was Steve’s commanding officer.

Fury could read him well. “Go,” he said. “We’ll talk more later.”

Steve didn’t even try to hide his urgency. He ran. He goddamn _ran_.

. o .

_Saturday, September 15, 2012_.

Sidling up to Natasha, Steve asked in a murmur, “What do you know about Norilsk?”

A shadow passed over Natasha’s eyes. She turned to look at him, her eyes glowing in the dim reflection of his extravagantly lit suit. It wasn’t overwhelming, wasn’t neon and bright, but it was enough to reflect, to capture attention. In the quiet night, the emptying Gala—they were two of the last, the last Avengers, the last attendees, overseeing the finale—they were doubly striking. 

Steve had fewer compunctions about letting her close, because he knew at the end of the day that Natasha’s reputation as the _Black Widow_ meant she was supposed to be fatally close to men like him. Powerful. Brooding. It was literally a job for her. 

There was a different line altogether with playboy Tony Stark that Steve hadn’t figured out how to navigate. Natasha, Clint, and he were work partners as much as friends. People expected to see them crowded together. They expected Hulk to be a loner. And Stark? They expected him to showboat with everyone, not just Captain America.

It was almost funny, how easily people accepted the narrative. Tony was right about that: give them a story they could love. He felt hot and bothered for all the wrong reasons, thinking about Tony. He’d felt so certain, confident and in control, when he’d approached Tony. When he’d stalked off, he’d rarely felt less like he’d handled a situation well. 

But Tony wasn’t paying _attention_. He was ignoring the eyes on them. He was ignoring the cell phones discreetly pointed towards them. He didn’t see the flash-less camera, didn’t notice how goddamn careless he was being. Steve knew—he _knew_ , like a ticking time bomb—that the whole house of cards would come tumbling down, not because they declared their love for the world to see, but because they became careless. 

Steve didn’t want the whole world to know the most personal part of his life. For a man with less than a hundred possessions to his name, including the clothes on his back and necessities like toothpaste, it was nauseating to contemplate having people proverbially peering in through the windows to see how he loved, _who_ he loved.

Trying to put his mind off things, he’d picked the next safest topic. A mission. _Not a mission. A recon_. “Norilsk?” Natasha repeated, her voice very sober, idly, almost self-comfortingly tucking her hand around his arm, for all the world like they were engaged in a lighthearted conversation. “There’s over 250,000 dead Russians buried there,” she said, crystal clear but quiet, almost silent to passerby. “What else do you want to know?”

Electric horror circulated up Steve’s spine, a crawling, nauseating feeling settling in his chest. He’d seen battlefields littered with the dead. There were few people alive who could understand the visceral _carnage_ he’d witnessed. He hadn’t been immune to it then. He wasn’t immune to the sight of the dead now, but there was something staggering, something incomprehensibly chilling about a quarter of a million dead in one small city in the unforgiving north. “Fury wants us there,” he said through numb lips. Then—he couldn’t lie, not to her, never to her; lying got your partners killed—he explained, “I traded a favor.”

Natasha looked at him with a mixture of pity, disbelief, and acceptance. It was amazing how she cycled through emotions. She was like him: three-track mind, one-track loop. 

You just had to get used to feeling too much all the time and present the most useful face to the rest of the world. If silent and brooding was acceptable, you could brood silently, but you better smile and wave when appropriate. He made a show of leaning in to whisper into her ear, not out of secrecy—no one was listening, but people were _watching—_ but simple need to keep up the act. “It’s not a mission. It’s a recon.”

Natasha smiled faintly, not at him. She swirled the remains of her drink before downing it. Then she set the glass down on a table and turned to look at him, for all the world like he’d said something sweet. She said calmly, “No one gets into Norilsk on a travel visa. It’s a mission.” 

A beat. She reached out, straightening his suit. Then she added in an undertone, “If Fury wants us there, something’s wrong.” Her brow didn’t furrow, no outward signs of alarm, but he was a soldier. He could see the signs of tension. More to comfort than for show, he caught her hands gently, set them on his waist and shoulder. He mirrored the pose, swaying slowly.

She sighed and said, in as tired a voice as he’d ever heard, “Do you know what you’re doing?”

Steve held her close, swayed. She leaned into him. “No,” he admitted. “But I trust Fury.”

She looked him in the eye, unblinking, sizing him up. Finally, she said, “Okay, Steve.”

A tension he hadn’t known he’d been carrying eased in his shoulders. He felt tired, too—not the kind of physical exhaustion that a hard battle induced, but the siren song of sleep after too many thoughts, too much to process in twenty-four hours; without sleep, the days just _bled_ into each other, never-ending—and he cradled her to him, desirously close, the intimacy known to friends who would die for each other and didn’t care if the world knew. They swayed for an hour, maybe longer, holding each other—her small, warm hands points of comfort, her weight against him grounding—and when at last they broke apart, she said, “I’ll talk to Clint.”

Steve nodded affirmatively. He would expect nothing else.

“Thank you.”

She looked him in the eye, reached up to cup one side of his face, warmth in the cool night. She said, “We do this right, or we don’t do it at all. Got it?”

He nodded against her hand.

He was bleeding emotionally with fatigue, aching for rest, aching for _reprieve_ , not wanting to be the soldier or the strategist or the man of the house, the man _holding up_ the house— _i_ _t’s 2012, Rogers, no one expects you to be—_ and instead focusing on just being another Avenger who lived in Tony Stark’s Tower. It wasn’t easy when the man-of-the-hour was lying half-on, half-off a couch, disheveled and ninety percent of the way to sleep.

Achy, cranky, mixed up with too many emotions, he still found gentleness, his core personality trait in a breakable world, as he slipped his arms around Tony and carried him to bed.

It was Saturday by the time he fell asleep—it still felt like Friday night, it didn’t count as a new day until he fell _asleep—_ and he felt some of the tension in his chest ease as Tony stroked his cheek, warm, easy, undemanding affection.

. o . 

**_Saturday, October 20, 2012_.**

“Hey.”

“Hm?” Steve set the tablet down on the table, looking at Tony with dark, unreadable eyes. He was still in uniform. That was rarely a good sign. “What?”

Tony slid onto his lap casually, arms around his neck. “Come to bed,” he suggested.

Steve made an impatient noise, glancing back at the tablet. “I don’t need sleep,” he said. Tony had heard it before. It wasn’t even untrue, but Tony had a feeling it wasn’t the full truth, either. Sleep wasn’t just a physical recharge. “You need something?” Steve asked, sounding distant, like he hadn’t fully committed to the conversation. “I’m—” He flicked his gaze back at Tony, cut himself off. He sighed, patting Tony’s hip gently, agreement without surrender. “All right.” He nodded, but he didn’t look at Tony. He looked back at the tablet. “In a bit.”

Tony said, “It’s four AM, bud. It’s gonna be sunup in a bit.”

Steve scowled. “I don’t care,” he said, unexpectedly sharp. “I’m busy.”

Tony waited until Steve looked at him, felt some of the frustration ebb into apology. “Sorry,” Steve murmured. “I’m not mad at you.”

“I know.” A beat. “Who, exactly, are you mad at?”

Steve didn’t smile. “Stalin.”

“Thought Hitler was more your tune,” Tony said unthinkingly.

Steve didn’t respond, standing up. He hesitated. Then he reached over, flicked the tablet into its standby mode. He had to know Tony could unlock it, but Tony respected the gesture. 

Frankly, ‘Stalin’ was a pretty big starting point. He’d been Hitler’s contemporary. His mere existence wasn’t new to Steve. But something else was.

Steve’s entire posture radiated tension. He clearly hadn’t expected Tony, clearly didn’t want to _deal_ with Tony. He waved a hand towards the door, _lead-the-way_.

Tony ignored the flippant gesture, instead reaching up to cup his face. “Hey.” Steve didn’t bother looking at him, like he was hoping to outlast Tony. _Good luck with that_. “What’s wrong?”

Steve looked at him, blinked once. Then he said slowly, “I don’t—I don’t know.”

“We don’t have to sleep,” Tony offered. It ached in his bones, but they’d been in the air. He felt energized, recharged. Steve was on his last legs and doing a damn good job at hiding it. Tony hated that he couldn’t see the progression. Steve didn’t slump; he just hit a wall. He went from happy and warm to cold and closed off in a cosmic instant. Tony fell apart in slow motion, a production, a display for the whole world to ogle. Steve kept his own breakdowns very quiet.

Steve paced away from Tony, towards the balcony. It was forty-two degrees Fahrenheit out. He slid the door open. Tony watched Steve freeze in the threshold, like he wasn’t expecting it to be as cold as it was. Then Steve slid the door shut again, looking over at Tony. He exhaled shortly, sharply. Shivered. The room was warm, but Steve shivered, eyes shutting tightly. Tony waited. “Steve?” he prompted. Steve didn’t respond, folding his arms across his chest, blowing out another short breath. “Hey.”

Steve looked at him, eyes dry, solemn. “You don’t have to do this alone,” Tony said. He could almost feel the full-body shiver that coursed through Steve’s shoulders. Tony stepped towards him. Steve stepped back. Tony stopped. “Just—it’s a lot, for one person, you know?” he said lamely. His four AM eloquence was largely _B_ _ed-good-let’s_. “I get it, you know, we’re supposed to be larger-than-life, but we’re _not_ , Rogers. Okay?”

Steve nodded once. “I know.” His voice was quiet enough Tony barely heard it. “I know. I understand, sir.”

Tony closed his own eyes for a moment. “Don’t call me that.”

Steve frowned at him. “I—” He faltered. Swallowed. “Yeah.” His voice sounded hoarser, less clear but more earnest. “Okay, Tony.” A pause. “I’m okay.”

“I’m gonna keep saying it until you read my lips,” Tony said, not unkindly. “It’s okay to not be okay.”

Steve chuckled humorlessly. “I hear you.”

“Don’t think you do, bud.” Tony eased back a step, giving him space. There was a whole city, a whole _world_ out there. Maybe giving him access to it all wasn’t healthy. But trying to shove it under a rug—

_Don’t lie to me!_

—wasn’t an option.

Steve sized him up, still shivering. It was barely noticeable, but Tony was observant. It was the little things. It was always the little things. 

Steve drew in another short breath. Something about darkness was threatening, unknown, belligerent. Things that were harmless in the cold light of day were deadly at night. And there was no more dire shade of blue than the one he couldn’t see through.

It was a hard color to love.

But they still loved it, the stars and the ink-blue nights. Darkness wasn’t the menace. It was just the stage.

Steve stepped towards him, slow, measured steps. Tony took one step forward to meet him, holding onto him, almost unconsciously grabbing the back of his shoulder-straps, anchor-points. It was an easy place to hold onto, felt safe. Strong. Steve didn’t falter. He trembled in place, weathering it.

Tony rested his cheek against Steve’s shoulder. He felt Steve’s hands flex against the back of his own shirt, searching, restless, gathering fistfuls of fabric in quiet desperation. “I’m here,” Tony murmured. “I gotcha, big guy.”

Steve nodded, a jerky movement, before inhaling sharply. Some of the rigid tension eased. Tony spoke softly. “Nobody’s tough all the time,” he reminded. He wanted to pat his back, but he also didn’t want to let him go, even for a second. He held on instead. _I’ve got you_. “That’s why we’ve got people. Remember? Everybody’s got people. I’ve got people.” _I’ve got you_. “Don’t do this alone.”

Steve nodded again. Tony dared to let him go enough to pat his back, firmly. “C’mon, tough guy. It’s late. Don’t have to solve all the world’s problems in one night. 

“It’ll keep spinning.”

. o . 

_Friday, June 8, 2012_.

They landed in a nondescript airfield in Geneva, Switzerland at 2:58 AM, local. Tony felt like the headache splitting his head would never end. He wasn’t sure if he would ever sleep again, rattled, cold to the bone despite the warmth of the night air. Kunar was the only word in his head. Kunar, Kunar, Kunar.

They were greeted by a cavalry of sober-faced S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives who promptly gathered around, seemingly desperate to get a helping hand on Captain America, get him inside the nearby facility before he collapsed. To assuage their concerns, Steve shirked the shoulder Hawkeye offered and limped under his own power inside, moving more steadily than Tony would have thought possible.

Steve dripped blood on the linoleum, moved with obvious effort, but he still dredged up reassurances from somewhere. “Always wanted to come to Geneva. Heard the service was to die for,” he said in a morbid attempt at levity. There was nervous laughter from the peanut gallery, like no one wanted to be the one to break Captain America’s heart and not appreciate the effort. They fell into a more relaxed manner despite the sad state of their icon as he continued chatting with them, shaking a firm hand here, squeezing a shoulder reassuringly there, _I’m here, it’s all right now._

Tony stayed back, forgotten, disbelieving and in pain that had no physical roots.

Steve was a captain through and through. They pried the shrapnel from his chest without a drop of anesthesia and he gripped the table underneath his palms until it bent and when they paused, nervous, he said, “You’re all right. It’s okay, I’m not gonna get mad.” Another, quieter ripple of nervous amusement. He talked to them the whole way through, like he was comforting them, reaching out to lay a hand on a forearm reassuringly. He spoke to them like friends, even though Tony had the distinct feeling neither party had ever met in person.

When a S.H.I.E.L.D. operative stepped forward, speaking German, Steve calmly drew the man’s attention to him, spoke to him. Tony had no idea what Steve said – even the suit’s translator could only do so much, with Steve’s speech rough-edged and slurring faintly despite his best efforts – but it must have been reassuring, because the operative took his bloody hand in both of his own and spoke clearly enough that Tony’s suit finally picked it up: _You are a good soldier. Greatly admired here. Thank you for what you have done for us._

Steve said something softly in reply. The agent stepped back, communicating with a small cluster of people outside who had gathered to see the commotion. Tony felt claustrophobic in the middle of it all. Four people were around Steve, twice as many in and near the room, communicating with them and the pilots. There had to be twenty people in a space designed for eight.

Tony made no effort to speak to anyone, presiding silently over the scene. It was an oxymoron – Iron Man, the wallflower – but he couldn’t find words. He didn’t know what he’d expected, but to see Steve reassure them every time he so much as trembled was unbearable. Nobody was supposed to comfort the living when they were dying.

_He’s not dying._

It was hard to act with the ringing in Tony’s ears, the fog in his mind. He made the mistake of pulling up the triage HUD. Steve lit up like a Christmas tree. Yellow patches had shifted into the orange and red spectrum. Steve’s right ankle was violet, deeply disrupted, likely excruciatingly painful. His chest was painted midnight-blue. Every time he twitched, he shivered, a movement so small no one else could pick it up. No one but Iron Man.

After that, Tony couldn’t stand still. He didn’t know what he was doing, was barely present, but he stepped forward, eyes aglow, and said sternly, “Okay, party’s over, everybody without a medical license, get out.”

In a snap, they were alone but for two residents. Tony looked at them, the Iron Man glare intimidating enough to make even hardened criminals uneasy, but Steve warned quietly, “Tony,” and he looked at Steve instead. Then, feeling doubly angry at the whole pony show, at his own inability to so much as get his voice to not crack when he spoke, Tony walked over to the door and shut it forcefully.

Instantly, the room was quieter. Tony sagged in relief, but he couldn’t stop shaking, hands pressed against the frame. There was no window in the door, no way to see into Captain America’s soul. He knew they would be anxious to know more. Tony didn’t care. He’d deal with them when the time came.

A nurse touched the boot on Steve’s right foot. In an electrified movement, Steve crushed the metal table underneath one hand in silent agony, promptly apologizing, “Sorry. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” one of the nurses assured. Tony wasn’t keeping track, could barely keep the room from spinning, as Cap pressed the back of his hand to his mouth.

“Leave it,” he suggested suddenly. 

They backed off.

At least they got the metal out of his chest, Tony thought. ( _Before it healed,_ he wouldn’t realize until months later as Steve, unfiltered and unrestrained, writhed under his metal arm.)

In the bleary present, Steve zipped the suit back up, covering bandages and bruises alike neatly, efficiently. They wrapped the wound on his calf again; Steve inhaled sharply at the movement, offering only a reassuring wave of his hand. He was flagging and they couldn’t see it, but Tony could. The upbeat conversationalist was gone. The stoic soldier was the only one left.

Steve held it together, through grit and steel alone. When he finally moved to stand, Tony was under his right shoulder in a second, preventing him from settling his full weight on the floor. Steve’s right leg hovered. Whatever shock or adrenaline had carried him the final steps over the desert was dry. He didn’t put his weight on it. He couldn’t seem to make himself.

Tony wanted to carry him, but he couldn’t, so he did the next best thing, silently enforcing a radius that the people outside the room obliged. They listened to him, to _Iron Man_. It only occurred to him as he caught the respectful looks directed at him that they’d all heard about New York, too.

He felt uncomfortable in his own skin and moved as quickly as he could, each heavy step feeling like condemnation. _I don’t deserve your respect._

They were back on the Quinjet. Steve almost broke Tony’s shoulder with how hard he gripped the suit as Tony guided him back over to his chair, like he hadn’t budgeted the last five steps between the jet door and true reprieve. They made it, somehow. Tony lowered him carefully to the chair, mindful of all that red and blue.

Steve looked up at him. Tony found himself assuring, “It’s okay.” 

Steve’s eyes closed. Tony stepped back, chest tight, lost.

Time passed. Tony didn’t keep track of how much, sitting in his own chair, safe in the suit. All he knew for sure was that it was late when the copilot looked over his shoulder at Cap, who stared back with barely-open eyes. 

“How you doing, Cap?” the copilot asked, his voice level, conversational. He probably assumed Tony could choose not to hear him in the suit and Clint, dozing in his own seat and noticeably lacking hearing aids, wasn’t about to stir.

Steve closed his eyes, rallying himself. “I’ve been better, Jack,” he admitted.

“Anything I can get you? Want some water?”

“Thank you.” That was all he said, but Jack unbuckled and got up, rifling through the supplies and producing a bottle of water. Tony felt almost sick with apology that he hadn’t thought of it, but there was nothing to be done for the past. 

“Let me see if we’ve got some Ibuprofen,” Jack said conversationally, rummaging around.

Steve drank slowly. He looked like he wanted to drink it fast, gulping it before forcing himself to slow down. Jack pulled a medicine bottle out of the same bag and shook out a handful of tablets, passing them to Cap, who slugged them down without a word. His hands were shaking as he finally put the cap back on the empty water bottle. He looked sick, like he would throw up, but the moment passed and Jack took the bottle from his hand.

“Where’re you at, Cap? We need to make a layover?”

The fact that Jack—Tony wondered when Steve and he had met, how many missions they’d been on, how much blame he could rest on the man’s shoulders for the disaster in front of them—was concerned put Tony on edge for an indefinable reason. Steve shook his head carefully, eyes shut.

Jack stepped back and rummaged through the bags stored overhead. He produced what looked like a thermal blanket. He draped it over Steve gently. Tony had a vision of doing the same thing. It was only days ago, but it felt like centuries. The weight of today was almost too much. 

Safe on the Quinjet and far from Afghanistan, Tony shut his own eyes and finally let himself sleep.

. o . 

_**Saturday, October 20, 2012.** _

They laid on the floor in the nest of blankets Steve had stripped from his bed. Tony had his cheek on Steve’s chest, one of Steve’s arms slung around the back of his shoulders, thumb stroking his skin. Tony felt very warm. Not just from the blankets or even Steve—the room itself was warmer than Tony’s.

It was quiet but not silent. Tony didn’t have enough words in his head. So, per his request, J.A.R.V.I.S. piped in soft music. It was a strange, lovely amalgamation of modern music recreated in old-fashioned styles, mostly jazz and swing from the ‘30s and ‘40s. 

Tony didn’t know what exactly had inspired him, but he didn’t want to play his music. He didn’t want to play Steve’s music, either, so he found a beautiful compromise that made the space feel safer.

Steve slept. Tony held on, comforted by the solidarity underneath him. He had no doubt in his mind that they were a beautiful mess. He had equally little doubt that there was no place or time that he’d rather be than right here, right now.

 _We’ll make it,_ he promised Steve, letting his own eyes slide shut. 

_We always do_.


	17. COLD SNAP

It was snowing.

Tony stared out dark glassy windows and watched the midnight flurry. “It’s snowing,” he announced.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Bruce looked up from his laptop, reading glasses low on his nose. “Hm?” Then he looked out the windows and confirmed, “It’s snowing.” 

Tony helped himself to a cup of coffee. Bruce mused, “Didn’t know it was in the forecast. Did you?”

“I don’t check the weather."

“I thought you were the planner?”

“You can’t plan for the weather.” Sipping his coffee, Tony asked, “Natasha get in all right?”

Bruce pushed his glasses up his nose. “Yeah, she got in around one.” Flexing his arms behind his shoulders, he cracked his back and admitted, “I shouldn’t stay up too late. I promised I’d Skype my Arctic kids at noon.”

“Chop, chop,” Tony said without urgency, staring out the windows again.

Bruce followed his gaze. They watched it snow together, the bright city lights like a sea of stars. “It's beautiful,” Bruce mused. “I can’t believe I’ve already—well, I haven’t,” he course-corrected, shaking his head. “I haven’t gotten used to it. Being here.” Looking at Tony, he asked, “Have you?”

Tony considered it. Bruce wasn’t asking about the space. He was asking about the _team_.

Once upon a time, it had been nothing more than a passing thought that the Avengers might eventually live with him, one that started with shawarma and ended with Captain America sleeping on Tony’s couch. At the time, Steve was still a stranger, a danger, a passerby who didn’t trust him.

He trusted Tony now. That was surreal.

“No,” Tony admitted, because it was true.

Bruce nodded. “It’s nice,” he said. “Having everyone together.” Closing his laptop, Bruce stretched, slapped a hand on his thigh to enliven it. He reflected, “I can’t sit on the floor anymore.”

“When’d we stop being twenty, Bruce?” Tony asked, a whimsical tone in his voice.

Bruce chuckled darkly, pushing himself to his feet. “A long, long time ago.”

Tony nodded and finished off his coffee. “At least we’re both still beautiful.”

Bruce huffed, gathering his laptop and coffee mug in his hand. “There is that.” A pause. “I’m gonna hit the hay. Need anything?”

Tony shook his head. “’Night.”

“Good night, Tony.”

The door slid shut behind Bruce, leaving Tony alone with the darkness, the dormant city, the fading snow.

Crossing the room, he slid the balcony door open, letting in a blast of cold air. The chill was electrifying, breathtaking. Tony ventured outside, his long-sleeved shirt and full-length pants pitiful against the snow. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t there to stay. Marveling, he watched the snow come down for maybe a minute, maybe two, before beating a calm retreat to the Tower.

It hovered right at freezing. It was blink-and-you’ll-miss-it-snow.

Tony stood and watched the snowflakes vanish into cold nonthreatening darkness.

 _Happy fall_.

. o . 

Tony sneezed. 

“Oh, fuck off,” he muttered peevishly, pawing around for a tissue, one degree above death-warmed-over.

Bruce asked meekly, “Is this is a bad time?”

Spinning in his lab chair, Tony glared at him. “What?”

Bruce shrank in the doorway, wringing his hands. “I thought I’d, you know. Check in.” Tony scowled. “Have you been here all day?”

“Maybe,” Tony grunted. Sniffling, he added, “Gonna kill those fuckin’ kids.”

Bruce blinked. Alarmed, he asked, “What kids?”

“Zygotes,” Tony grunted, coughing into his sleeve. When Bruce spared him a pitying look, he held up his gauntleted palm and warned, “Leave me alone or die by my sword.”

Wisely, Bruce made himself scarce.

Piling up a stack of empty tissue boxes, Tony constructed an impromptu head rest so he could continue tinkering with the Mark IX gauntlets. He didn’t watch the clock. It seemed like hours and no time at all before the lab door slid open again. “You’re gonna lead me to an early death, you know that?” Steve huffed.

Tony didn’t lift his head. “Sucks to suck, Hermes.”

Sighing, Steve crossed the floor and asked, “What are you doing?”

“What are _you_ doing?”

Steve crouched and put a heavy hand on Tony’s arm. “You know I already had my morning run, right? I don’t need another?”

Tony slanted a glance at him but didn’t bother lifting his head. He didn't want to move: he was comfy and there were at least two hundred cotton balls inside his skull. Only staying level with the table kept the cotton balls from bunching painfully behind his forehead. He simpered, “Aw. Poor old man’s out of shape. Poor, poor old man.”

Steve sat back on his derrière and said with suppressed amusement, “Tony, I thought you got _hurt_. I was in the middle of a meeting.”

“Poor Captain America. His life is so sad. He’s more popular than the President.”

“I don’t have to raise anybody’s taxes.”

“The President doesn’t raise taxes.”

Steve sighed. Reaching out to pat Tony’s left calf, he noted, “I am glad you’re not bleeding out, Tony.”

“I am dying a far more cruel and untimely death.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

“I thought you were like George Washington.”

“Hm?”

“Couldn’t tell a lie. You’re a liar. My insincerity senses are off the charts.”

Steve arched both eyebrows. His face was already shifting back from a red-faced flush to its normal complexion, his entire demeanor relaxed and easy. Tony envied him. “Your insincerity senses?” Steve echoed dubiously.

“Don’t avoid the question. Liar.”

Dryly, Steve said, “There was a question in there?”

“Now you’re just obfuscating.”

“Obfuh-what?”

“Obfuscating,” Tony repeated. “Look it up.” A beat. “I would literally destroy you at Scrabble.”

Steve regarded him patiently. Tony narrowed his own eyes. “What?”

Shaking his head, Steve said breezily, “Nothin’. Just, core personality traits.” He couldn’t resist a smirk.

Tony wanted to scowl at him, but he had the gnawing feeling it looked more like a pout. “I hate you.”

Steve blinked up at him and tilted his head, all big Bambi eyes. “Aww.”

 _Rude_. Tony closed his own eyes. “Have you come to heckle me on my death bed?”

Steve shook his head, bouncing back to his feet. “No, no I didn’t. I came to help.” Standing over Tony, still slumped over his work bench, he added, “You know, I appreciate innovation when I see it, but there’s a bed with your name on it that’s probably comfier.”

Eyes closed, Tony muttered, “It doesn’t have my name on it.”

With genuine surprise, Steve said, “Really? I feel like it does. Somewhere.”

“I’m a reformed narcissist,” Tony sniffed. It wasn’t fair that after all the good he’d done, he still fell victim to the elements. He was doing his part to better the world by avoiding sleep and working constantly, and _this_ was the thanks he got? “It’s not fair,” he told Steve. Steve’s shoulder. Fancy that.

“What’s not fair?” Steve asked, carrying him. Tony could feel his voice through his chest. Steve had a nice indoor voice, a kind of reading-at-night tonality. It was unfair to keep it to himself, but he was selfish like that.

“Tony?”

“Hm?”

“Y’okay? You’re not secretly dying on me, are you?”

Tony sighed, then said, “It’s just an expression, Rogers.”

Steve carried him towards the door. Tony didn’t miss his muttered, “Sure, now who’s semantic?”

. o .

Lying facedown on his bed, Tony declared, “I changed my mind. I’m literally dying.”

Steve said, “Been there.” He fanned a freshly-heated blanket out on top of Tony. Tony groaned in ecstasy. “I think you’ll live.” He added another dryer-heated blanket for good measure.

Buried in pure blanket goodness, Tony told him (well, he told the mattress, but Steve understood), “I love you so goddamn much.”

“I’m gonna get whiplash from all these declarations of appreciation,” Steve said lightly, clambering onto the bed and, with obvious care and no small amount of playfulness, draping himself over Tony’s back. He exhaled deeply. “You were right. This was a great idea.”

“And still with the tone of surprise,” Tony mumbled.

“Hm?”

“I said, ‘I could get lost in your eyes.’”

Steve huffed, rolling off him and lying down on his side next to him. “’S what I thought.”

Tony pawed around and found Steve’s shirt. He latched onto it. Belatedly, he realized that he still had the gauntlet on. He unlatched it and chucked it over Steve’s shoulder. It hit the floor with an audible thunk. “Don’t break it,” Steve rebuked.

“Shut it,” Tony grunted, shimmying closer, tucking his head under Steve’s chin. “I made it, I can break it. And it won’t break.” Sniffling, he explained, “I could drop a building on it, and it would break the building.”

“Hm.” Helpfully, Steve gathered Tony in his arms, closing the distance between them. Between the softness of the sheets and the solidity of Steve’s embrace, it was, in Tony’s humble estimation, the comfiest place on Earth. Sighing, Tony tucked his cheek against Steve’s shoulder. “Need anything?” Steve asked.

Tony shook his head. Steve kept talking. Tony was pretty confident that mixed in with light banter were actual questions he was supposed to answer, but it was easier to let sleep wash over him instead.

. o .

Tony awoke with a start. 

Beside him, Steve almost jerked off the bed. “Geez, you’re jumpy,” he muttered, relaxing next to him, one arm draping around Tony comfortingly.

Tony could barely appreciate the deep timbre in his voice. Misery crowded behind his forehead, a pitiful sound leaking out of his mouth. At least a thousand cotton balls had crammed themselves between his ears. “I am made of discomfort,” he grunted. “I hate colds.”

“They’re no fun,” Steve agreed in his lovely Brooklyn storytelling register. He must have been talking for a while, Tony surmised, sad that he’d missed it but more resigned to his own misery. “Might help to shower, yanno, clear your head? Or soup, soup helps.” He rubbed Tony’s back. “What can I do?”

Tony thought, _Stay_ because he was a wonderful pillow. Steve had moved them: he was now sprawled on his back with Tony draped on top of him. Each inhale made Tony rise; each exhale made him fall. It was entrancing. He’d lost himself to the rhythm when Steve asked, “Tony?”

“Mm-hm?” Sniffing, he gathered his thoughts and added through dry-mouthed discomfort, “I don’t want you to go.”

“Then I won’t,” Steve assured, stroking the small of his back. Tony rubbed his cheek against Steve’s shoulder in gratitude, eyes shut. “Just wish I could help.”

“You are helping,” Tony told his shoulder. Steve huffed. In a nearly inaudible murmur, Tony asked, “You see the snow?”

“Snow?”

“Snowed. This morning.”

“Hm.” With measured nonchalance, Steve said, “No, no I didn’t see it.”

Tony regretted, suddenly, bringing it up. “It’s fine. Melted.”

“Hmm.”

Tony dragged himself out of Steve’s arms so he could lean up and look down at him. He winced as the cotton balls piled behind his eyes, but he forced himself to ask, “This gonna be a problem?”

Steve’s expression went flat. His mouth settled in a firm line, his eyes dark and unreadable. His entire demeanor bespoke polite distance. “What? No. ’Course not.” He slid warm hands around Tony’s back, encouraging him to lie down. The gentle pressure was irresistible. It was easier to lean on him, to trust Steve to be a rational adult and to pillow his own heavy head on Steve’s shoulder again.

“It’s all right,” Steve murmured, cupping the back of his head. “I’m here. Don’t worry.

“Everything’s gonna be all right.”

. o .

Doped up on enough cold medicine to supply a small nation, Tony sat behind his desk and scrolled through his StarkPad.

( _It’s l_ _ike the iPad, but better._

_And by better, you mean more narcissistic?_

_Marketable, Pepper._ )

The name was a placeholder that stuck. A Roomba by any other name was still a Roomba. A StarkPad was a tablet with an in-built commitment to privacy. Tony didn’t care what the free world cared to do with his devices. He kept their information private. The tablets sold like hot cakes in a market becoming increasingly aware that Big Brother was watching.

It didn’t hurt that they were only a couple hundred dollars dearer for a lifetime of usability. Tony liked to keep his own toys, so he approached the market with the same magnanimity. He wanted to give them the good stuff, not the breakable, replaceable wonder-toy-of-the-hour. He’d said as much, on the record, to competitors’ chagrin. He didn’t do gimmicks. He just put the future in the hands of people without strings, strings, strings.

And if narcissism, thine name was StarkPad, at least he owned it. He never once admitted embarrassment about the name. (“The term ‘I’ goes in and out of fashion, pitted forever against the royal ‘we’—but ‘Stark’ is a neutral term. If it was a SophoclesPad, it’d be as timeless.”)

Even the Iron Man suits were unpresumptuously named ‘Model 7,’ ‘Model 8,’ and so on. ‘Mark’ was also placeholder name that took off. Slapping Roman numerals on it gave the enterprise an air of austerity. 

Model 7 was a car. 

Mark VII was an Iron Man suit.

Absentmindedly, Tony skimmed through his catalogue of Iron Man suits on his pad. The assemblage was over two hundred strong. While most would never be actualized, he liked to build them anyway, scanning through Marks 1 through 209. At times, he’d been tempted to slap an L in front of the model-name, add fifty to the baseline—Mark-50, Mark-59—because it made a bolder statement before he had resolved to earn it instead. 

Most people thought he had maybe two or three Iron Man suits. As many probably thought he’d lost or discarded the retired models. Nobody knew outside his circle of friends knew that he had all ten salvageable models in storage.

In print, he’d drawn countless broad-strokes sketches, keeping things simple. He might splash colors on the suits to see what they would look like in green, blue, indigo, violet. He would doodle during business meetings, while on the phone, anywhere he could to get his ideas out of his head and onto something graspable.

He wasn’t an artist in the traditional sense of _this is my life’s work_. To him, it was a means to an end. He was an engineer, obsessed with the real, the grounded, the actual. 

Then again, he mused, expanding the retractable wing-plates on the Mark LVII (Model 57), maybe he _was_ an artist. He was a human being; human beings had been making documented cave art since 40,000 BCE.

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. Tony flicked the StarkPad into standby mode and unlocked it remotely, inviting “Bambi! My dear, you have no idea how good it is to see you.”

“Happy Tuesday to you, too, Mr. Stark,” Bambina Arbogast said, stepping through the doorway with a folder in her arms. “I’m just the messenger today.”

“Have at it.” Tony nodded and Bambi set the packet on his desk. He didn’t reach for it, asking, “How are you, Bambi?”

“Just fine, sir.”

“My father was sir. I’m ‘Your Majesty,’” Tony corrected.

Bambi smiled. “Will that be all, Your Majesty?”

Tony smiled back. “That’s why I like you, Bambi. You know how to play ball.” Nodding regally, he added, “I’m good. Please give yourself an extra hour for lunch. I love watching the chickens run around while you’re gone.”

Bambi shrugged. “If you insist.” Turning, she added politely, “I’ll be at my desk if you need me.”

“Thank you, Bambi.” Tony waited until the door had slid shut behind her before looking down at the sealed folder, musing, “J.A.R.V.I.S., anything nefarious?”

From his metal bracelet, a laser light emerged and scanned the files. “No, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied. After a beat, he added, “I should add that all communiques must pass through three layers of security before reaching your office.”

“You can never be too careful.” Picking up the folder, Tony stifled a cough, flipped it open, and choked on his breath.

“Sir?”

Thumping his own chest, Tony surged backward, reeling in alarm. He nearly tipped out of his chair as he scrambled back, heart pounding, needing to put distance between himself and the horror, the horror on his desk.

When he continued to gasp senselessly, gripping the wall with one hand, J.A.R.V.I.S. asked, “Sir, do I need to call Ms. Arbogast?”

Sucking in a dizzying breath, Tony croaked, “No.” He had to answer: J.A.R.V.I.S. had a ten-second protocol to request emergency services after his heart rate exceeded a certain threshold. If Tony didn’t respond, J.A.R.V.I.S. called in the cavalry. In almost every circumstance, it guaranteed an overreaction, but on the off-chance that the threat was real and imminent, it meant Tony’s location and vitals were transmitted to an emergency recipient’s phone. 

You could never be too careful.

Gasping, he lurched forward to close the folder, but he couldn’t make himself touch it. “Where’d—where did this come from?”

The laser light expanded from his wrist, scanning the open folder. “I can find no traces of a postal delivery,” J.A.R.V.I.S. said promptly. “It appears to have been hand-delivered.”

Tony’s heart pounded. J.A.R.V.I.S. asked again, “Sir, shall I call Ms. Arbogast?”

“No,” Tony repeated adamantly, slapping the folder shut, gripping the desk beneath it. He sat hard in his chair and shut his eyes. “Patch me through to Fury.”

“Director Fury, sir?”

Tony’s anger boiled out of him: “Did I fucking stutter?”

He heard an old-school telephone ringing sound, the best nonverbal confirmation J.A.R.V.I.S. could provide. Then Fury’s gruff voice said, “ _Hello?_ ”

“There’s been a security breach.”

He could almost hear Fury sit up straight. “ _What do you mean?_ ”

Tony tried to keep his own voice level. “I can’t say over the phone.”

Fury knew how good his firewall software was, how J.A.R.V.I.S. could shut down hacks, which made his voice somber when he replied, “ _Get here_.”

“I’ll be there in five.”

. o .

Fury, thankfully, kept the folder angled away from Tony so he couldn’t see the carnage, but he couldn’t _unsee_ the images.

Flipping expressionlessly through the file, Fury said smoothly, “This is a problem.”

A borderline hysterical laugh bubbled out of Tony. Sitting in the Mark IX armor, he asked in a metallic voice, “You fucking think?”

Fury glared at him with such remonstrance that Tony found himself saying, “Sorry.”

Returning his gaze to the folder, Fury flipped through the pictures, tension visible in every line in his body. “Who else has seen this?”

Tony shook his head. “No one.” When Fury looked at him doubtfully, he explained, “All the security measures are completely noninvasive. You can even read the ink on the text without decrypting the words. Nobody read it. The seal was unbroken.” Bambi would have dropped dead in shock, he didn’t add. “How the hell did someone get pictures—”

There was a long weighted pause. Horror shot through Tony’s spine. He croaked, “Oh, fuck.”

“Oh, fuck, indeed,” Fury said, voice glacially calm. “We missed one.”

Tony closed his eyes. It didn’t matter—hidden behind the helmet, Fury couldn’t see it, only saw blazing white-blue eyes and a rigid posture—but his gasping breath was painfully audible. He had to swallow hard to keep from throwing up. “We checked,” he said pathetically. Even if they hadn’t, Natasha had been there, five hours later, to take care of the mess. Tony didn’t know how. He didn’t ask.

“Moles are hard to find,” Fury said, absolving him of blame. Tony didn’t want it.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

“When did you get this?”

“About a minute before I called you.”

Fury nodded. A flicker of worry passed over his expression before he shut the folder. Even he seemed uneasy around the edges. Tony couldn’t blame him. In a small, cognitive corner of his mind, he admired Fury’s cool, his ability to examine the documents. The _photos_.

Fuck.

“We need to find the mole,” Fury said, his calm belying real unease. “Yesterday, actually.”

“And then what?” Tony found himself asking. “We’ll shoot ‘em?”

Fury didn’t even blink. “We’ll handle it,” he said cryptically.

A frisson of electric horror curled up Tony’s spine. The thought of cold-blooded execution didn’t sit well with him, but everything Fury wasn’t saying was plain. _What else would you have us do?_

The mole had slipped under their radar once. They could do it again.

“I need Banner,” Fury said abruptly.

Tony was so dizzy, so sick to his stomach that snark alone kept him from passing out: “This a level six?”

Fury didn’t even blink. “This is completely off-the-books.” A beat. “I need you to understand something, Mr. Stark. There are only ten people on the planet that know what Captain America did on the night of June 7th.” A pause. “Assuming you told Thor.”

Tony stared at him. “Ten?” he repeated, mouth dry. _Pilot, copilot. Me, Clint, Natasha, Bruce. Fury. Hill._ And Steve himself made nine. He hadn’t told Thor. He didn’t know why. _It never came up_.

Fury nodded once, his entire demeanor calm, his expression rock-steady.

The implication was damning. Tony couldn’t make himself say it. Fury did.

“The Council doesn’t know.”

Tony put his head in his metal hands, suddenly too heavy to hold. He breathed as deeply as he could. It still felt fast, panicky.

“Why?” Tony croaked.

Fury was silent for a long time. Tony tried to compose himself. J.A.R.V.I.S. said, to him alone, “Perhaps you should step outside for a moment, sir.”

 _Like hell_.

Fury said, “I think you know why, Mr. Stark.”

He did. The Council was prepared to nuke New York City to contain an alien invasion. They didn’t have a feelings’ department. Their regard for human life was a numbers’ game. It was all about saving the biggest slice of the cosmic pie.

Tony knew, in a cold, logical corner of his mind, that they would never do anything in the open. It would be an accident. A mission gone wrong. And they’d have their box in the ground and another problem solved. People would mourn, of course, but they’d lost Captain America once. They could do it again.

He couldn’t breathe, full-fledged panic robbing him of air. He barely heard Fury say, “We have to trace the mole.”

Tony nodded slowly. “Why now?” he asked.

Fury’s expression was grim. He hesitated like he wouldn’t say, but then he admitted, “Because they’re ready now.”

Tony didn’t ask _ready for what_.

Plan-of-attack was plain in the air. 

. o .

_Stark—we need a plan of attack!_

_I have a plan: attack._

. o .

Finding Captain America was the news story of the century. They broadcast it on every major news network, presenting it to the world as the treasure hunt payoff of a lifetime. No one had ever survived cryonic preservation before. It was sensational to report that Captain America was not only intact but _alive_. The fervor to see him was uncontainable in the hours leading up to his awakening. Everyone wanted a piece of him, to meet him, to shake hands with the man who had saved millions of lives and inspired a nation in one of its darkest hours. He was more popular than the President of the United States—and Michael Ellis was far from bottom ten, sitting in the middle, neither despised nor adored.

Captain America was adored, worshiped, anticipated with such endless hopefulness that the nation could not have outdone itself for the Second Coming of Christ. He was, in many ways, the savior they’d been looking for. With a nation not in ruin but in the throes of its adolescence, tearing at its own skin in an effort to find peace with itself and its sister countries, everyone wanted Captain America to come and tell them how to fix everything. 

World suffering, disease, famine—war. He was the man who would battle the Four Horsemen. He would be damned if he ended up on ice again before he finished. It was an exhilarating time to be an American. It was a flash-focus snapshot of the world, that it, too, awaited with such fervor to see the man, the myth, the legend walk the Earth. The discovery wasn’t an extraordinary accident: it was destiny. Captain America was meant to come back. Everyone wanted to see him.

At first, they were patient, too, patient enough to accept the role of standing back and waiting. First Captain America was found, then he was alive, then he was stable. At last, to a nation beside itself with hopefulness, Captain America was awake. 

The news broke twenty minutes after the fact. The response was over-the-moon. People celebrated April 3rd, 2012 as a new kind of holiday. They set off fireworks. There were talks of parades. The President himself welcomed Captain America home with the now famous line: “Welcome back, Cap.” 

Understated, it became a rallying point. Hundreds of thousands of posts on social media showed people from every background, nationality, and walk of life holding up signs with that immortal phrase on it.

People were excited for America. It was the birthday present of the new millennium, a timeless hero brought back at the perfect moment to put them on the right path, to enliven and inspire them, to be everything and anything they needed. Everyone already knew everything, knew what he could _do_ : they knew that Captain America was both superhuman and super-heroic, the first (and in many ways, only) successful recipient of a super-soldier serum. They knew he was stronger and faster and _better_ than any of them could ever dream of being. He was the pinnacle of humanity. The literal peak of human performance, the best they could ever hope to be. Within his chest beat the heart of a champion, the actualization of a dream as deep as time: _How good can we be?_

Captain America’s first words were unscripted. He had a nice speech, 180 words, transcribed in full:

 _Hello, America. For the sake of introduction, my name is Steve Rogers. You probably know me as Captain America. Early in the morning on March 4th, 1945, I took command of an enemy plane and, in the service of my country, neutralized its payload. To do so, I had to make a crash landing in Greenland. Eleven days ago, I was found by an Arctic team and, thanks to the miracle of modern technology, brought home. I am honored and grateful for their efforts and those of everyone involved in my return. In my brief time here and now, I have seen wonders beyond my wildest dreams. Some people have asked me if I would retire, now that the War is over. To them, and to you, I have only this to say: I’m here to serve, to fight for the good of the world and the sake of humanity. I’m here, not to sit back, but to step forward and finish what I started. To see a world prosper. It’s good to be home. Thank you for having me_.

Almost on accident, his first words to the nation weren’t a hello. They were, whisper-soft: “So many people.” 

Spoken in a tone of wonder and genuine amazement, like he couldn’t believe anyone would still know his name, let alone want to attend the first speech delivered by the second leader of the free world. He said it so softly that the mic on his throat barely picked it up. For the rest of the speech, he spoke firmly, clearly, with perfect recall, but that brief unscripted phrase— _so many people—_ became immortal in its own way.

. o .

Trying to unsee the pictures burned in his mind, the bodies, the bodies, draped across the sand, Tony thought it was grimly appropriate. 

_So many people_.

He stuck the three-point landing outside the Pentagon and waited. He didn’t have to wait long. People knew Iron Man. When Iron Man landed outside the Pentagon, word traveled fast. It was six minutes before Captain America loped down the stairs, halting in front of him, expression grim. Tony didn’t bother suit down. He just said in a firm metallic voice, “We need to talk.” He sounded immovable, strong, like the very word of the world. He felt like he was falling apart, a puppet with its strings cut. The suit was the only thing keeping him steady.

Steve didn’t bother asking why Tony was interrupting him from important meetings twice in one day. (And _why_ the fuck was Captain America talking with the Department of Defense? Tony wondered, more in despair than anger. It was an absent thought, because Steve belonged first and foremost to the Army. Naturally, he split his time between them and S.H.I.E.L.D., but it felt damning now.)

 _You wanna run away?_ he felt tempted to ask, because God, he had that silver star on his chest, the shield on his right arm, a walking target.

In another life, Steve might have fought him for grabbing his shoulder strap in a firm metallic hand, the only warning before takeoff, but he tensed and away they went.

When they were over a thousand feet off the ground, they were, for all intents and purposes, invisible to the people below. The Iron Man thrusters were still bright lights, ensuring that Tony couldn’t disappear, but even at this altitude, they were up top, above the trouble.

Taking advantage of Steve’s shoulder straps, Tony looped his Iron arm through them, holding Steve one-armed. For his part, Steve kept his shield level with his chest, reducing drag as Tony floated up to the clouds. “Couldn’t call?” Steve said as soon as they were up above them, hidden from the world below.

Tony exhaled raggedly. Steve’s voice softened, even as the breathless bite of cold made it stutter. “What happened?”

“You remember Kunar?” Tony’s voice was more abrupt than he wanted it to be. He winced behind the mask. Steve couldn’t see it, his own expression flat, guarded. “Someone sent me a postcard.” A pause. “You were in it.”

Steve’s arm dropped. His shield stayed on his arm, but any trace of stalwart detachment vanished. There was apology and despair in his voice as he said, “Oh, hell, Tony.”

“Mm-hm.” 

“Hell,” Steve repeated. His face was flushed, altitude, cold. “Who knows?”

“Family.” Steve closed his eyes. His jaw was hard. Tony had the distinct impression he was trying not to throw up. “Fury. Usual suspects.” It was easier, up here, in the suit, to feel safe, untouchable. Didn’t hurt that the cold medicine made everything seem one layer removed from reality. “He’s already got Bruce tracking down the mole.”

“Mole?” Steve’s voice was ragged.

“Survivor,” Tony said, and promptly regretted it. Steve didn’t move, didn’t make a sound, didn’t look at Tony. “I didn’t want to call,” he said lamely. “We don’t know where the leak came from. Who’s listening.”

He couldn’t deny the paranoia in his own tone. Steve breathed in deeply, held it. Held it for a long time. “You fly here?” he asked, voice detached, remote.

“Mm-hm.”

Steve looked at him, expression schooled into flat, calm. “Okay.” Then, drawing in a deep breath, shivering in the cold, he added, “I can’t help if I don’t know more.”

Tony felt some unspoken tension unspool in his chest. Captain America was going to help. “I’ll take you.”

Steve nodded again. “Let go,” he instructed, which Tony balked at until he tucked his free hand into Tony’s shoulder plate, under the outermost and second-outermost layers. “I gotcha.”

Tony unwound his arm from Steve’s back, felt his weight shift. It was a trust test, in its own way—if Steve let go, Tony would have to dive to catch him. He was confident he could, but he was glad Steve’s grip didn’t falter, even in the cold, the ice. He hooked his shield onto his back. Then he used his free hand to hook around the back of Tony’s shoulder, like he was hugging his right arm. It was even less steady. Tony was ready to dive when Steve clambered around with familiar ease to his back.

It was like rock-climbing, fingers digging into nonexistent seams, iced over and precarious, but Steve didn’t hesitate or struggle with it, pulling himself around until he was hanging by the backs of his shoulders. Tony caught on, flattening himself. Steve’s weight still pressed him earthward, but it no longer dragged him down by the shoulders. Lying flat across Tony’s metal back, he looped his arms around Tony’s neck, locking his grip around his own wrist. “Good work,” he announced, grateful for the normalcy in his tone, the safety he felt. Captain America’s entire weight rested on him, lying over him, protecting him. It felt very safe.

. o .

They made good time. 

Leveling into a vertical stance as they neared the ground, Tony was, according to the altimeter, eighty-one feet above the rooftop when, without warning, the weight on his back disappeared.

He was so shocked, so surprised that his human backpack was _gone_ , that he couldn’t move for a full two seconds. Then he bellied down and saw Steve hit the rooftop, his shield on his arm again, cushioning the blow. He pulled himself upright under Tony’s disbelieving eyes, looking up after a dazed moment and gesturing wearily for him to land, hurry-up.

Tony landed heavier than normal and asked, “What the _hell—_?”

“Enough,” Steve cut him off at the pass. Tony saw him rubbing his thumb over bruise-blue fingers. He seemed to size Tony up, weighing a response, before saying with utmost normalcy, “I lost my grip. It’s fine.” When Tony stared at him, he shook his head and pinned his shield on his back. He didn’t say another word, marching towards the doors. It took Tony a moment to collect himself to take even a single step after him.

. o .

Fury said, with no small amount of relief, “Captain” and Steve paused in the doorway, holding himself at attention.

“Director,” he said. He didn’t sit. Fury didn’t invite him to. “What can I do?”

Tony sat in a chair in the corner, still in the armor, head aching, body sore. He felt like he’d gone ten rounds in a ring, eager to put the day to rest, to throw the folder into the shredder and pretend it never happened. But he couldn’t.

“Hey, Tony, you mind helping me out?” Bruce said. Tony looked over at him with the unblinking white-blue Iron eyes. Then he stood and strode over to Bruce’s corner. He slid to the floor next to Bruce, staring at the laptop. “Someone had to hand-deliver the package. Right?” Tony nodded, wincing at the way his head throbbed. “Well, I have good news and bad news.”

“No more bad news,” Tony said, his own voice stilted.

Bruce looked at him, expression softening in sympathy. Tony heard Fury slide something across the table, Steve take a seat and pick it up. “Okay,” he said, tone gentle, like he was afraid Tony would lash out at the slightest provocation. He was too tired. Too sore. “Good news only. I vetted the pilots. I even got J.A.R.V.I.S. to run by ‘em.” When Tony stared blankly, he held up the Mark VII bracelet, adding, “Sorry: I didn’t mean to borrow without asking.”

“It’s fine.”

“They’re clean. Alibis, backgrounds, everything matches up algorithmically. Twenty-two combined years of service. That’s not something you drop in a day.”

Tony looked up and noticed Steve tilt his head towards them, listening in, before he returned to his reading. He didn’t say a word. Didn’t blink. Barely breathed.

“Obviously, you’re clean,” Bruce added, patting his metal knee. “So, that’s good.” He didn’t add the obvious: _I’m clean. The Avengers, Fury, Hill. It’s not inside the house_. Tony could see it: Bruce quietly but earnestly plugging his own information into the algorithm to check, waiting for it to give him the right answer. Calibration. “Which leaves us. . . .” He paused, then reframed it. “I think we can limit our pool of suspects to the people who showed up at the Tower this morning.”

He indicated the screen. Tony stared at it and deciphered the bad news. _Whoever it was, they got in the Tower._

He closed his eyes, feeling sick for a different reason. He heard Steve set down the folders. He felt hypersensitive to it, like he wouldn’t have heard Fury shout but he would have noticed the soft sound of paper on the table. Steve always liked physical copies of things. He used the StarkPads, but he liked paperback books and physical copies of things. Maybe they felt more real. The sound of it sliding on the table was real.

Bruce said, “While you were gone, I went through the footage, checked everybody with an ID tag. There’s plenty of foot traffic without any ID, visitors, that I couldn’t independently verify. That’s where you come in.” Tony didn’t respond. Bruce gave him time, letting him process, but after a long moment he asked, “Tony?”

“Roll the tape,” was all Tony said.

. o .

He fell asleep in the suit.

He became aware of it, stiff and sore and heavy as hell, as Bruce asked, not for the first time, “. . . Tony?”

“‘m here.” He reached up involuntarily to rub his eyes, aborted the mission and exhaled as he set the gauntlet on the floor again. “We done?”

Bruce made a noncommittal sound. “I can get coffee?”

Tony looked up, saw an empty table, and tensed. “Where’s Steve?”

Bruce hesitated. “He went back to the Tower. Wanted to scope things out, I think.” Then, looking at the laptop, he added, “We can take a break.”

“You find the mole?”

“No.”

“Then keep rolling.”

“Tony. . . .”

Tony drew in a deep breath, forcing himself to straighten in the suit. God, it wasn’t comfortable to sleep in. Mark X was going to be comfortable to sleep in. He might need to on a mission, or something, someday. He was so distracted Bruce said sympathetically, “We don’t have to do this right now. It’s been, what, four months?”

“The folder came today.” The words were dull, damning. “Why, Bruce?”

Bruce shrugged and said, “I don’t know.” A beat. “Maybe they. . . .” He trailed off. The comfort was idle, empty.

Threatening was in line with the _terrorism_ aspect of the Ten Rings. The fact that they’d come to his doorstep, his _home_ , and given a folder—with, front-and-center, a bloody Captain America leaning over a body, shield embedded in an unmoving chest—to his sweet secretary Bambi and walked off without a trace was unbearable. It didn’t matter how well Steve swept the place, he realized. There was no way he could sleep there. Not tonight. “Time is it?”

“Just after six.”

It had only been an hour. It felt like twelve. “Okay. Maybe we can take a break.” He needed fortification. He needed sleep. He was too old for all-nighters and it was only six in the evening. “Let’s—let’s go somewhere else.”

Bruce nodded, collecting his laptop. He was rattled, but he seemed calm, normal, as he said, “Yeah, that’s a good idea. This place gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

Tony didn’t move. Bruce looked down at him. “I can’t carry you,” he added apologetically.

Tony sighed, pushing himself to his feet. The suit did most of the work, making his apparent weight seem lighter. He still felt like he was chained to the floor, unable to lift off, to escape. “I can’t do this,” he said aloud, just to say it.

Bruce didn’t say anything, patting his Iron shoulder. Tony closed his eyes, then said through the glass making his throat and mouth ache, “We’re going home.”

It was defiance, desperation, and need all rolled up into one.

They walked. It was a long, cold walk, but it wasn’t snowing. That was a small mercy.

The Tower was calm, sedate and warm, late-in-the-day traffic. He couldn’t help scanning them all, lingering, letting the HUD read them, decipher them, wishing he’d been down here, had accepted the folder by hand. Looked the survivor in the eye and known _you’re dead, too_. 

He collapsed in the elevator, gasping for breath, drowning in air.

He stayed huddled in the corner for so long his chest hurt, ached with every hyperventilating breath. Home had to be safe. He had to be safe here. Fuck, he had to be safe _somewhere_. He felt Bruce, kneeling beside him, talking to him, worried, trying, but he couldn’t reach Tony. No one could. Not in the suit.

 _This is the only safe space left_ , he thought, curled into a tight ball.

This was how they’d felt, he thought, except they didn’t _know_ , there hadn’t been a folder in the mail that said, _you’re next_. Captain America walked into their midst and like the hurricane he was, he utterly annihilated them.

But somewhere in the wreckage, a sole survivor pressed shaking fingers to a phone, took pictures, clear-headed enough to know that Cell Eight was lost but the cause was _not_. They’d gotten Captain America, goddamn Captain America leaning into the unbeating heart of the black-clad figure underneath him, shield like a sword between them.

Tony felt a firm hand on his shoulder, strong enough to crush metal—if he wanted to, he could; Tony shuddered—and heard Steve say, “Hey, hey, hey,” in that soft, comforting tone. He leaned into it, let Steve haul him into his embrace, the suit too big for him to hug but the upper half manageable. “Hey, hey, easy, easy,” he said, “it’s okay. It’s okay.”

Tony sniffed. Steve said, “Hey, s’okay, Tony. I’m here.”

 _He killed twenty-eight people_.

He couldn’t reconcile it, couldn’t make the wires connect, that Steve was Captain America and Captain America was simultaneously capable of being the kindest person he’d ever met and one of the coldest, most calculating killers he’d ever seen.

The line between a good soldier and a good man faltered in peace-time.

Sucking in another breath, he gasped, “I can’t do this.”

Steve gathered him closer, squeezed him hard enough he could feel it through the metal. _Don’t break it_. But he didn’t. He never would. “I gotcha,” he promised. “It’s gonna be okay. I promise. It’s not the end of the world. I know, I know,” he added patiently, talking almost to himself, Tony wasn’t responding, “I know it feels that way, but it’s gonna be okay. It is.” He scrabbled at the suit like he’d pry it off Tony, but he didn’t. Tony was grateful, fisting his torn-up, patchwork suit in Iron hands. It hadn’t held up well, after the Chitauri attack, after everything. He needed a new one. Tony didn’t know if he’d ever accept one.

“Shh,” Steve said, his own voice sounding raw, like he couldn’t do it, but he found his equilibrium. Tony couldn’t make himself let go, could only sink, heavy in his arms. “I gotcha. I’m here. I’m right here.”

 _I ever let you down?_ he didn’t say.

Tony couldn’t answer, shivering and trying to find sanity and breath and somewhere safe between them, crushed against Captain America’s chest because it was the only place he could _breathe_.

He was so sick to his stomach, so goddamn tired and breathless and miserable, that he sunk in Steve’s embrace even after the shudders died down, refusing to move. Steve made a soft consoling sound, said, “Hey, hey, I gotcha,” in a worn voice. “Can I take the suit off?” Tony grasped at him, shuddering. He conceded, “All right, it’s fine.” He leaned around, tapped the elevator panel again. They floated up. “I gotcha,” he said, a murmur, a mantra. They reached their floor in seconds.

With a shallow breath, Steve got his arms around Tony’s back and knees, lifting him up. It was so easy for Captain America that he didn’t question it until Steve set him on the bed and faltered. Tony didn’t let go of his shirt, couldn’t let go of him. “Hey, hey, hey,” he said, soft, shushing, no admonishment in his tone. “Easy, buddy. I gotcha.” Tony still didn’t let go, so he sighed and said with obvious reluctance, “Hey, buddy, let up. Let me up.”

Tony let him go. Steve exhaled again and stepped back. “S’all right,” he said, as Tony sat on the edge in his suit, watching him with distant, wondering, detached curiosity. Steve didn’t force a smile. He said in the same calm tone, “It’s all right, Tony.” He sat on the bed beside him to prove it. Tony rested his heavy metal head on Steve’s blue shoulder. His shield was still on his back. “S’all right,” he murmured, reaching up to cup Tony’s head.

He could have pressed the release button on it, but he didn’t, let Tony lean into him, unfaltering, stronger than all of them. _Strongest Avenger_ , he mused. He thought of Thor throwing Steve through the floor and amended, _second strongest Avenger_. Maybe third: he’d never seen Hulk and Steve go toe-to-toe. Captain America was strong enough to carry Iron Man. That was all that mattered.

At last, feeling like he was suffocating inside the helmet, he told J.A.R.V.I.S. to release it. He was so congested it didn’t help much, but it helped. That was enough. He sniffed and pressed his cheek against Steve’s shoulder, feeling his heavy warmth, the tiniest tremble under his skin. “Hey,” Steve crooned, sliding a hand into his sweat-damp hair, scratching his scalp lightly. “Hey, tough guy. I’m here.”

Tony couldn’t speak, eyes closed, resting against his warmth, groaning in response. He didn’t have a witty remark, a casual reassurance.

He fell asleep on Steve’s shoulder.

. o .

Tony had no idea what time or even day it was, but he had vague, dream-like memories filling in the blanks, getting up, someone helping him lie down, warmth and alternating coolness, drinking lukewarm water, sniffling into a pillow, sleeping, sleeping.

He tugged on real pants and pulled the NYU hoodie over his bare chest, staggering into the balcony room after a short elevator ride. He saw Natasha sitting on the counter, drinking a mug of hot chocolate. She looked over at him and greeted dryly, “You're alive.”

Tony grunted, noncommittal. He staggered over to the kitchen. Thirsty. He was thirsty. “—time is it?”

“Five-fifteen,” Natasha said. That didn’t make any sense. Tony frowned. “You were out most of the day,” she added, her tone almost gentle. “How are you?”

Tony fumbled for a glass, filled it with cool water and taking a long sip. It seemed to make his mouth impossibly drier. “Where’s my guy?” he asked instead, stripped of all caring.

Natasha sipped her hot chocolate audibly. It made him think of Steve shaking half a box of cereal into his mouth to avoid answering a question he didn’t want to. He huffed, then sneezed, then grunted hatefully, “I wanna die.”

Natasha hummed. “I see now why you were quarantined.”

“I am a _delight_ ,” Tony said, miffed, as he helped himself to the hot chocolate on the pot. “At all hours of the day. Three-hundred and sixty-five days a year.”

“So, on leap years, you’re excused?”

Nodding, Tony said, “You’re not usually one to avoid the question.”

Natasha smiled that little, almost invisible smile. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Where—?” Tony began. Then the door slid back and a prim and proper Captain America stepped through it. He looked at Natasha, expression unreadable. Then he looked at Tony, gaze softening. 

“What are you doing up?” Steve asked, using his _Tony, I swear to God, you’re gonna drive me to an early grave_ voice. It sounded literal today, despite all appearances.

“I’m thirsty,” Tony explained, “and you’re not the boss of me.”

Steve actually rolled his eyes and muttered, “I’m glad you’re feeling better.” He kept his distance, looking at Natasha, then at Tony, then back at Natasha. “How’s—?”

“Fine.”

Steve nodded. Some of the invisible tension in his shoulders relaxed. “Good.” Looking at Tony, he added, “You still look pretty sad, chief.”

Tony blinked at him, completely still. He took a sip of his hot chocolate. Mm. Nice. “I don’t like being left out of the loop,” he said, meaning to sound nonchalant and easy.

The tension was instantly back, a subtle thing. “Yeah, well.” Steve didn’t finish, ambling over to the windows, looking out at the city. “Getting cold out,” he said, more conversationally than anything. His voice was too flat to be inviting. Neither Tony nor Natasha took the bait. “Bet it’ll snow for real soon.”

“Good thing we’re going on vacation,” Natasha added.

Steve shot her a look. Tony felt his own eyebrows arch. “Are we?” he asked.

Steve didn’t growl, but his eyes darkened. “Eventually,” he said cryptically, turning to face the window again. “Not something we’re worrying about right now.”

Meekly, Tony asked, “What _are_ we worrying about right now?”

Steve didn’t answer, lost in thought. Tony tucked his hands in the hoodie pockets, leaning a hip against the counter. The hot chocolate helped. Seeing Natasha and Steve, even in the tense state they were in, helped, too. It felt normal. “Is it Thursday?”

“Wednesday,” Steve said, military-quick. He didn’t look at Tony. “Everything’s fine now.”

Tony felt a chill at the words. He didn’t want to ask. His inner demon asked anyway. “You didn’t kill anyone, right?”

Steve didn’t say a word. Natasha filled in, quiet but not meek, “Don’t be stupid, Stark.”

He could feel the tension in Steve’s body language, but it wasn’t guilt or sadness. It was anger. He opened his mouth, got as far as a heated, “I don’t—” before cutting himself off. Cooling off, he added, “No.”

“Good.” It felt lame, even to Tony, but he had to say _something_. “That’s good. I’m glad to, you know, hear that.”

Steve glanced at him, expression as flat as ever. It reminded Tony of the helicarrier Captain America who wanted to beat the crap out of him. _Put on the suit. Let’s go a few rounds_. Tony had been smart enough to realize his own mild annoyance couldn’t match Steve’s fever-sharp rage and backed down. Didn’t hurt that Loki and his mind-hacked cronies had good timing. Then the anger had been gone, leaving only genuine concern and determination behind, warm hands scrabbling at him to get him up and on his feet to respond to the new threat.

He waited for Steve’s expression to soften, but there was no explosion. At last, Steve sighed and said, “Been a day, Stark.” He walked over to the couches, took a seat on the floor in front of one of them, and said, “Not your fault.”

They fell into an uneasy quiet. Tony felt thick-headed but better-rested, more stable. He’d slept for—he didn’t know how long. There were moments of wakefulness sprinkled in the middle. He was pretty sure Steve was there, but maybe that was a dream, because Steve was a world away now, pressed and untouchable in his suit. He’d missed a full day, but he didn’t begrudge the loss. He felt more even-keeled.

He’d needed it. Steve blinked once and then turned to the door a second before it opened.

Clint stepped through it, arms loaded with takeout bags. He grinned. “They’re Hawkeye fans,” he elaborated to the room at large, Steve’s silent curiosity, Natasha’s arched eyebrow. “Can you believe it?”

“No,” Natasha said lightly, but Clint’s expression didn’t waver, his amusement palpable.

“Yeah, me neither,” he said agreeably. “I don’t know how you do it, Stark. My ego might up and die if that happened everywhere I went.”

“It’s a terrible burden,” Tony said with a sniff that wasn’t entirely for show. His head felt better, but he was still four days deep in a cold and felt it. “Really, only an incredibly gifted man can handle it. I am that man.”

Clint’s gaze slid to Cap, seated on the floor, before he stepped up to the table and dropped his bounty. “Dig in.”

Natasha and Tony stayed put, content with their hot chocolate, but Cap took the invitation for what it was and sat down with Clint, digging into an impressive assortment of Italian takeout dishes. Tony ambled over absentmindedly. He could have taken a seat but was tempted by a greater desire to wrap his arms around Steve’s neck and rest his chin on warm, soft golden hair. He almost expected Steve to tense up and push him away, _N_ _ot in front of the kids_. He thought it was laughable because Clint was almost twice his age and Natasha was Natasha. They didn’t care.

Steve didn’t, either, tilting his head, curious, before looking back at Clint. Tony rested his cheek on Steve’s head, eyes closed, drawing comfort from his strength. Who needed a night-light when you could have Captain America to hug in your darkest hour? His sickness-muddled mind thought it was rather clever of him and wanted to say as much aloud— _you’re the best night-light in the world—_ but he liked being quiet, even ignored.

Finally, Steve patted his arm. Tony let him go, leaned away. As if nothing had happened, he ambled back over to the couches and got the holo-screen on. He asked the peanut gallery, “Any requests?”

The peanut gallery declined, so he put on _Jurassic Park_ , throwing an arm around the back of the couch and sinking into the cushions.

It was pleasantly dissonant from his own reality—he had only a brief vision of hateful, huge, soul-stealing black eyes and a long penguin beak before he heard Clint’s cackle in the background and came back to the movie—and he embraced it. He burned with questions, but he was comfortable. For once in his goddamn life, he chose blissful ignorance.

Steve looked like he was already carrying a back-breaking amount of emotional weight. It would kill Tony.

Steve was a helper: he helped Clint pack away the rest, leaving more than enough for Bruce and Natasha. And Tony, he thought, _They_ _didn’t forget me_. The thought of pasta didn’t appeal much to his dry-mouthed self. He washed the dishes and chatted with Natasha while Clint sauntered over and plopped himself down on the floor near a chair. Natasha stayed on the counter, watching from her perch.

Tony happened to look over and see her with an arm wrapped around Steve’s neck, captured mid-stride, it seemed, in a gentle hug. His face was pressed against her shoulder. Tony looked away, not wanting to intrude. He didn’t know how to name the unhappy feeling in his chest. It wasn’t jealousy anymore. It was—uncertainty.

Natasha, he sometimes forgot, was a cold-blooded killer, as capable of shaking hands as snapping necks. She had red in her ledger. She had done horrible things, yet . . . she was also Natasha, sweet and funny and in her own often subtle way, deeply loving. Tony’s own emotions were extravagant, loud and proud, while Clint cackled and brooded in equal measure and Bruce kept his tones polite, I-don’t-wanna-cause-any-trouble. Thor, of course, put them all to shame, huge in every emotion.

Steve folded himself onto a chair, still in his patchwork uniform but lounging, off-duty, on-call, his legs hooked over the arm of the chair. He didn’t bother getting up when Bruce arrived. Steve looked over the back of the chair before deciding he was satisfied. He still didn’t relax, Tony noted, more interested in Steve than a movie he’d seen four times. They were all edgy, sensing there was trouble in the air, but Tony could tell Steve’s feigned cool was meant to comfort them. If Captain America said it was fine, then it was fine.

Tony reached for a blanket over the back of the couch, tossing it over his own legs, making himself comfortable. Bruce helped himself to leftovers. Natasha claimed her chair near Clint, who didn’t so much as twitch to look at her but seemed content, all the same. Tony’s own eyes were heavy—he felt ready to sleep for another day, literally—but he watched them all, Bruce taking up his seat near the fireplace with his laptop and a cup of hot chocolate.

 _Family_.

Tony watched the movie, glancing over halfway through and noticing that Steve’s eyes were closed, his breaths deep and even. He still seemed alert in uniform, like a breeze would call him to action. He did, in fact, open his eyes to slits when Bruce leaned his weight to stand before changing his mind, waving a hand like he knew he’d tripped the proverbial wire, _sorry, sorry, I’m not going anywhere_. Steve exhaled deeply, closed his eyes without preamble, and slept, arms tucked across his red-white-and-blue chest.

Tony thought it was a tragedy that of them all, it was the twenty-seven-year-old who carried the team.

He didn’t need to. Tony knew that Bruce and Clint, both _Tony’s_ senior, made subtle but emphatic efforts to remind him. There was even a time when he’d begrudged them—Bruce less so for his verbal check-ins, reach-outs, “need anything, Cap?” and Clint more so for his physical support, a shoulder under a tired arm, a gentle pat on the back—because it felt unfair that they would take and take from Steve’s kindness, his bountiful, endless kindness, _leave him alone_. But they weren’t taking. They were offering. And more and more often, he accepted it.

Bruce stood again after a long time, wincing at sleep-heavy legs. Steve didn’t open his eyes, seeming supremely uninterested.

Safe, Tony amended. It ached in his chest.

. o .

The mole was less imposing than Tony thought he would be.

Maybe that was the hunted look one acquired when the goddamn Avengers were on your tail, or maybe it was the fact that he was in his mid-twenties. Or maybe it was the glass cage they’d put him in, a few cells down from Tony’s adopted feathered child, Anuxa. (Who, wonderfully, refused to talk to anyone but Tony.) The mole looked at him, eyes solemn, mouth gagged.

Aloud, Tony mused in an Iron voice, “Where’d they dig you up?”

The mole didn’t answer. A S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, acting as an escort, said, “Captain Rogers brought him in.”

“Hmm.” A beat. “How’d they know it was him?”

“Captain Rogers brought him in,” the agent repeated, like that explained it.

Tony nodded. His eyes burned. Of course Steve would recognize him. He was a super-soldier. Maybe he couldn’t sketch the man’s face from memory, but picking him from a lineup would have been easy work for a man who could navigate under a new moon. He wondered how long it had taken Steve to find the man. He wondered if the mole had tried to escape or if he had cowered. He wasn’t injured, not that Tony could see. Steve was efficient; he wasn’t cruel.

He asked, “What’s his name?”

The agent said, “I don’t know.”

The mole blinked at him, looking between them: Iron Man and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent armed to the teeth. He took a few steps back, sitting on the edge of a cot. “Go team,” Tony said blithely, turning around and stalking away.

It was 11:39 PM. He knew he should be at the Tower with the others, but he couldn’t sleep. Not until he knew.

He’d slept through the showdown. He wondered if it was how Bruce had felt, learning about Anuxa after-the-fact. He felt detached, like he wasn’t _allowed_ to sit one out.

He couldn’t place the feeling until he was knocking on Fury’s door. It was because Steve had been there. Tony had been a world away. Fury looked at him, weariness and expectation in his gaze. “Mr. Stark,” he said.

Tony flicked the helmet down. He could face the man eye-to-eye. “That easy, huh?”

Fury’s expression was calm. “It’s never that easy.”

Tony nodded, like he’d been expecting the answer. He took a seat in front of Fury’s desk. He sized Fury up, trying to understand him.

( _Fury cares deeply about him, you know. We all do. No one wants to see him fall._ )

At last, Tony said, “You didn’t tell the Council.”

Fury shook his head once.

Tony wanted to ask. He couldn’t ask. He sidestepped. “He's a good person.” He didn’t know how else to phrase it. _He’s sweet. He’s big-hearted. He’s scared, he’s angry, but he’s happy, too._

“One of the best people I’ve ever known,” Fury agreed. “The world believes in Captain America. I believe in Steve Rogers.”

Tony stared at him, speechless. “You know,” he said, voice delicately haughty, leaning back in his chair, “if you’re not careful, I might actually start to like working with you.”

“How tragic,” Fury said dryly.

Tony smiled. He sobered and asked, “How’d you do it?”

Fury shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “Tracked him on the security feed, ran some street cam footage for facial recognition, found him at his apartment.” That easy, Tony thought, amazed. The monsters in the closet were scarier than the ones in the light of day. “Our bigger concern,” Fury said, “is damage control. How many others know. How he got here, who else he’s working with. Lone wolves aren’t a thing.”

Tony thought about Steve, but even he had used S.H.I.E.L.D.’s resources, their Quinjet, their aliases, their funds.

“We’ve defused a bomb,” Fury went on, “but there may be others. There probably are.” Steve’s uneasy peace made perfect sense. Tony felt queasy, sick to his stomach. “I’ve elevated the other Cell operatives to be on higher alert. General security has been increased. We’re monitoring all channels for anything unusual. For now—we’re doing what we can to be preemptive, but as you’ve seen, Mr. Stark, there are limits. It can happen in an instant.” His gaze, hard and implacable, seemed reflective of Tony’s own paranoia. But instead of fear, instead of shaking with it, Fury sat, living in a constant state of mortality.

Over ten thousand lives depended on Fury being on his A-game. If Fury failed, there were fail-safes, but no one underneath him thought of that. They saw the man at the helm and trusted his experience. Tony understood why. Fury was a man you could trust. A man who didn’t fear catastrophe because he’d already made peace with his limits. He couldn’t be everything everyone needed. He could only be Nick Fury. And that was a hell of a guy.

“All we can do,” Fury said, oblivious to his thoughts, “is be prepared to act quickly.”

Tony couldn’t help it: “Were you a Boy Scout?”

Fury shook his head. “Too many rules.”

Tony nodded. He felt exhausted and relieved. He understood why Steve cared about Fury. He was like their Dad, there for them whether it was three in the afternoon or three in the morning, looking out for them even when it meant putting himself at risk. The Council would punish Fury for letting something as huge as Kunar slip past its radar if they knew. And Tony knew that hoping, hoping, hoping it faded away, was forgotten, was a game he could play for the rest of his life.

But maybe, he dared to think, as he stood in the elevator watching the dark cityscape, Bruce was right. Maybe the sunshine would last. Maybe they would find a way to make it all work.

He stopped at the balcony level. Even Bruce had gone to bed. Standing out on the balcony deck, arms folded on the railing and chin resting on them, Steve lingered, watching the flickering city lights.

Tony joined him, bumping his own warm shoulder against a half-frozen one. “Hey,” he said gently. Steve didn’t look at him. “Come inside.”

“Can’t.” It was soft, gruff. Almost not meant for him.

Tony tucked a hand in a frozen shoulder strap, giving it a gentle tug. “Come on. They’re sleeping,” he said. He wasn’t talking about the team. The whole city was at rest. “Come on. Inside.” He tugged again. Steve didn’t move.

“Shouldn’t’ve done it.”

Tony pulled on him, putting as much strength into it as he could without straining. “Hey. You trust me?”

Steve looked at him, dull, almost occluded eyes fixing on him. He nodded once. “Good. Then trust me when I say it’s time to take it easy, bud.”

Steve resisted for one moment longer. Tony was prepared to stand out here all night if he had to, but then Steve shifted, allowing Tony to haul him gently away. He had to allow it—Tony couldn’t drag him, couldn’t make him go anywhere he didn’t want to—and he did.

The warm air was a relief. He was grateful when the balcony door slid shut behind them, cutting off the cold.

He felt strong, assured, _right_ as Steve followed him, his own footsteps barely making a sound. Steve was a leader, a born survivalist who fought to the finish. He didn’t fall back. He wasn’t supposed to. Captain America wasn’t supposed to.

He let Tony lead him.

Steve sat on the bed. Tony worked his patchwork uniform off him, careful because Steve would never tell him if there was a bruise. He knew he could spot damage with his Iron Man glasses, but he didn’t want to, trusted and proceeded with that same landmine trust, not slow but steady. Steve closed his eyes, sitting in his boxers with ice-fuzzed hair.

Tony cupped his face. He blinked up at Tony, all soft eyes, heavy eyes. “You’re sweet. You know that?”

Steve pressed his face against Tony’s palm, eyes closed. Tony kissed his forehead. “My big sweet guy.” He let Steve go. Steve didn’t shuffle back onto the bed so much as fell there, letting out a deep exhale. Tony stripped off his own sweater, kicked off the pants, and slid in beside him. He hauled the covers up and over them, creating their own warm cocoon. 

Steve was cool to the touch, shivering. Tony was worried, but he could already feel him warming up, knew that he could survive spectacular cold. It made his fate all the crueler—given the endurance to freeze and drown longer than any human alive; fuck, it wasn’t fair—and Tony shuffled closer, chest to chest, the heat of the arc reactor negligible but undoubtedly hot to Steve. He almost shuffled back, hadn’t intended in the twilight of the room to meet, but Steve curled an arm around his back, a leg around both of his, holding him close. Tony tucked his cheek under Steve’s chin, listening to his heart flutter.

“Shh,” he murmured, stroking the bare skin across his back, gentle, because he couldn’t see, couldn’t be sure it wasn’t bruised, wasn’t hurting. Steve would never tell him. He had to be careful. “Hey, now,” Tony soothed, “it’s okay.”

Steve nodded. Tony kissed his shoulder and murmured, “I love you.”

Steve said lowly, “Love you, too.”

“I know.” Tony slid his own leg between Steve’s to feel the warmth and weight of him better. He could feel the shiver in his own bones, but it was warming Steve up, too. His teeth still chattered. Tony crooned, “Shh.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, breathing fast. “I’m sorry.”

“Shh,” Tony insisted, pushing his cheek against Steve’s skin, squeezing his back. “It’s okay. It’s okay now. You don’t need to apologize.”

Steve sniffed. It wasn’t a cold. Tony assured, “I’m here.”

Steve nodded, holding onto him. Tony shut his own eyes, content to be held, warm and comfortable even with Steve shivering. It wasn’t so bad, when he wasn’t so tired he felt like he could cry. His patience, while not limitless, ran deep. He shushed and crooned and made all the comforting gestures he could think of, only half-awake by the time Steve stopped trembling.

“There,” he said, voice deep, “it’s okay.”

Steve’s grip loosened on him, not letting go but giving him the freedom to back away. Tony didn’t. He wished he could get closer, protect him, love him. “I’m here,” he promised instead, stroking between his shoulders, right where the shield hooked on. “I’ve got you.”

Steve hugged him, his heartbeat slowing, his breathing deep and easy.

Tony held onto him and let himself be held. He drifted off to the tune of Steve’s sleep-deep breathing.


	18. A TEST OF FAITH

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My darling friends! I have missed you.
> 
> P.S. Chapter titles! Whoo-hoo! Mostly for my own ease, but I hope you like them, too. :)

_Two days later_.

Tony’s phone rang just after 6 PM.

“Business hours are 9-5, every other Wednesday,” he said calmly.

“ _We have your Captain_.”

Tony sighed and cracked open a peanut. With an air of great exasperation, he observed, “Oh, do you, now?” Firmly, he added, “Put him on the phone.”

“ _Perhaps you misunderstand me—_ ”

“I understand you perfectly. Put him on the phone,” Tony repeated, crunching on a peanut. “Chop chop.”

He didn’t threaten. He didn’t need to. Steve’s voice was calm as he asked, “ _Miss me?_ ”

“You are annoying,” Tony told Steve, chewing on a peanut. “This is not part of my evening routine.”

“ _I mean, I wouldn’t call it part of mine_ ,” Steve pointed out.

“Uh huh.” Tony glanced down at his wrist band, but Steve hadn’t activated the panic button. If the bad guys were calling _him_ , that meant they were desperate. Tony knew why: Steve was terrible to interrogate. You could punch him at your own peril: countless cronies had already broken a fist on Captain America’s heroically tough musculature. “So, what’s with the social call?” he asked, freeing another peanut.

“ _I’ve been informed I’m a very uncooperative hostage_ ,” Steve said, his voice radiating amusement. “ _Sounds like defamation of character to me, but I’ve never abducted myself_.”

“You are honestly—and I say this sincerely—the most exasperating person I’ve ever met.”

“ _Sounds like a compliment_.”

Tony sighed. He was about to tell Steve off, colorfully and wholly, when the original crony said, “ _Convinced?_ ”

“No,” Tony lied casually, crunching on another peanut. “Sounds like a phony to me.”

The crony growled. “ _Perhaps it will be more convincing when—_ ”

“I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job,” Tony cut in, “but you suck at it.”

He heard yelping, then shouting, then a spattering of gunfire, followed by more yelping, more shouting, a few crashing noises, and finally silence. 

“You’re killing the amateur terrorist market,” Tony announced.

“ _Maybe they’ll join the Army next time_ ,” Steve said, not even out of breath, the bastard. “ _You okay?_ ”

Tony sighed. “I feel like I should be asking you that.”

“ _All part of the job, Tony_ ,”Steve said. Tony heard him moving around, shuffling through stuff. “ _How’s your day?_ ”

“I thought you were on radio-silence.”

“ _Does it count if it’s a bad guy’s phone?_ ”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Bad guy, Rogers? What’re you, twelve?”

“ _I mean, they’re trading weapons, it seems appropriate?”_ A pause, then a heavy metallic sound as a door was pushed back. “ _They didn’t even lock it_ ,” he mused. “ _I feel like I should be leaving pointers_.”

“ _If you do, you’ll regret it_ ,” Fury’s voice cut in, sharp enough to cut glass. “ _Stay on mission. And Stark, you aren’t even supposed to be here_.”

“You know me, Fury, I like being in the loop,” Tony said, at the same moment that Steve assured, “ _Absolutely, sir, hanging up now_.”

. o . 

It was, in fact, part of Steve’s routine, as proven when Tony’s phone rang shortly after nine PM. “Hello, you have reached the life model decoy of Tony Stark, please leave a message after the tone.”

“ _Perhaps it would change your mind if—_ ”

“—If you told me you have my Captain?” Tony finished dryly.

There was a very audible pause. “ _How did you know?_ ”

“Tracker,” Tony lied. Clockwork, Tony thought. “Anyway, I’m sorry, please continue.”

“ _We have Captain America_ ,” the man said in a laden Eastern European accent. Steve knew how to get around: the man on the phone earlier was clearly Ukrainian. “ _If you want him back—_ ”

“I don’t.”

Another audible pause. Tony could almost see the bad guy—fine, it was _appropriate_ , sue him—cover the phone and look at a comrade. A moment later, said comrade came on the phone and grunted, “ _Enough games_.”

“Oh, but I love games,” Tony said, picking up his tablet and returning to the Mark 93, a super-suit that was a dream even for a billionaire genius. “Don’t hurt him. Please. He’s my 420th friend.”

There was shuffling, then Tony heard Steve’s calm voice rebuke, “ _Tony, you’re making them feel bad_.” He heard an audible smack followed by a satisfying round of Russian expletives. Steve commented, “ _See, you hurt their feelings_.”

“ _ENOUGH!”_ Comrade 2 roared. “ _We have your Captain!_ ”

“I regret to inform you that he has _you_ ,” Tony replied. Then he heard furniture crack, followed by a pretty spirited engagement that ended almost as soon as it began. “Am I right, or am I right?”

Steve huffed. “ _Makin’ friends everywhere I go_ ,” he said, shuffling around, dragging unconscious bodies. “ _I think Fury sends me on infiltration missions so I can break baddies’ hands on my face_.”

“Aw. How’s your face?”

“ _S’fine_.” A pause. “ _This probably isn’t a secure line_.”

“No, but I missed your voice,” Tony said. It wasn’t even a lie.

“ _Know what_ I _missed?_ ”Fury barked, steaming. “ _Mission-silence_.”

“ _Understood, sir, shutting up_.”

. o .

“I know for a fact you landed an hour ago,” Tony said by way of greeting.

He heard a staticky sigh. “ _Yeah. Debriefing_.”

Tony said, “The fact that you answered your phone says it’s already over. What gives? You need a prison break? I love a good prison break.”

Steve made an amused sound. “ _No, no prison break_.” A beat. “ _I’ll be home in a bit_.”

“Are you gonna get yourself kidnapped again? Because I’m one step away from encrypting my business line. That’s a hassle for everyone.”

“ _You know, nobody’s stopping you from coming here_.”

Tony sighed. Nobody was, except that cruel mistress: cold. Still, it was a pathetic excuse with his Mark IX to keep him warm, and he recognized an invitation when he heard one. “So, it _is_ a prison break,” he said, activating the Iron Man bracelets and summoning the suit.

“ _It’s not a prison break_ ,” Steve repeated, the voice of reason. “ _You don’t have to come_.”

“Too late,” Tony said, voice filtered through the suit but normal on the phone inside it, “already called an Uber.”

“ _You know, where I came from, ‘über’ was an adjective._ ”

“Still is, Pops.” He was on the balcony, admiring the cool October night and saying, “Try not to get yourself kidnapped in the next five minutes.”

“ _Planned infiltrations, Tony_.”

“Did they put a bag over your head?”

He could almost see Steve cock his head. “ _Yeah? Why?_ ”

“No bags for infiltrations,” Tony said sagely, leaping into the sky. “Trust me, I’m a whiz at kidnappings.”

A longer pause. “ _Aw, geez, Tony—_ ”

“Don’t get apologetic _now_ , you bastard, you were already kidnapped, _twice_ I might add—”

“ _I’m sorry, I didn’t—I wasn’t thinking about, that was really insensitive of—are you okay?_ ”

He was so goddamn _earnest_. “I am effervescent,” Tony assured. He was, flying above the city. “Radiant, actually.”

“ _Aw, Tony_.” He heard a shuffling sound that sounded like Steve rubbing a hand over his face. “ _I’m sorry_.”

“You’ve hit your apology quota for the month. Say it one more time and I’ll have to give you a reason.”

Steve’s voice was amused. “ _Are you threatening me?_ ”

“I like to think of it as _negative reinforcement_ , but yes, if that floats your boat, I will eat all of the chocolate chip ice cream in the fridge.”

“ _You’re a cold, cold man_.”

“And you’re an abomination. Who eats ice cream in October?”

“ _Natasha. Clint_.”

“You.”

“ _Me_.”

Tony did a roll for the hell of it. “I hope you know I’m expecting a good review on Yelp for my service.”

“ _Your service_?”

“Midnight pick-up. Five stars, mister, or I’m turning around.”

“ _I don’t even know what a ‘yelp’ is_.”

“Synonym for ‘squawk,’” Tony said helpfully.

Steve sighed. “ _You’re real cute, aren’t you?_ ”

Tony preened. “I’m glad we’re on the same page.” And then, partially because he could and partially so he could enjoy his flight, he added, “See you in a minute,” and hung up.

. o . 

“Oh, I see how it is,” Tony announced as a small crowd of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents dispersed like they _hadn’t_ been fawning over Captain America. “I’m Iron Man!” he told their retreating backs, holding out his metal arms demonstratively. To their credit, they stuck to their guns, vanishing down the hall like they’d never been there. “You gotta admire their dispersal time,” Tony mused, turning to look at the object of their affection. 

Steve looked back at him with perfect calm, his patchwork uniform grimy but his expression serene. Putting his elbows on the table, he rested his chin in hand and said, “ _I_ would much rather see Iron Man.”

Tony huffed and walked over to him. He collapsed into a chair with dramatic ease. “Of course you would,” he said, voice metallic. “You’re biased.” He let his gaze rake over Steve pointedly, satisfied when he didn’t find anything alarming above the table, tapping an Iron foot against Steve’s calf. “Did you have fun in Europe?”

Steve smiled at him. It was faintly wolfish. “They’re not gonna let me come back, at this rate, you know.”

“Bullshit. Everyone loves you.” Steve blinked, like he wasn’t expecting that. Tony insisted, “You could run for President of the world and you’d win.”

Steve closed his eyes. “I don’t mean to insult your genius,” he murmured, “but that’s the worst idea you’ve had in a while.”

“Actually,” Tony said, waiting until Steve looked at him, calm, lazy curiosity in his gaze. He knew why the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, battle-hardened and disillusioned, loved being around him. Everyone loved being around him. _Everyone loves Captain America_. “I wanted to put a fire-pole in the atrium. You know. For fun.”

“Tony Stark,” Steve said. Tony thought, _Please say my name again_ because it was so goddamn beautiful, “you devious-minded genius.”

Tony sighed. It was only a little dreamy. “You can insult me any day of the week. I give you blanket permission.” 

Steve flushed. “I didn’t—it wasn’t an insult,” he fumbled. “I just—”

“I know.” Tony watched him sit upright, like he’d been caught being lazy, _S_ _it up straight_. He wondered if it was the military or the thirties that had bred manners into him. 

The thirties. God, he was in love with a twenty-seven-year-old from the 1930s. Even his father wouldn’t have seen him as _that_ daring.

 _Yeah, well, dear old Dad spent a lifetime trying to find him_ , Tony thought, staring back at Steve intently, hidden behind the faceplate. “I’m glad he didn’t find you,” he said aloud, his voice hot with righteous anger. “You know?”

Steve blinked at him, frowning. “Who?”

“My dad. Spent the rest of his life looking for you, you know. Wouldn’t believe you’d been lost for good. He threw all of his brilliance at the problem and he still couldn’t find you. Served him right.”

Steve’s expression was blank. “Yeah,” he said at last, cautious agreement. “I’m glad he didn’t—” He paused. Admitted: “I, I wouldn’t have, you know, I wouldn’t have spited him.”

Tony narrowed his eyes behind the faceplate. “What?”

Steve watched him steadily. “I wouldn’t have spited him,” he repeated calmly. “If he found me.”

There was anger in Tony’s chest. He did little to disguise it as he said, “He didn’t deserve you.”

Steve nodded, looking agitated. He rubbed the back of his neck. “No, yeah, no—I agree,” he said. Tony didn’t like it, didn’t like that his father could still touch his life, could still make things sour for him. “I—I wouldn’t have—I would’ve, you know, I would’ve liked it, if—but that wasn’t—that wasn’t an option, y’know, even if—they had.” He was silent, abruptly closed off.

Tony said again, “He didn’t deserve you.”

Steve shrank inward, lacing his other hand behind his head, like he was braced for something. “I don’t wanna talk about it,” he said, voice soft, imploring. “Not anymore.” He dropped his hands and looked at Tony with implacable eyes. In a normal tone, Steve added, “Hypotheticals don’t matter, Tony.”

Tony was a terrible man. “Hypothetically,” he said, but he kept his voice level, trying to be sensitive, “would you rather he found you?”

Steve looked at him and delivered with a completely straight face, “No.”

It was a _lie_. 

Tony was surprised he could spot it, couldn’t even name _what_ tell gave Steve away—he could probably analyze the footage later, run it back, figure it out—but he knew in his gut that it was a lie. It sank like a stone in his stomach. He regretted asking. Steve seemed to regret answering, even though he’d seemingly confirmed Tony’s hopes.

“All right,” Tony said awkwardly, getting up out of his chair, suddenly restless. Steve looked at him with apology in his eyes, like he knew he was transparent and knew he’d hurt Tony’s feelings and _fuck, Tony, this isn’t about you, stop hurting your feelings over this_. Tony cut him off at the pass: “Let’s go home.”

“Tony.” Steve said his name so softly.

Tony’s own voice was unflinchingly solid, a hint of metal: “Rogers.” He rested a hand on Captain America’s shoulder. “Up and at ‘em, soldier.”

Steve didn’t give an inch, leaning back in his chair, looking at Tony with glacial calm. “No.”

Tony leaned a metal hip against the table. He felt like he was still looming, tall and sleek in the Mark IX, but Captain America looked back at him challengingly and repeated in a rock-solid voice, “No.”

“I don’t plan to sleep here,” Tony said blithely, feeling pinned by Steve’s gaze. No wonder nobody could interrogate him; Tony couldn’t tear his eyes away, could barely breathe, and he had a _mask_.

“I’d rather be here,” Steve said firmly, “than with him.” He stood, leaning upright, crowding Tony’s space. He looked right at Tony. Tony: not the mask. Tony knew Steve couldn't see through it, but he _knew_ where Tony’s eyes were. He met them, not the mask’s. “I didn’t get a choice the first time. But I’m here, I’m with _you_ , Tony.” He put a hand on the chest plate, below the arc reactor. Tony was grateful he didn’t touch it. He might have panicked if Steve touched it.

Steve lowered his hand. Tony caught it on an Iron gauntlet, the warm repulsor against Steve’s palm. Tension melted out of Steve’s shoulders. 

All at once he was Steve again, leaning forward and resting his forehead against an Iron shoulder. 

Tony lifted his hands, one on the back of Steve’s neck, cradling his head, the other around his waist, holding him. “I hate my dad,” he murmured. Steve was silent, leaning against him, breathing deeply. Tony admitted, “I can’t stand the thought of him having you.” He rubbed the back of Steve’s uniform. “I’m sorry. I’m—I run my mouth. I’m still trying not to burn every bridge I get to.”

“Thought it was ‘cross the bridge when you get to it,’” Steve murmured.

“Malaphor,” Tony told him. Steve leaned back to look at him skeptically. “It’s a thing,” he said. “Look it up.”

Steve huddled closer. “I trust you.”

Tony sighed, sliding both arms around his back. “You’re honestly too good for your own good, you know that? Don’t let me corrupt you.”

“You can’t,” Steve assured. The surety in his voice made something unlock in Tony’s shoulders, easing in the suit. “Trust me.”

“I do.” Tony hugged him. “I’m here to kidnap you,” he added conspiratorially.

Steve shuddered in mock horror. “Oh, no, whatever will I do?” He went limp, trusting the Iron Man arms to hold him up. They always did. When Tony scooped him up, he yelped, gritting out, “ _Tony_.”

“What?” Tony asked, holding him bridal style. “Fan club’s long gone, Rogers. It’s just you and me.”

Steve inhaled and exhaled. Then he said, “Please put me down.”

Tony said, “I thought this was a kidnapping.”

“Tony—”

“All right, all right.” Tony set him down and Steve grimaced. “What?” Steve shook his head. It was a dirty play, but Tony switched the display back to the scanner and saw a patch of bright red on his left knee that wasn’t part of the uniform. “What did you do?” he asked, more curious than alarmed by the patch of glowing red. Steve didn’t reply. Tony narrowed his eyes. “Parkour?”

Sighing, Steve said, “It’ll heal.”

“Hm.” Tony slung his arm under Steve’s shoulders, feeling the way he stiffened before relaxing into it. “That why you didn’t come home?”

Steve didn’t respond to that, either. Tony wanted to hold him up, but he knew Steve wouldn’t let him, would dig his feet in the second they tried to leave the room. _Not in front of them_. “I could kidnap you,” he said seriously. Steve made a disgruntled noise. “Can you walk?”

Steve said in a wire-tight voice, “I don’t know.”

Tony didn’t let him go. “Bet I can find a brace. Think a brace’ll help?”

Steve murmured, “It’ll be fine in a few hours, Tony.”

“Cute. I’ll go find a brace.” He pushed Steve back into the chair. Steve looked up at him, suddenly sour.

“Tony,” he began.

Tony whistled, turning around in the suit and marching out the door. “Can’t hear ya, Cap!”

. o . 

Steve’s leg was hurting him; Tony knew because he didn’t put his weight on it immediately after they touched down on the balcony, barely caught his gasp as he took a faltering step forward. Tucking an arm around his back, Tony ushered him inside, allowing him to keep his weight off his left leg. Gratitude and exhaustion radiated from Steve in equal measure.

Tony chose not to heckle him as Steve limped over to the couch, barely putting his weight on Tony and collapsing with close-eyed relief. Tony stared down at him in the Mark IX before stepping out of the suit, sliding the powered down suit off to the side. “Kidnapped twice in as many days and it’s Parkour that fells the Beast,” Tony mused.

Steve slanted a red-eyed glance at him. He muttered, “What?” He’d fallen asleep. Tony felt guilty for waking him, amazed that he could literally fall asleep before his head hit the proverbial pillow. He shuffled up like he’d sit up more from the graceless sprawl he’d fallen into, but Tony ruffled his hair and he stayed down.

“I’m kid-proofing the stairs,” he announced, walking away, giving Steve space and making himself a mimosa. He deserved it, dammit. Steve was going to turn his hair gray. Devilishly handsome silver fox though he would doubtless be, Tony wanted peace of mind more. He wanted to sleep through the night without wondering if he would _know_ if Steve got in over his head or only find out after the fact. It all seemed so easy, so fun and second-nature, until it wasn’t.

He didn’t bother to keep the noise down, aware that Steve could tune him out. Steve only cared about _change_ , sudden silences or noises in a vacuum, things that fell out of rhythm and signaled _be ready._ Chatting more to himself than the lump on the couch, Tony mused, “What’s so fun about Ukraine, huh? You shouldn’t mess with the Russians.”

He was surprised to hear a deep-voiced rasp of a response: “Labor-for-hire.”

Tony looked over, but he couldn’t see Steve’s expression, only the tuft of hair on the arm of the couch. “Labor-for- _what_ -now?” he said dangerously.

Steve sighed. “It's complicated, Tony.”

“Now I’m dying to know,” Tony retorted, still speaking normally, conversationally, as he topped off his drink. Steve could hear him. Hell, he could whisper and Steve could still hear him. It was eerie at times: he’d caught Steve glancing at doors before they opened, well before Tony even heard the footsteps.

Steve made an ambivalent noise. “No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am,” Tony retorted, drinking deeply and sighing appreciatively. “You know I can hack S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Steve groaned.

“What’s so enticing about Mother Russia?” Tony prodded, keeping his distance, hoping if Steve didn’t see him, he might reveal what was on his mind, like talking to an empty room. It was a dirty play, but Steve was a stubborn bastard like him. Sometimes the only tricks he knew were somewhat underhanded. Steve forgave him. Or gave him the patented _Captain America is disappointed in you_ look. Either way, it wasn’t fatal. Tony was willing to push his luck. “Romanoff got family I don’t know about?” he added.

“Not that I know of,” Steve admitted, more than he wanted to say, if his sudden silence was anything to go by.

Tony smoothed it over: “We’re her family now, anyway.”

“We’re her family,” Steve repeated, sounding somber, almost too quiet for Tony to hear. The silence was long. Tony thought he’d fallen asleep again, had resigned himself to not knowing, when Steve said suddenly, “Can’t let anything happen to her, Tony.”

Tony sat at the bar, arms folded on the counter, drink forgotten. “You won’t,” he assured. “You never do. It’s your thing.” He paused, waiting patiently, but when Steve didn’t respond he added, “You know Barton would never let anything happen to her.”

“I know.” Steve sighed. Then, like he was steeling himself for rejection, he asked, “Mind helping a fella out? I’ll do anything you want for an ice pack.”

Tony had about five completely inappropriate responses to that, settling on the least lecherous. “ _Anything?_ ” he purred, smiling when Steve sighed. He didn’t make a fuss of it, snagging a pack from the freezer and saying, “Think fast.” Steve caught it deftly. “That doesn’t get old.”

“Glad you like my party trick,” Steve rumbled, lowering the pack to his knee with a sigh. “Thank you.”

Tony nodded even though Steve couldn’t see it. “About that _anything_.”

“Mm-hm?” Steve’s tone was easy, inviting.

Tony wasn’t proud of himself for hesitating, but he couldn’t use his get-out-of-jail-free card on anything less: “What’s so interesting about Russia?”

Steve didn’t respond right away. Tony didn’t say anything, waiting. Steve didn’t disappoint. “Norilsk,” he murmured.

Tony frowned. “Norilsk.”

Steve exhaled. “Tying up some loose ends,” he murmured. “Nothing to worry about.” He twisted around, sighing and saying, “Satisfied?”

“No,” Tony said truthfully. “What’s in Norilsk?”

“Surprised you don’t know,” Steve said in a sleep-heavy voice. “Norilsk Nickel? Doesn’t run a bell?”

Tony sipped his drink thoughtfully. “Can I buy a vowel?” he asked.

Steve huffed. “Not sure why you’d want a vowel,” he said. “’S the world’s largest supplier of a certain precious mineral. I’ll give you five guesses which one.”

Tony didn’t need five. He set down his drink. “Fuck,” he said eloquently.

Steve didn’t sit up. Reassuringly, he insisted, “Everything’s fine, Tony. Don’t worry about it.”

“Somehow, I still worry about it.” Tony wandered over to him. Steve didn’t bother opening his eyes, one arm folded over his eyes, blocking out the light. “And you’re going to Norilsk to, what, mine a few pounds of palladium?”

Steve frowned. He didn’t move his arm or open his eyes. “What?” he asked, not following the conversation.

Tony tried to cut out the sarcasm, sitting on the opposite arm of the couch and looking down at him. “Why are you going to Norilsk?”

Steve inhaled deeply. “Palladium,” he murmured.

“We have palladium,” Tony reminded him.

Steve sighed. “It’s my pound of flesh,” he said. “Know that one?”

“Quit,” Tony said at once. “Bail. Renege.”

Steve grimaced. “No.” He didn’t move his arm. He wasn’t rebuffing Tony; he was refusing to fight. “It’s a short trip, a check in. Like Luhansk.”

Tony’s voice was pure acid: “If that was the test run, I can’t _wait_ to see how the main event’s gonna go.”

Steve moved his arm so he could look at him. “Tony,” he said, “everything’s gonna be okay.”

Tony wanted to argue with him, but Steve replaced his arm over his eyes, shutting him out. His patchwork uniform seemed more fragile than Tony remembered it being, covered in scars, all the truths Steve’s own unmarred skin couldn’t tell. Tony wanted to say, _If you die halfway around the world, I will never forgive you_.

Instead, he stood and tactfully retreated, accepting the stalemate for what it was.

. o .

It was what S.H.I.E.L.D. called a diplomatic back scratching: rather than sending care packages and flowery letters, S.H.I.E.L.D. called up the party it was interested in, asked for a rainy-day request, and sent back a neatly-packaged mission report within a week. Apparently, there were Rebel Scum in Luhansk, Ukraine that a couple interested Russian parties wanted to have humbled; at least, that was what Tony surmised as he sat with his feet up on the table, tablet in hand, scrolling through the files.

Diplomatically speaking, Captain America couldn’t throw his full support behind the Russian equivalent of the Department of Defense. It was nothing personal: he couldn’t swear his allegiance to any government outside the Stars and Stripes. But he _could_ make a couple well-timed appearances and instill the fear of God into some unsuspecting criminals, who indubitably saw capturing the America Patriot as a kind of prize above the rest.

Tony knew every Avenger had a pretty sizeable bounty on their head in at least half the world’s countries. It was rarely said out loud, of course, (amateurs broadcast, professionals operated in radio-silence), but they were functionally an extension of the United States government, operating within the ostensibly American agency S.H.I.E.L.D. and calling American cities their homes. There were a lot of people who felt it was a global threat to diplomatic power balances for any one country to have that much power. Overnight, the United States had become a literal super-power. Plenty of interested parties were willing to pay a handsome price to see the status quo restored.

It wouldn’t work—you could never stuff the genie back in the bottle—but Captain America was still, nearly equally, adored as a pseudo-religious figure and despised as Public Enemy Number One across borders. Even in the US, there was talk about neutralizing the Avengers, tagging and bagging—not as gruesome as putting them in the ground, never so openly hostile, of course not—to make sure they didn’t go rogue. They were as dangerous as the Chitauri; they were _more_ dangerous than the Chitauri.

Tony thought, _Ain’t that gratitude_. He kept scrolling.

It was hypocrisy to say that he was grateful Steve Rogers was Captain America and not Commander Russia, but he was. Tony had plenty of beef with the US government that he made no efforts at hiding—perks of being Iron Man and Tony Stark; he was borderline untouchable in the political sphere—but they had Captain goddamn America. 

There was something pretty comforting to be on his team. One Captain America was worth more than his weight in palladium: he was a one-man army. He was a goddamn one-man army. The world was quietly but earnestly trying to convince the US hotshots to let him swear allegiance elsewhere.

They had noble ideals, too. There was something innocent, something _appealing_ about it—like Captain America was supposed to be a champion of the People, _all_ People, not just red-blooded Americans—but Tony knew that even he could be tied up in too many strings to act. 

As it was, Tony didn’t like the leash S.H.I.E.L.D. had on him, a loyalty that was only strengthened by words like _Level 8_ _Security Clearance_. Steve was too military, too noble to turn his back on them. It was like he’d said: he could only work piecemeal on his own, one-at-a-time, while S.H.I.E.L.D. could be a hundred different places at once. The closer they kept him, the more loyal he became to them.

Someone, Tony thought grimly, knew exactly what they were doing.

The Avengers talked a good talk—Defenders of Earth, Earth’s Mightiest Heroes—but Tony knew that there were hard feelings about loyalties, for good reason. He left the politics to the politicians as much as possible, preferring to focus on his own orbit, what he could control, while Steve, almost deliberately provocatively, pushed the line as far as he could go.

 _Labor for hire_ , Tony mused. 

Most people called it a mercenary.

Tony looked over at the couch where Steve was, wondering if he knew that even if S.H.I.E.L.D. said it was good didn’t mean it _was_ good. Maybe Captain America wasn’t supposed to fight the little battles. 

There were reasons Thor didn’t live on Earth and that worked in Earth’s favor: he was a literal God in their midst, so overpowered nobody could stand alone against him. He lived among his people. He fought their battles; he looked after the Nine Realms. These were challenges big enough for him, challenges big enough to humble him.

Steve Rogers was a nation unto himself, a man out of time looking to fix the world. Tony was afraid that Steve was becoming every bit as dangerous as S.H.I.E.L.D. purported him to be. Tony had hoped, in a morbid corner of his mind, that failing so spectacularly would put the brakes on Steve’s crusade to save everyone and smite evil with his bare hands. It had—for a time. But Steve was nothing if not a get-up-and-go kind of person.

It was two AM when, almost on cue, he sat up and tilted his head. then he looked over at Tony.

“So, I’ve made an executive decision,” Tony told him calmly, feet still up on the table. Steve narrowed his eyes. He was right to be suspicious: “You’re not going to Norilsk.” 

Steve sighed, sliding to his feet. Tony didn’t have the suit on, but he didn’t need it to see the night-and-day—night-and-night, technically; sunrise wasn’t for another four hours—difference between Steve’s posture. The damage was forgotten if not gone altogether. “Tony,” he said firmly, “it’s not your call.”

“No, it is,” Tony said, still exasperatingly calmly, he could tell, Steve’s shoulders bunching before he straightened, glaring.

“This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” he said with more bite than Tony expected. “It’s just a mission, Tony. A _recon_.”

“If your definition of reconnaissance is as loose as your definition of infiltration, you are literally going to die,” Tony said bluntly. “You’re not going.”

Steve was halfway across the room, but Tony still felt the heat in his gaze as he retorted, “For one goddamn minute, Tony, I need you to understand that you don’t own me. I’m going. That’s not up for debate.”

“I have pull,” Tony warned. “Norilsk is a closed city. They don’t want visitors. Won’t take much to make sure your name is blacklisted.”

If Tony had pointed a loaded gun at him, Steve couldn’t have look stormier. He stepped closer, measured steps, pausing six feet away. Striking distance, Tony thought, not moving, holding his own ground. He could almost hear Steve switching tactics. “What are you afraid of?”

Tony stared at him, eyebrows arched. “It’s not about _fear_ , Rogers.”

“I think it is.” Steve didn’t blink. His stare was hard to hold, more predatory than human. Tony thought about how fucked his enemies were when they saw him march through the door, completely unarmed but for the shield on his back. He didn’t have his shield now—Tony had set it by the windows idly, barely thinking about it at the time—but Tony knew he didn’t need it. Not for this. “You’re afraid,” Steve said.

“Been doing my homework,” Tony replied, indicating the tablet. “Maybe you think you’re invincible, but you’re _not_. You don’t mess with Norilsk. It’s in fucking _Siberia_. You know Siberia?”

Steve blinked. “You’re afraid,” he repeated in exasperation. “Tony, you of _all_ people should know this isn’t a risk-free lifestyle—”

“Yes, which is exactly why I am a part-time _consultant_ , not a full-time _mercenary_.”

Steve rolled his eyes. He yanked a chair out from the table, turned it around, and sat down, arms resting on the back of it. It reminded Tony nothing more of the _bad cop_ in the good-cop-bad-cop play. Tony lowered his own feet, set the tablet on the table, and crossed his arms. 

“I’m not a mercenary,” Steve said. Tony opened his mouth to argue, but Steve cut him off at the pass: “I made that very clear to Fury. I don’t want money, I don’t do it for _gain_.” He all but spat the word. Tony felt very conscious of the fact that Steve despised opulence. It made him feel strange, but Steve kept talking before he could comment on it. “It’s not even about you, Tony. There are two agents on the inside. Their reports have gotten patchy in the past six weeks. Something’s not adding up.”

Tony stared at him. He wondered, suddenly, if this was how Fury had felt when Captain America came to him and said with absolute calm, “I’m going in, I’m making sure they’re okay, and if not, I’m getting them out.”

It was a recon until it became a mission, Tony realized, feeling like he was sitting in an airless room. It felt inevitable.

He said, “Six weeks.” Steve didn’t say a word, didn’t even blink. “Those are bodies, Rogers.”

Steve bared his teeth, a flash of irritation that was there and gone. “They’re still reporting,” he said, voice sharp enough to cut ice. “They’re not dead.” Bulling ahead, he added, “I’m going.”

“Don’t.”

Steve didn’t flinch. He was too stoic for that. “Five days. That’s all I need.” He wasn’t negotiating. He was stating facts. “Be there and back before you know it.” A pause. “Natasha’s coming.”

“What are you going to do when I’m not there to drag you home?” Tony asked. Steve glared at him, like he’d played dirty. Tony knew he had. He didn’t care. He’d pull out all the stops if it meant preventing catastrophe. “I’m not going to Russia, I’m not going to fucking _Norilsk_ to pull you out. You go in—you’re not coming out. How do you not see that?”

Steve’s eyes were utterly flat. He looked ready to argue. Tony pressed on. “You think you’re the only man for the job,” Tony snapped, “you’re _not_. There are other people. You are not the only agent S.H.I.E.L.D. has.”

There was a long pause. Tony felt like he couldn’t breathe through it, but Steve breathed steadily, entire demeanor belying false calm. “No,” he agreed at last, “but I have to do this. I have to, Tony.” He stood.

Tony followed him. “We need you _here_ ,” he said, as emphatically as he could when it felt like his lungs would collapse. Steve stepped away from him. Tony had a hand wrapped around his belt in an instant, holding on. Steve halted. He could break Tony’s grip in an instant, be out the door in less than two seconds. He didn’t move. He stopped breathing, holding himself rigidly. Tony wondered if he would lash out.

He felt the ripple of tension as Steve tensed up before he relaxed. Tony tentatively tugged. Steve didn’t move, standing steady as a statue. Tony stepped closer. Afraid to let go of him, he wrapped his free arm around Steve’s middle, pulling him closer, locking his grip around his wrist. It felt fragile. Steve didn’t move.

Tony could feel his shallow, rapid, inaudible breathing. His own head spun as he listened to it. Pressing his cheek against the back of Steve’s uniform, Tony steadied himself. Steve didn’t make a sound, didn’t shout, didn’t move an inch under him, but Tony could feel it, the fight-or-flight instinct that screamed _run_.

Tony’s chest ached. He closed his eyes, holding onto Steve, his warm, solid presence like a balm to his own soul. He couldn’t imagine Steve in Siberia. New York was cold enough, dangerous enough. If S.H.I.E.L.D.’s finest were in trouble, Tony didn’t want Steve within a thousand miles of the epicenter. Ten thousand miles.

If Steve went to Siberia, he wasn’t coming back. Tony couldn’t say why he was so sure—in a rational corner of his mind he knew it was panic, not logic, that dictated such premonitions—but he clung to Steve regardless. Steve let him.

He didn’t know if it was peace, but they didn’t argue again, and maybe that was close enough.

. o . 

Steve avoided him.

Tony knew it was intentional, because he didn’t see Steve for the better part of two days, even though Natasha still showed up in the evenings like nothing had changed and Fury even admitted that Steve was still on property, apparently immersed in what amounted to paperwork. Unless he had found a way to clone himself, Steve hadn’t left on his suicide mission. _It’s not a suicide mission,_ Tony tried to reassure himself.

The consolation seemed flat. Maybe it wouldn’t kill Steve, but he knew that it would kill Steve if the agents didn’t make it.

 _You had to tell him_ , Tony wanted to shout at Fury, but he couldn’t bring himself to fly to S.H.I.E.L.D. It wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have over-the-phone, either, which meant his only option was to keep his silence. Avoidance was a pretty good strategy, he reflected. He didn’t have to deal with the problem if he never dealt with the problem. Easy as that.

On the third day, Steve came home. When Tony stepped through the door, Steve was _there_ , sitting at the table sketching in his sketchbook like he’d never left. Tony had wanted to launch into a _where the hell have you been_ tirade, but it never materialized. He ignored Steve, taking advantage of the lukewarm morning to step outside and soak in the weak sunshine.

He didn’t have to wait long before the door slid back.

Steve alighted beside him, looking tall and unbroken in his ragtag uniform. “You need a new suit,” Tony said without looking at him.

Steve made an ambivalent noise, folding his arms across his chest. “Looks worse than it is.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Tony said sarcastically. Steve sighed. Tony warned, “Don’t say sorry.”

“I am sorry, Tony,” Steve said.

Tony glanced at him. His expression was so calm. He didn’t look like a man who was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, but he was wearing his uniform, and that was exactly what it meant. It was backbreaking, bone-crushing. No one could hold it up forever. And that, Tony realized, was what scared him: if being Captain America would kill the good man and leave behind only a good soldier.

“I’m sorry for bringing you into it.”

Tony didn’t say a word. Steve didn’t look at him as he added, “I know you don’t want anything to do with. . . .” He fell silent, staring out at the city with unreadable eyes, before finishing, “These are my choices, Tony. Maybe they’re not the right ones. Maybe they’re gonna get me killed, but—I can’t not go. I’ve been given a second chance, I can’t not use it. I’m not even supposed to be here.”

“Says who?” The callous tone finally caught Steve’s attention. His brow furrowed; the neutral expression softened into something aching with hope. Tony couldn’t stand to look at it. “You’re here, aren’t you? Sounds like you’re supposed to be here.” He turned to face Steve fully. Steve looked him over, silently assessing. “I need you to get that. You’re here. Not to protect _us_. To be _you_. You think your friends from the forties would want you to martyr yourself for us?”

Steve’s eyes darkened. It wasn’t anger; it was grief. Raw, cold, unspeakable. Nearly his entire family—far beyond blood, nearly every human on Earth who knew what life was like in the 1930s, the 40s—was gone. 

He was the sole survivor. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t _fair_.

Tony insisted, “You weren’t brought back to die for us, Steve. You wanna know something?” He reached out, needing to touch him, to know he was there and it wasn’t a dream. Steve’s belt was cold in his hands, but it was real. “If we just wanted Captain America, we would never have brought you here. We wanted _you_. Not your stars. You.”

Steve stared at him. Slowly, disbelief morphed into rejection. He looked away. 

Tony tugged on his belt, releasing it and gripping the flanks of the suit instead. There wasn’t much to hold; Tony was struck by how thin the material was. He had thicker jackets. He knew it was all about maneuverability, but it didn’t feel like protection. It felt like a target, a thing to focus on. “Captain America never died,” Tony went on. Steve’s head tilted towards him as he looked at Tony, expression composed, unreadable. “Your legacy—it is rock-solid, Rogers. We didn’t bring you back to die for us as Captain America. We brought you back because you deserved a _life_ , Steve Rogers.”

Steve drew in a short breath. His voice was almost— _almost—_ unwavering. “You should’ve left me in the ice.”

Tony tugged him closer. Steve said in the same unshakable tone, “I’m not a hero, Tony. I’m—I broke it, I ruined it, I shouldn’t—” He inhaled sharply again, a hitching breath. “Remember what we said, Tony, remember, staying sane, we just gotta stay sane? If I can’t find a way to fix it, I’m gonna—” He shivered, grasping at Tony’s shirt, looking for metal to dig his hands into but there wasn’t metal. Nothing to anchor him. He fisted Tony’s shirt in his hands desperately. “You should’ve—you should’ve left me in the ice.”

“No.” One word, and Steve sniffed. “No. Never.” Steve shivered and clung to him. Tony pressed his forehead against Steve’s shoulder. Steve rested his cheek against Tony’s hair and caught a hitched breath in his chest. “Listen,” he murmured, “listen to me. World isn’t black and white. You know that, _I_ know that. Bad people are still people. Killing people, even bad people, fucks you up. That doesn’t mean you deserve to die. I’m pretty sure that’s the metric of a good person, how fucked up killing a bad person makes you.” He exhaled. He looped his arms around Steve’s waist, holding him tightly. “I know you did it—I know you did it for me, okay? I know. I get it, you had no beef with—they weren’t your Nazis, they were my problem, they were _my problem_ and you made it your problem and fuck, Steve, I never wanted you to get burned.”

Steve said in an intolerably mellow voice, “I killed them.”

“Yup.” A grunt, an affirmation, a punched-out word that matched the tightness in his own chest. “Yeah, you did, I know, but you know what? I know _why_ you did it, I know _why_ , Steve, and if you think there weren’t days when I wanted to kill them fucking _all_ , you’re wrong, I wanted them to burn and I didn’t, it was still kind of fucked-up, you know? I wanted to kill them, I wanted to kill so many people, Rogers, and I never had the _guts_ , couldn’t do it even when I _could_ , and then you came along, and you did what I’d thought about for _years_ , and you think—you think I’m gonna crucify you, huh? Self-immolation isn’t my style.”

Steve was shaking almost hard enough to rattle Tony’s teeth, subsurface tremors that bespoke agony. “I’ll do better. I’ll do better.”

“Yeah, yup,” Tony agreed, feeling like he was going to start shivering sympathetically. Steve’s moods were strangely palpable. Tony had never felt more in tune to his panic than he did then, saying tightly, “Know you will, buddy, ‘cause we’re not making the same mistake this time, got it?” He sighed suddenly, realizing with a muffled curse that there was no avoiding it: “You pick a hell of a locale to winter over in, know that, couldn’t have drawn the straw for Bora Bora, fuck.”

Steve asked his shoulder, “Bora Bora?”

“Warmer than Siberia,” Tony said. “Peace of mind, Rogers, memorize that, it’s my Christmas wish list.”

Steve didn’t say anything, shivering and breathing harshly. Tony hauled him under a metallic awning, not wanting to be in the light of day, they were a thousand feet up but hell, people were nosy and the last thing he wanted was this showing up in the news. Everyone expected— _expected_ ; not merely hoped but goddamn _expected—_ Captain America to be invincible. Tony wished he wasn’t small enough to expect it, too, because he had no goddamn idea how to hold him together when he wasn’t except through sheer force of will.

“‘m here,” he insisted, small and helpless and afraid and certain. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Steve told his shoulder, muffled but not inaudible, “’m not okay.”

Tony closed his eyes. “Yeah,” he said helplessly, scruffing Steve’s uniform hard. “I know. I know, big guy.”

He didn’t know how long it took for Steve to stop shivering. 

All he knew was the conviction beating in his chest.

. o .

An hour later, Steve was on his morning run— _don’t need me_ a gruff entreaty softened by the light kiss he pressed to Tony’s temple. Tony honored his wishes by picking up a bag of his favorite muffins and lying in wait for Bruce.

On cue, Bruce shambled into the main room, saw the hoard, and fell upon the trap. 

Tony debriefed him. He didn’t mention Steve once. 

“My Antarctic kids are going to cry favoritism, you know.”

“Sounds like a personal problem,” Tony said, sitting at the table and breaking off part of a blueberry muffin, popping it in his mouth. 

Bruce chafed his hands together. “You sure about this, Tony?”

Tony said levelly, “No.” He took another bite. “But I know he’s gonna go. I’d rather do it the right way than the hard way.”

“You know I can’t hulk out on command,” Bruce warned in an undertone. “I admire your faith in me, but—”

“Bruce,” Tony said, looking at him with unblinking honesty, “I am not asking the Hulk, I am asking _you_. Because I know that I can only predict seven of the ten ways shit is going to go down. I need someone who can spot the other three.”

Bruce flashed a small, rueful smile. “Oh, well—three I can handle.” He took a bite of his own muffin. “You know, if I lose touch with you, it won’t be any easier than if I was here.”

“Transmission is less likely to be dropped inside a two-hundred-mile radius,” Tony pointed out. “We can use long- and short-wave frequencies. Hopefully short; they’re narrower, harder to pick up.”

“I take it you’ll be on the ground,” Bruce said.

“Mm-hm.”

“You know, Tony,” Bruce began tactfully, “things go south, your suit—that could be valuable.”

“Thought of that. I can tamper-proof the suit so it fries the circuitry. Completely unrecoverable.”

“Still gives a lot,” Bruce warned.

“Mm-hm.” Tony finished off his muffin. “You know, world’s full of people who’d love to get their hands on Iron Man. If I put it up for good, that won’t stop people from looking back at what I’ve already given. If they get the suit, they get the suit. That’s the risk. That’s the _job_. I won’t leave it here, and I’ll do my damnedst not to lose it. I like the IX.”

“Me too. Hate to see it go.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Tony said.

Bruce huffed. “This is crazy, you know?”

“Your alter ego is literally the Hulk,” Tony reminded. “ _This_ is crazy?”

“. . . Touché.”

. o .

It was early afternoon before he cornered Clint. 

Steve still hadn’t come back yet, but Tony wasn’t worried. Steve was many dangerous things, but not a liar. Sometimes, like Tony, he needed to run away from the world. He’d come back. 

He always did.

Clint laughed. It wasn’t at him. “No,” Clint assured, while Tony ate blueberries from a little silver bag, leaning against the doorframe to Clint’s room. “I’m not laughing at you. Just wondered when. Natasha already told me.” He flexed his arms behind his back, cracking it. “I wasn’t gonna push it—they’re good, you know, for kids.” He smirked, sitting on the floor in front of his bed and indicating his holo-screen. “Fury doesn’t send me to Russia much, figures I’d have hard feelings.”

Tony cocked his head, curious despite himself. Clint shrugged. “I was sent to kill Natasha,” he said calmly. “I made a different call. We’ve been on each other’s team ever since.”

Tony stared at him. “So, no hard feelings?”

Clint grinned sharply. Without prompting, he rucked up his shirt, displaying a five-inch scar over his left hip. “Just this. To be fair, I thought it was a handshake.” He laughed, then, dropping his shirt. “That’s how you know you’re getting old, Stark. You still fall for the first truce.” Looking Tony over, he added more soberly, “You sure you’re up for this? Alpha missions aren’t for kids. Well.” He nodded over Tony’s shoulder at the invisible kids-in-question. “Two exceptions.”

“I don’t like postcards,” Tony said blithely, “and time-zones are annoying.”

Nodding, Clint responded with the same breezy attitude: “Those international phone bills will kill you.”

. o .

Steve was warm and freshly-showered and everything Tony’s tired soul needed as he curled his arms around Tony’s chest and rested his chin on Tony’s head. Tony didn’t even look up from the Mark 225 he was sketching, lounging on his bean bag. In a numbers mood, he’d spend time on Mark 10, but in an artsy mood, he preferred to make more, more, more.

“What number is that?” Steve asked, voice comfortingly normal.

“Two-twenty-five.”

Steve hummed. “S’pretty.”

Tony reached up to stroke his arm, pushing lightly against the grain. He couldn’t deny the charm of Captain America’s uniform, but he preferred easy access to warm skin. Steve lingered, his presence soporific, before he murmured, “Wanna show you something.”

Tony tilted his head to look at him, but Steve was gone, returning and taking a seat on the floor next to him. He slid a thumb to a dog-eared page on his sketchbook and opened it, passing it along and deftly catching the tablet that slid out of Tony’s limp fingers.

Reverently, Tony took the book in his hands. 

It was a partial-page penciled sketch, a wide-shot of the city, most of the page dominated by negative space. Not to be missed, near the luminously-outlined rooftop of a skyscraper, a small Iron Man leaped. Tony could see grasping hands reaching skyward in silent, muted ecstasy.

He could barely look away, entranced by the suit, _his_ suit, but there were other sketches on the page, little Iron Men captured in various poses: a somersaulting Iron Man, an Iron Man twisted in mid-spin, Iron Man with both hands playfully arced behind the helmet and his back to the floor, like he was resting on an invisible hammock. 

He turned the page and saw more Iron Men, frozen in time and space, ecstasy in every suspended movement, every arched hand and curved foot. There was even a small sketch of the Tower, not detailed—not the _focus_ of the image—as Iron Man swan-dived in space beyond the railing’s edge, looking powerful and breathless in the empty space.

There were cartoony images, too: Iron Man lounging on the curve of a crescent moon, Iron Man feeding ducks at the park, Iron Man negotiating an old-fashioned bicycle. Iron Man, hands on hips, looking reproachfully down at a metallic moon-print in the wet concrete of a freshly-poured sidewalk. Iron Man, arms extended, preening on a stage in front of a faceless crowd.

He flipped through the pages slowly, lingering over each miniature drawing. It seemed like an economy of space thing, the cramped way Iron Man existed on paper. Yet he seemed ecstatic and free, boundless, unstoppable. He lingered over a drawing of the suit in profile, standing on the balcony, the curves and sharp edges of the suit lovingly reconstructed, the sleek animal power in gauntleted palms resting on the railing. His posture breathed restful anticipation, another night, another flight. Tony could see the view from his own perspective, gazing up at a starry sky while somewhere in the balcony room behind him, Steve sketched him.

In the most recent image, Iron Man stood in nearly the same pose, but the helmet was down, Tony’s hair wild, a flicker of an impish smile as he leaned loosely against the railing, gaze fixed on the stars. He looked young and ageless, recreated in sparing, forgiving lines, a feeling more than a person. On the back of the shoulder plates, he saw a tiny _T.S._ , right over his heart.

Tony lingered on the initials for a long moment before looking down at Steve, whose upraised eyebrows seemed both hopeful and cautious.

With rough sincerity, Tony closed the book, handed it back, and said, “I really love you, you know?”

Steve set it aside, a flicker of a smile on his face, there and gone, bashful enjoyment. “I love watching you fly,” he murmured, closing his eyes and resting his cheek against Tony’s thigh. “Could do it all day.”

Tony tucked a hand in his hair, spiking it, amusing himself. Steve didn’t budge, letting out a contented hum. “We haven’t gone flying in a while.”

Steve didn’t open his eyes. “Hard to hold onto,” he admitted.

Tony set his hand against the nape of his neck. “I’ll make it better.”

Steve shook his head, shuffling around to look him in the eye. “Don’t change it for me,” he said seriously. “I don’t want you to—”

“Too bad.” Tony cupped his face. Steve frowned. Pouted. “I like a challenge.”

“It’s the ice,” Steve admitted. “It’s fine in the summer.”

Tony shrugged. “Not summer in Norilsk.”

Steve’s expression clouded over. For a moment, Tony thought he would retreat. Then he said softly, “You’re serious?”

“I often joke about vacations to the cold and unforgiving North.”

Steve looked away like he couldn’t meet Tony’s eyes as he said, “I don’t know if—”

“You’re going.” Steve met his gaze and nodded. “Then it’s settled.”

Steve frowned. “Tony. . . .”

“Listen.” Steve did, looking at him with quiet eyes, half-lidded eyes. “We’re the Avengers. We are a team. Together, or not at all. Got it?”

Steve shut his eyes. “Tony. . . .”

Tony kissed his temple. “You know I love it when you say my name, but I was looking more for a ‘yes, that sounds like a rational and good and sound—’”

Steve cut him off with a proper kiss, firm enough Tony let out a thin exhale that was _not_ a squeak but gentle enough Tony’s eyes slid shut.

“Good talk,” Tony murmured against his cheek.

Steve huffed in amusement. “The logistics are gonna be hell.”

“Good thing I _love_ to plan things,” Tony said.

“Pretty sure I got enough goodwill for a plus-one,” Steve added, talking to himself. Tony distracted himself by kissing his cheek, his jaw. 

“Try plus-four.”

Steve groaned. “ _Tony_.”

“Technically, Natasha was already on the itinerary, so plus-three,” Tony amended. “And Bruce isn’t even going near the mainland. Plus-two. You got kidnapped twice, that’s worth a plus-two.”

Steve slanted a glance at him, letting his eyelids slide shut when Tony kissed his temple. “Gonna set us back a bit,” he murmured. “Take some time, make sure everything’s in order.”

“Sad. I already had my bags packed and everything.”

Steve sighed, tilting his head so Tony could kiss along his jawline. “One day, Stark, I’ll get a serious answer out of you.”

Tony nipped his skin, not hard. Then he murmured, “That’s Tony goddamn Stark to you, Rogers.”

“Tony goddamn Stark,” Steve repeated faithfully, blinking at him, smiling. “Goddamn wonder, s’what you are.”

“Flatterer,” Tony mumbled, but he couldn’t disguise the happy little uptick of his mouth. Steve kissed the corner of it. “And a sneak.”

“Wanna watch the dinosaur movie,” Steve murmured. “I fell asleep and missed it. Can’t go to Norilsk without finishing the dinosaur movie.”

“Can’t,” Tony agreed.

. o .

They welcomed Halloween—

(“Happy Halloween,” Bruce announced at 12:00 AM on the money.

Tony, currently snoring on Steve’s chest, didn’t respond, but Steve, reclining on his back with an arm around Tony, said in a conversational murmur, “Halloween?”

“Yeah—s’this thing, people dress up in costumes, eat candy, carve pumpkins—”

“No, we had it,” Steve assured.

“Oh, cool. You ever dress up?”

“Sure. If I was feelin’ festive, I picked a fight and got a black eye.”

Bruce tossed back another handful of popcorn. “Sounds like you were a riot at parties.”

“Mm.” Steve’s voice was fond. “Something like. What about you?”

“Oh, every year. I love Halloween.”)

—That is, Bruce and Steve welcomed Halloween to the tune of _Jurassic Park._

Tony dreamed he was a baby _T. rex_ lion tamer, complete with Iron Man armor.


	19. HALLOWEEN

_Sunday, March 4, 1945._  
Kangerdlugssuaq Glacier, Greenland.  
On board the _Valkyrie_.

Oh, geez, it was hard to breathe.

That was Steve Rogers’ first thought as he gasped awake, soaked to his calves and trapped between the chair and the crushed steering mechanism, crackling and hissing and other ominous noises around him signaling, _mechanical failure, danger, ice, danger, water, mechanical failure, evacuate, evacuate_. That was the military guy in him speaking, even though the panicky animal in his head couldn’t focus on much beyond, _Can’t catch my breath_. It was cold, the uniform wasn’t warm enough for the Arctic, but, hell, he was a super-soldier, Erskine’s finest work. He’d marched through cold weather for days at a time without flinching, he could do this, he could, he was awake and alive and those were both good things.

Very good things, he thought, as with a wrenching howl of fury and effort, he broke the steering wheel and tore it away. Water, ice-cold and black, immediately swamped the space. He struggled to his feet against the current, against the can’t-catch-my-breath unsteadiness. His chest felt oddly compressed, each breath taking more effort than it should have, _c’mon, Rogers, keep it together_. The comms were out, he saw, pinpointing the hissing of the radio, whining and dying in ice-cold water. That meant no more Peggy, no more Stark; _you’re on your own_. He swallowed against the bile that swelled up in his throat— _don’t throw up, don’t throw up—_ and focused on staggering up the _Valkyrie_ as it tipped nose-down in the ice.

His legs moved in a dream, thick and slow in fast-moving, ice-cold water, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. He was more worried about what would happen once he reached the Arctic surface, soaked from the waist down in sub-zero temperatures. He pushed the thought aside: he’d worry about that bridge when he got to it, sluggishly taking hold of a metal bar on the wall to steady himself as vertigo tried to pull him down. He didn’t dare kneel, not with water in the interior, cold, mind-numbing water that made it all feel a bit dream-like.

This wasn’t happening. He couldn’t be in a sinking ship, a literal sinking ship in the middle of the goddamn Atlantic, maybe twenty hours from rescue and already hypothermic. _You will get through this_ , he coached himself, in the same way he’d survived terrible wounds in the past, _you will, just keep moving._ He did, wrenching himself away from his perch and moving around the dark interior, dimly illuminated by blue ice. The sound of rushing water, the hissing of the engines burning through ice, these things were coercive. He needed to get out.

 _Get out of the plane_.

Easy enough, except the main exit was underwater on the belly of the plane. There was an emergency latch on the ceiling that he could use. Getting to it would have been challenging even in ideal conditions, but Captain America wasn’t made for the ideal. He was made for the worst case scenario, to walk straight through Hell and keep going. He found the edge of the wall ladder after a gasping interim, pawing around blindly, feet sloshing through ankle-deep ocean water. 

With a terrible groan of renting metal, followed by the hiss of steaming ocean water on boiling metal far below, the plane sunk downward, suddenly and fearfully. He lost his three-fingered grip on the wall, crashing backwards and meeting the surging, furious Atlantic.

An animal fight for survival ensued. 

The water foamed and bit and clawed at him. Almost of their own volition, his limbs thrashed and twisted and resisted, seeking air, _freedom_. He found it. When frozen boots met frozen floor, he pushed upright with every ounce of strength he possessed, breaking free and latching onto the nearest handhold on the wall.

Gasping tightly for breath, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, it was cold, his chest was barely moving—he climbed towards the relative safety of the tail of the plane, one small movement at a time. He wasn’t even worried about how numb his lower half was anymore, didn’t care that he might not make it out with both legs. His more immediate concern was his vision: grayed out and refusing to focus, he needed more air, he was drowning in air, he couldn’t draw a deep enough breath even out of the water. It was impossible to breathe, between the raw animal panic— _drowning—_ and the cold, the biting killing insidious cold.

He hadn’t had asthma for months, but he felt the same breathless couldn’t-force-air-into-his-lungs feeling, clinging to the burning cold metal of the _Valkyrie._ He’d had trouble with it nearly his entire life: drowning in air. What a terrible irony, he thought. He wondered if he was going to die like his father; he wondered if it was possible to die if he felt so calm, even as the ship sank deeper still.

The water was now high enough that there was no dry place for trembling legs to land, so he did the next best thing, grasping the wall with both arms and hauling himself up and out of the current. That helped, putting the strain on his shoulders to keep himself out of the water, _get out of the water, Rogers_ , that was his only objective anymore, didn’t even care if he got out of the plane, just _stay out of the water_. It didn’t matter much—the air felt cold, _colder_ with his shivering body plastered the wall—but it meant a lot to him. One small victory.

His arms burned with cold, but he knew he could stay here, hugging the wall, indefinitely. In a numb haze, he listened to the water filling the interior, trying to force himself to put his feet down because there was nowhere to go here, he had to get to the roof, he was never gonna claw his way outta this one, c’mon, Rogers, c’mon. 

But he couldn’t, flinching when the cold, breathtakingly cold, _indescribably_ cold, water splashed up to his elevated feet. He brought them up against the wall, pressing cold toes against cold metal through frozen boots, _hold out, hold out, hold on_. He didn’t know why. It was only delaying the inevitable: he was too far to be rescued, nobody would find him because all he saw outside the cockpit was blue, blue ice, he was buried in ice, he was buried alive—but he couldn’t let go, couldn’t quit.

He was losing strength, he knew, as his oxygen levels plummeted and his frozen body retreated inwards, extremities succumbing to preserve the core. He could feel his frozen gloved fingers losing their grip, no longer in his control. He knew his full weight would bring them down soon enough. It didn’t happen all at once. The plane wasn’t sinking anymore. The whine of the engines was dead and cold, the Atlantic filling the plane to match the exterior, a few more feet, just a few more feet but so much water, thousands of gallons of it.

He yearned, suddenly and powerfully, to be at home with his Ma, complaining playfully about the dishes, _aw, Ma, come on, this newfangled device, s’gonna revolutionize us_. The windows would be open to let the summer air in even though it made him cough. He always had a damn cough, but he wasn’t a quitter, _I never quit_. He pulled himself up farther, enjoying freedom from the prying current for a few more moments.

He could barely remember her face, but he could vividly picture the pattern of the dresses she made herself, simple but beautiful, flour bags instead of fancy fabric because it was the Depression, Stevie. He’d grown up knowing gratitude for a bite to eat on a hungry stomach because a dime was the most wondrous object he’d ever held. 

He could smell fresh bread, felt like licking his lips to chase the taste of it. He heard in the fuzzy noise of his head the mingled sounds, the whistling and hooting of people on the streets amid the creakings and groanings of the _Valkyrie_ , the clanking of horse hooves and the louder _ree-ree_ of car horns, damned cars, always trying to run people over, but boy they were fun, too, air in his hair and thunder in his chest.

And there was other thunder, too, the kind of bastardized thunder that made him tremble, distant, primordial, preternatural _booms_ , too soft to be nature, too violent to belong to the Earth. He huddled in his tent and listened to the thunder in the distance dragging out endlessly. That was where he’d wanted to be, fighting alongside, dying alongside, pulverized in a cosmic flash by a great, distant, muffled, _boom_.

The final **BOOM** was loud enough to snap his eyes open. Steve gasped a shuddering breath for the first time in over a minute, clinging—more frozen than participatory—to the wall. He had to get moving again, gonna freeze to death in a goddamn plane, gonna freeze to death alone in the middle of the goddamn Atlantic.

He wanted, suddenly, to be up in the air again, to be talking to Peg, to talk to her, to tell her, “Hi, sweetheart, there’s a million things I haven’t said, even more I haven’t done, but I hope we get a life together—I’d love to know a life with you.” He’d never talk so boldly to her—he could barely keep his composure, stammering and blushing like he was some kid trying to woo a girl for the first time—but he wished, he wished earnestly, that he’d said it, anyway. Maybe then he wouldn’t have crashed the plane. He _had_ to, had to crash the plane, but maybe—well.

Hypotheticals didn’t matter. 

The cold rushing over him, the water sloshing around his feet, that was what mattered. The breathlessness mattered as he pried another frozen breath from the Arctic, and _B_ _reathe, buddy,_ Bucky would entreat, watching him. He always hated it, hated falling apart in front of Buck, who was strong and tough and brave as hell, while he was the mutt who got his ass handed to him by bigger punks without morals or scruples. It was worse back then, gasping, panicking, struggling to pull in a breath; now, it just felt like a long time of emptiness, of nothing-happening.

A deep breath, shuddering and thin, less satisfying than the one before, more and more black spots dotting his vision. He’d go blind soon, if he wasn’t already, couldn’t seem to even make out the blue ice much anymore. Maybe that was the darkness of the plane interior without engines to burn, or maybe it was just his own light going out.

He made one last push, putting his feet down in water that no longer felt cold as it washed over his numb legs. That was nice, he thought, except that he couldn’t walk, prying his way along the wall, grasping at nothing, get-to-the-roof. He would, any minute now. Then he’d be out in open air and he’d make a fire, somehow, didn’t know how yet but he could do it. Somebody would find him, right? Somebody would find him.

He had to get to the surface, get out of the plane, get out of the water. Each step felt impossibly huge. There was nowhere to go that wasn’t covered in water, nowhere to run, just darkness and the hiss and gasp of his own breath and the water, nature versus man. He knew without needing to take bets which side was winning. He couldn’t feel much, except the way the air burned in his lungs, the way his fingertips screamed with pain every time he dug them into frozen metal, electrifying nerves almost dead to pain.

He thought he’d die fighting to the finish, always dreamed he’d never give up his own life, but actual death, tangible and raw and tearing into him, was less of a struggle and more of an inevitable realization that the next breath wasn’t _coming_.

He inhaled as strongly as he could, but there was no air, the ship had air but he couldn’t feel it, oh, God, he couldn’t breathe. For a desperate moment he came alive, came alive, leaning blindly against the wall and clawing at his throat, at the uniform, it was choking him, something was choking him, he couldn’t—couldn’t gulp down a single breath, no matter how hard he tried. He hit his knees, got a mouthful of water, and couldn’t get back up.

He was afraid, heart-poundingly afraid, now, recognizing mortal danger, more alive than he had ever been in his entire life, even when he was laughing and smiling or weeping at his mother’s grave, when he was singing along or flinging his shield into a Hydra agent’s face, when he was surrounded by the Howling Commandos as they crowded around, cheering for him, _Cap! Cap! Cap!_ but he was an island unto himself, incapable of feeling pride in that moment, only outstanding joy, because he’d done what he’d come to do, he’d saved over a thousand lives in one exhausting, bone-breaking march to the finish.

Those were the moments when he thought he’d been most alive, when he’d felt every color on the spectrum, but it wasn’t until he was drowning in three feet of water, unable to get back to his feet, keenly aware that his life was about to end, that he felt a sense of animal terror, one brief moment of life in a long series of soft-edged moments, of pain and sorrow and joy and laughter. He wished he’d danced more; he wished he’d sang more; he wished with everything that he’d made it to the end of the War, that he’d stayed with them to the finish line. _I’m sorry_ , he thought, feeling a grief unlike any he’d known, because his final act wasn’t triumphant, it wasn’t saving millions of lives.

He was dying in three feet of water.

He was drowning, on his knees, unable to get up, in three feet of water.

He snatched a breath somewhere, almost more water than air as he broke the surface, feeling the siren song of life appealing him to try, try again. He would, he would, for them, for everybody, he’d do it. He’d try. Oh, he’d try. And they’d end the War, end _all_ Wars. They’d go home and they’d laugh and live again. He’d live, even though his chest was too tight to draw breath, his vision was gone and he was too numb to feel pain, only a soft awareness that he was in mortal danger.

He’d live, because he had to.

His last bittersweet breath was tainted with ocean water. Then the silence became complete, and Captain America froze to death in three feet of water.

Crash to finish, it took just under nine minutes.

. o . 

_**Present: W** **ednesday, October 31, 2012.**_  
North Bergen, New Jersey.   
Walmart.

_2:49 AM._

Tony said, “Look at you. Modern man.”

“Modern man,” Steve agreed, pushing the plastic shopping cart along. Aloud, he pointed out, “You know we had these, back home, right?”

“But did you have _these_?” Tony asked, grabbing a random box off a shelf and holding it out to Steve.

Steve took it, cocked his head, and read, “‘Nerf Gun’?”

“That’s the one.” Tony grabbed an armful and dumped them in the cart. He ignored Steve’s reproachful look. “What? We need them.”

“We _need_ them,” Steve repeated dryly, resting both arms on the handle. “For what, pray tell?”

“Who says ‘pray tell’ anymore?” Tony huffed, giving him a light push. “Onward.”

Clint, brandishing a toy _T. rex_ , appeared at the end of the aisle. “Guys.”

“Nice,” Tony beamed.

Steve sighed. “Is that a gun, too?” he asked sardonically.

“Anything’s a gun if you can throw it hard enough,” Clint said sagely. “How many should I grab?”

“How many do they have?”

Clint grinned wolfishly and disappeared around the corner.

Natasha sauntered up behind them with an entire storage box worth of mixed candy bags balanced on her hip, glancing at their cart and adding, “Oh, we’re getting toys, too?”

“If Captain Fun here says so, yes,” Tony said, smirking when Steve rolled his eyes.

“It’s your money, Tony.”

“They got any marshmallow guns?” Tony asked the class.

“How many guns are you planning on handing out?” Steve asked.

“These are for us,” Tony said, indicating the Nerf Gun pile. “And I’ll give you that one, there’s probably a no-weapons rule.” Clint, brandishing a light saber, retreated with a frown. “I don’t make the rules, I just break them,” Tony called after him.

“Every kid needs a light saber,” Clint replied, returning with a cart-full of plastic _T. rexes_ instead. “Behold: the fruits of my labor.”

“This won’t inconvenience the store?” Steve asked, standing up straight and frowning at Tony. “Don’t they, you know—need them?”

“A: it’s adorable that you think there is a dire, imminent need for plastic toy dinosaurs,” Tony said, patting his cheek to make him flush before he moved out of reach, “and B: they have more in the back. They’ll probably get a new shipment sometime this week, too. It’s fine. They’re trying to _sell_ the merchandise,” he added educationally.

Steve sighed and nodded. “All right.” Then, decided, he allowed, “Okay. We’re doing this.”

Tony clapped him on the shoulder. “See, I knew you’d catch on. Go find something that they have at least ten of and bring it back.” He looked down at his watch pointedly. “On the clock, mister, only twenty-one hours left till midnight, chop chop.”

Clint shoved his dinosaur cart next to Tony’s and clapped Steve on the shoulder. “Got just the thing, follow me.”

They were back in five minutes with—Tony counted—twenty-seven teddy bears, all improbably balanced in Steve’s encompassing embrace. “We left three,” Steve added, when Tony grinned. “Didn’t wanna make ‘em go broke. Can’t all be scoundrels like Tony Stark.”

“Scoundrels,” Tony muttered. “I am a _refined_ bastard.”

They filled three shopping carts with candy, Nerf Guns, toy dinosaurs, and teddy bears. 

Tony tossed in a couple of the perennial favorite, Slinkies, for the heck of it. He thought he’d have to explain it to Steve, but Steve just picked one up, smiled like Christmas morning, and said, “These took off, did they?”

. o .

_3:21 AM._

Tony tossed Steve the car keys. 

Steve caught them deftly, looking at him in surprise. “This is my baby,” Tony explained, patting the Acura on the hood. “Handles like a dream.” Steve stared at him blankly, utterly unreadable. His breathing shallowed. Tony noticed because the thin white cloud abruptly disappeared, even though Steve’s easygoing demeanor hadn’t changed.

As if to prove it, Steve smiled winningly, tossed the keys back—Tony fumbled, cursed as he caught them—and said expressionlessly, “I trust you.”

Tony twirled the keys on his finger. “You sure?”

Steve slid into the passenger’s seat with wordless calm, blowing out a breath like a cloud of smoke. “Your car, Tony,” he said. “I’m just here for the ride.” He put his arms behind his neck, the picture of indulgent ease.

Tony hopped into the driver’s seat and asked with a grin, “Think we can beat them back?”

He saw Steve smile, a flash of teeth. “Wait twenty minutes,” he suggested. When Tony looked at him curiously, Steve explained with closed eyes, “Give them a fighting chance.” 

Tony had given the kids the storage-friendlier Audi, along with stern orders not to off-road her or lose any of their cargo. He’d been impressed that Bruce, indubitably bouncing along in the backseat while Natasha and Clint alternated driving, hadn’t insisted on being in the Acura, which was one of Tony’s all-time favorites, but Bruce was polite like that. 

Tony knew that they’d make good time on quiet roads. Still, they weren’t about to outstrip the racing legend himself. Tony knew that and they knew that. And everyone was better for knowing up front who was the boss.

With a grin of his own, Tony turned on the car. “Got a better idea.”

Tony knew for a fact that old-school cars didn’t even _have_ seat belts, let alone state laws countrywide demanding they be worn, but Steve was a modern man, automatically and intuitively copying the motions around him until they were second nature. They had had some seat belts, of course—planes, military vehicles, the like—but the ubiquitous presence of them seemed like a testament to the future’s progress. Visibly safer. “What a time to be alive,” Tony said. Steve slanted a look at him, curiosity and bemused agreement, before he rested an arm on the open window.

Tony respected the law of the land on well-trafficked roads, but he had no compunctions on quieter stretches of highway. It helped that it was three in the morning, the sweet spot between midnight traffic and early morning risers. He was pleasantly alive with two hours of sleep and initiative, burning initiative, _I have an idea, hey, get the kids up_. Clint was improbably awake and Natasha had never even gone to bed and Bruce just said, “There a problem?” before agreeing for the small price of getting to drive one of Tony’s fancy cars, pick out a bunch of toys for kids, and—

Tony revved the engine, zipping along. He lost himself in the feeling, putting miles between them and the city, miles between them and the rest of the world that was still sleeping. It helped wake him up, the biting cold, the thrilling forward momentum, the raw power of controlling a big, powerful machine. 

Occasionally people asked him why he still liked fast cars when he had Iron Man. His answer was simple: air in your hair. That kind of feeling couldn’t be beat. It was the same reason top-down cars and motorcycles were still so popular: people loved to _feel_ it.

They’d lost something as a species, Tony decided, when they built covered cars. Sure, it meant you didn’t get rained on or have your hair blown six ways from Sunday, but it also put a bomb shelter between you and the rest of the world, a barrier between life and actual experience. Humankind had existed for hundreds of thousands of years on foot and tens of thousands on horseback, never apart from their environment.

He was almost—almost—jealous that Steve could experience nature raw, no bottled oxygen or armored plating up top. But even he had limits, Tony knew. Iron Man could sweep the stratosphere while humanity’s best would suffocate somewhere around the 50,000 foot mark. Tony could fly almost twice as high already. And there was a long way yet to go.

 _Your move, Dr. Erskine_ , he mused.

They drove to a quiet land, a land before waking. It made Tony think of 130 million Americans inhabiting a space now shared by over 300 million, gas that cost eight-cents-a-gallon, and a Depression that wounded the American people nearly as much as a War in terms of sheer human misery, of bloodless death and no end in sight.

Tony slowed to a crawl, letting the car drive itself using the A.L.T.A.I. system (A Limited Toolkit Artificial Intelligence; J.A.R.V.I.S.’ silent and simpler companion). Steve, resting his chin on his hand, arm on the window, looked out at the countryside. His posture radiated comfort, easy lines, even breathing, faintly slouched shoulders. Tony asked, “Can I put the Captain America seal of approval on the bumper?”

Steve didn’t turn to face him, telling the night, “Don’t know why you’d want to.”

“Bragging rights.” He looked over when Tony shifted his seat back, frowning when Tony took his hands off the wheel altogether. “Self-driving,” Tony explained. “Won’t hit the market for another decade, but.” Winking, he said, “Perks of being Iron Man. I get all the best toys. Because I make them.”

Steve cocked his head at him, eyes ambivalent in the dark, moon-bright. “Wanna hear a joke, Tony?”

Tony lifted his eyebrows. “Careful. You have a one-joke-a-month quota.”

Steve smiled, all teeth. “They say Captain America is the stuff of legends, but he had a target forty-one million miles broad and missed.” He let his arm hang outside the open window and patted the metal side of the car. “So, if it were me, I’d stay as far away from a Captain America driving seal of approval as I could.”

Mouth dry, Tony said, “I was kind of hoping for a dad joke.”

“Me too,” Steve admitted. He left his hand on the metal exterior, adding, “Maybe next time.”

Tony had a feeling he wasn’t talking about dad jokes. He rested his hands on the wheel and shifted out of autopilot. “Know what? I think you’re wrong,” he said, not looking at Steve but seeing his head tilt to one side, curious, from the corner of his eye. “If you hit the water, the plane would have flooded and sank to the bottom of the ocean. No dice.” 

He waited, almost for an argument, but Steve didn’t say a word. Tony could feel the weight of his stare, knew that he would catch him in a lie. He didn’t lie. He didn’t need to. “If you hit bedrock head-on, nose caves in. No dice there either.” It was gruesome to imagine. He pushed the mental image down firmly. “But ice—it gives, it breaks, it’s—a possibility.” A pause. “As far as I’m concerned, you threaded the needle through the eye.”

Steve was quiet for a long time, drumming his fingers lightly on the outside of the car door. Tony didn’t try to fill the silence, feeling colder and more tired, suddenly, midnight zeal doused in the early morning darkness. At last, Steve said conversationally, “Guess I—” He paused, then, cleared his throat gently. “Guess I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

Tony didn’t know what to say, felt rigid with trepidation at the thin, almost brittle sound of Steve’s voice. So instead of words, he offered peace, one hand palm upturned on the seat divider. Steve took it carefully, curling ice-cold fingers around his own warm ones.

. o . 

_5:05 AM_.

They made coffee and eggs and enough bacon to feed a small military installation, which was fitting, given that they _were_ a small military installation.

Natasha alone had sense among them, Tony decided, sitting at the island nursing a cup of coffee while Steve and Clint talked shop and Bruce downed his third cup of coffee like it was his job.

Steve chatted endlessly, prompted by Bruce and Clint. Tony tuned into the actual conversation, rather than the mere cadence of Steve’s voice, as he said:

“Tell you a story, see, about real American sportsmanship, none of this newfangled—” Tony’s lips quirked in a smile, the intention in Steve’s voice obvious, “television nonsense, God only intended man to view the art of War in one way and that was right there on the Front, and you better believe baseball is best when you got some hoss shouting in your ear and some kid crying over spilt peanuts, it’s the sixth inning and you’re already sunburned and you don’t even care who wins, you just wanna see somebody crack that ball so hard it disappears, that, that anticipation, see, you don’t get that when you’re sitting pretty in your air-conditioned apartment, you gotta be there, gotta live it. 

“Gotta live; you only get to do it once, better make it count.”

. o . 

_7:11 AM_.

Tony didn’t particularly _want_ to visit his adopted child, but Anuxa wouldn’t talk to anyone else.

Besides: _Happy Halloween_.

The bird monster glowered at him, sitting in a huddle in the cell’s corner, beak taped shut with what looked suspiciously like duct tape. _Iron Man_.

 _How’s my least favorite bird-child?_ Tony thought.

Anuxa’s big, black, strangely luminous eyes narrowed to slits. _I will be free_ , it said. _I will make snacks of you_.

 _That’s nice_. Tony folded Iron arms over his chest. _Not a fan of deer?_

S.H.I.E.L.D. had provided for Anuxa, who had seemingly enjoyed them enough to eat everything, bones and all. _I will rule the Earth_ , Anuxa insisted, sitting in its huddle. _I will outlast you_.

Tony channeled his inner Captain America of Patience as he thought, _We can trade threats, or we can talk. Which will it be?_

Anuxa blinked once. _You will free me?_

Tony thought, _Probably not_.

But that was apparently better than Anuxa hoped, one clawed foot reaching up to scratch at its beak. _Remove this_ , it entreated, surprisingly civil.

An emotion like pity and camaraderie stirred in Tony; he was at the glass, unconsciously reaching for Anuxa, who stepped closer and looked right at him, hypnotically huge eyes. _I can’t_ , Tony said. It wasn’t because of the glass. Anuxa blinked again.

 _It is hurting me_.

Again, Iron hands reached for the glass. Anuxa bowed its head, penguin beak almost up against the wall. _I can’t_ , Tony repeated.

Anuxa said, _If you do not, you will suffer, Iron Man_.

Tony forced himself to take a step backwards, even though an almost visible tether tried to keep him close. It was easier to breathe, one step back. Easier to think. _Talking,_ Tony reminded, as pointedly as he could, _not threatening_.

Anuxa ruffled its feathers, bristling, before abruptly flattening them, involuntarily highlighting its humanoid shape. Its proportionality reminded Tony of a Minotaur: head of a bull but the body of a man. A crown of feathers extended like a mantle from the tip of its head all the way to its feet, clawed fingers huge and flexing menacingly near the glass, penguin beak killingly close. It was clearly gigantic—no less than twenty feet tall, hunched visibly in the twelve-foot-tall cell. And yet: there was a human’s bearing underneath the feathers and beak, emphasized when Anuxa shifted.

No longer sitting on its haunches, Anuxa knelt, pressing both clawed hands against the glass. Tony stared at it, mesmerized. _Help me_.

Tony took a step closer and almost unconsciously lifted a hand, pressing Iron against the glass, Anuxa’s clawed hand flexing hopefully. _I am trapped_ , Anuxa told him.

 _You hurt people_. Tony didn’t withdraw his hand. _A lot of people_.

 _They hurt me_.

 _You hurt them_ , Tony reminded.

Anuxa’s beak couldn’t flex, but Tony could almost feel the seething frustration. _I must be free. I have awoken; I must rule._

 _Earth doesn’t need a ruler,_ Tony told Anuxa. _Earth has no ruler_.

He could almost hear the spite in Anuxa’s voice: _Earth has too many rulers_. It jabbed its beak suddenly at the glass, right where Tony’s Iron heart resided—center of his chest; and not far below that, his real heartbeat. Tony didn’t flinch, even though there was noise nearby as several S.H.I.E.L.D. agents scrambled over. 

“It’s all right,” he told them, surprised at how calm he felt. _Why do you want to rule Earth?_ he asked.

Anuxa didn’t blink. _It is my home world_.

It was Tony’s turn to cock his head. “Home world?” he repeated aloud. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had retreated but not far. _You’re from Earth?_

Anuxa shook its head slowly. The motion was disturbingly familiar, human. _I am from a world no more_ , Anuxa said. _This is home world now._ And then, clasping its hands together, almost prayerfully, Anuxa said, _I am here to live forever. I will rule my home as my home_. Looking at Tony in ambivalent disgust, it thought with unflinching conviction, _I will not be caged_.

Tony thought, _Might need to work on that last part_.

Anuxa didn’t move an inch. _Free me_ , it insisted. _I will spare you_.

 _Your generosity knows no bounds_. Anuxa’s eyes narrowed. _I can’t let you eat people. Or hurt people_.

 _They hurt me_ , Anuxa insisted, bristling, bird-like again as it released its hands and climbed to its feet, back arched low under the ceiling. _They are hurting me_. Emphatically—not threateningly, merely _emphatically—_ Anuxa jabbed a clawed hand at the glass. Wrenched it downward. Even the muffled screech made Tony wince. _Release me._

Tony thought, _You’re a monster. We can’t_. He regretted the weirdly open nature of telepathy as Anuxa jabbed its beak right at the place where his blue heart glowed, the glass _pinging_ incongruously. It didn’t crack. Tony didn’t flinch. _I’m sorry._

Anuxa _seethed_ , turning from him and stalking towards the back of the cell. _I will eat you first_.

Tony thought, _Where did you come from?_

Anuxa sat with its back to him, then said, _The ice_.

Tony shivered involuntarily. Nobody could see it, not with the suit. Still, he was glad he didn’t have to speak out loud to convey, _You were frozen?_

Anuxa turned its head on its shoulders, looking at him without even turning around. Owl-like. Eerie. Even without the mental jab, he felt the weight of that unimpressed stare. _The ice_.

Tony thought, _How did you escape?_

He couldn’t stop it: a series of unfocused images, a flash flood playback of dark shapes, small and twitchy, _vermin_ , surrounding him, poking at him with sticks, not enough to break through the tough feathers on his hide, _I am immortal, I am stronger than you_. Then one of the oversized faceless mice got a hook around his beak and it was hauled down and strapped shut. They jabbed him harder with their sticks until it was night again, perpetual night.

Anuxa waited for him to respond.

 _Vermin_ , Tony echoed, stunned speechless.

Anuxa turned to face him, aligning head with torso. Tony saw flashes, again, like photographs, of cold black ice, of crackling white ice, of opening huge eyes on a pitch-black night and finding a feast around him, of sticks and indignity as the mice dragged him away, of the darkness, of the enlivening warmth and terrified movements of tens of tens of mice, so many mice. He felt the roar reverberate in his bones as they pointed blunt-headed sticks at him, leveling them with his might, _I am immortal, I AM ANUXA_.

He was clawing at his own head, he realized, as the vermin pointed blunt-headed sticks at the glass wall, cheeping at him, meaningless words that Anuxa returned with a seething, overarching _hiss_ that only agitated everyone. Tony forced himself to stop, to let go of his head and bark, “Stand down!”

Everything stopped. Tony exhaled a relieved breath. The agents stepped back again, automatically falling into formation. 

Anuxa glared at him, wide-eyed and accusatory. _Free me_ , it insisted. Then, louder: **_FREE ME_.**

Tony shook his head. _I can’t._ And then, backing away, he retorted, _You’ll hurt people!_

Anuxa lunged for the glass, jabbing its beak with such force that Tony’s repulsors were up and ready to fire, but he needn’t have worried. Nothing happened except for another muted _gong_ , but one of the agents warned, “You should go, Mr. Stark.”

“That’s Iron Man to you,” Tony said. He felt like a coward and a self-preservationist as he walked away.

Anuxa flung images at his back, of promises, of empty words. Tony tried not to see them, but where could you run in your own mind?

. o . 

_9:30 AM_.

“Beautiful time of year to travel.”

“ _To_ Russia _?_ ” Pepper repeated incredulously. “ _Tony, honey, no—_ ”

“Do you want me to book you a room? I can definitely book you a room, you can come,” Tony babbled, putting sugar in his third cup of coffee. “Bringing the whole family already, what’s one more, right?”

“ _Someone has to keep the company afloat while you’re . . . in Russia. In November_.”

“Aren’t the seasons reversed there?”

“ _That’s the southern hemisphere_.”

“Huh.” Tony sipped his drink. “Could’ve sworn it was the East-West split—”

“ _Tony_.”

“Present.”

“ _Russia?_ Siberia?”

“Norilsk,” Tony agreed calmly. “Beautiful place. I’ve heard it’s ethereal.”

“ _Spell it_.”

“N-O-R-I-L-S-K.”

He heard a keyboard clicking in the background, knew Pepper was looking it up. “Sweetheart,” he entreated, “it’s one short, luxurious, totally-not-dangerous visit to one of the world’s—”

“ _Coldest cities_ ,” Pepper finished in a similarly cool tone.

“Technically, over 100,000 people. Coldest city on Earth is—”

“ _Tony_.”

“You make a compelling argument.” He sighed. “Honestly, Pep, I _would_ sit this one out if I could.”

“ _If you could_.”

“It’s complicated.”

“ _Over-the-phone complicated or—?_ ”

“Crazy coincidence, but I just so happen to have a lunch reservation at Le Bernardin.”

“ _Le Bernardin_ ,” Pepper repeated, her voice sounding decidedly less _I will fillet you with a spork_ and more _I will fillet you with a Japanese carving knife_ , which would hurt just as much but sound a lot more badass on his gravestone. “ _I’m listening_.”

“I knew you’d listen to reason.”

“ _Cute_.”

“I won’t die.”

“ _Tony—_ ”

“But I have to go.”

Pepper sighed. “ _Bring your two-time national-debate-championship winning shoes, Tony, or I’m telling Jim_.”

“Using my own guy against me?” Tony said, wounded, putting a hand over his heart. “Rhodey would never turn.”

“ _Noon?_ ”

“Square deal.”

“ _I’ll see you then_.”

. o . 

_Saturday, June 21, 1980._  
Dallas, Texas.  
National Debate Tournament.

“You look dapper, sweetheart.”

“Dapper?” Ten-years-old and four-foot-seven, Tony stood backstage as the MC introduced the second day of debates. Looking up at his mother, he undid his tie. “I don’t want to be cute. I want to be feared.” Looking at her, he straightened his shoulders as much as he could and asked, “Am I fearful?”

She sighed, took the tie from his hands and knitted it back into place with practiced movements. “Terrifying,” she assured. “Go easy on them, darling. A sixteen-year-old’s pride is a terrible thing to break.”

“I love the sound it makes when it shatters,” Tony said, tipping his chin up for her. “I wish I had taller shoes.”

“You’re still growing, dear.”

“I’ll never reach the mic.” Tony tugged at the newly-redone tie. “They’re gonna laugh at me, aren’t they?”

His mother laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Why would they?”

“I’m too short. I’m too young. I wanna look older so people look at me differently.”

“All in due time, Tony,” his mother said.

“I’m ready _now_ ,” Tony muttered, tearing off the tie again. “I can’t breathe in this. How am I supposed to debate in it? They’re gonna laugh at me.”

His mother took his shoulders in both gentle hands, looking at him seriously and saying, “No one is making you do this.”

“No. I know.” Mulishly, Tony said, “Pride is making me. I wanna do it.” He couldn’t quite look at her.

She said kindly, “No matter what happens, we’ll get milkshakes tonight.”

Tony lit up. “Really?” He scuffed a shoe on the floor, unconsciously diffusing energy. “I mean. That’s good. I like milkshakes.”

“Enjoy it,” his mother advised. She redid his tie with care. He stood still, chest puffed up, Stark-proud.

“I’ll try.” His voice was soft. He looked at her for a long moment, desperate for validation. “You love me, right?”

She cupped his face. “Darling,” she said seriously, “there is nothing I would not do for you.”

Nodding, looking right at her, he said, “Milkshakes. You promise?”

She smiled and released him, setting a hand on his shoulder instead. “Promise.”

He reached up to hold her hand in his own cold fingers.

They won, but the best moment was still, on a belly already full of joyous exultation, the first sip of a chocolate milkshake.

. o . 

**_Present: Wednesday, October 31, 2012._**  
New York City, New York.  
Le Bernardin.

 _12:02 PM_.

“You look ravishing.”

Standing on the streets of New York in a devil-may-care red dress, Pepper looked down at her dress like she hadn’t realized she was wearing one before looking up at him and smiling wryly. “I thought that was my line.” She held out her hand, debonair to the finish. Tony took it, kissed the back of it. “You are the only person I know who can get same-day reservations for this place.”

“Shh,” Tony murmured, eyes twinkling. “Don’t let the others hear you. It’s Stark magic. Very secret.”

“Very secret,” Pepper agreed dryly, hooking her hand around his elbow as they stepped inside the restaurant. Crossing the threshold, she breathed in deeply, closing her eyes. “You are a wicked man, Stark.”

Tony smiled, preening in his suit and tie, feeling every inch the man who made magic happen. “Because I know how to bribe you, or because it works?”

“Both.”

They sat in a lovely little nook Tony spent a pretty penny to keep reserved on short notice and were halfway through the first course before Pepper even mentioned Russia.

“Pepper,” Tony said, wounded, “the moment?”

“Oh,” Pepper simpered, “I know you. You can’t hide.”

Tony took a long draw from his water, warding off fatigue, drawing it out, before he said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Norilsk.” When he maintained his innocent stare, Pepper sighed. “It’s a closed city. You can’t even go.”

“Not a problem.” Tony dabbed his lip with his napkin, fidgeting.

Pepper stared at him contemplatively, weighing the merit of his words. When she’d determined he wasn’t making it up, she asked, “Why?”

“The usual suspects.”

Conspiratorially, Pepper said, “S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

Tony nodded.

“I didn’t know you did missions.”

“Not a mission.” Pepper’s gaze was flat, unimpressed. Tony folded his napkin again. “Just a visit. Diplomatic visit. I can be diplomatic. I’m very persuasive.”

“Can’t buy universal goodwill with caviar, Tony.”

Tony took another bite demonstratively. “No,” he agreed after swallowing. “But it’s a hell of an opener, wouldn’t you say?”

“Tony.”

Tony sighed, stirring his glass in a hand. “I know it sounds crazy.”

“Glad we’re on the same page.”

“But. . . .” He set his glass down. Looked at her seriously. “I got a bad vibe about this one, Pepper.”

Her expression softened. “Then don’t go.”

He smiled tightly. Ruefully. “Wish it was that easy.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Pepper repeated, trying out the word. She took another bite of caviar, giving herself thinking space. Tony allowed it, silent, hopeful she would forgive him in the silence of her own thoughts so he wouldn’t have to ask for it. _I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me. I know it’s stupidly dangerous. I don’t even want to go. But if I don’t go and something happens and I could have stopped it, but I didn’t—_

“Not really about S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Pepper said at last.

Tony shook his head. He smiled ruefully. “No.”

“So, it’s about. . . .” She frowned at him. It wasn’t fair: she didn’t have enough of the playing cards to know, to possibly form a strategy. Tony had been careful. Enough. Maybe not around the Tower, but outside of it, he was careful to the things he loved close to his chest. “What is it, Tony?” she asked at last.

He swirled his glass again, took a long sip. “Rather not say,” he admitted.

She glanced him over, like she was measuring how movable he’d be on the matter, but his resolution was absolute. She nodded in defeat. “You have to go.”

“I have to,” he echoed softly.

“How long?”

He shrugged. “A week, maybe two.”

Pepper nodded again, resolve bright in her eyes. “Shouldn’t put the company underwater.”

“How could it?” Tony smoothed his napkin. “You’re in charge. Stark Industries has literally never been in safer hands.”

“I feel better when you’re around,” Pepper admitted. Tony’s heart twinged, the beginnings of guilt, of hesitation, of _what the fuck are you doing, Stark?_

He was an engineer, a technician, a superstar with a suit of armor. He wasn’t a fighter. He was Tony Stark. Crossing international borders under an ambiguously friendly invitation wasn’t his choice move. He preferred warmth and sunny beaches and secret places. Few places on Earth existed that felt less safe than Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. But it was where Norilsk was. Where he would be.

“Everything’ll be fine,” he said suddenly, more to make it true than to comfort Pepper. “It’s a short business trip. Done ‘em a thousand times.”

Pepper reached across the table. Tony let her hold his hand. Her fingers were warm. Tony’s famously poor circulation had been used for more than one tabloid headline: _cold hands, cold heart_. They thought they were cute and clever, prominently displaying the arc reactor as the ‘cold heart’ in question. They didn’t know that he had a bad human heart underneath it, overtaxed and overwhelmed.

The first thing he’d done Stateside—after the bare necessities, which included _cheeseburger, 16-hour nap, 45-minute-hug-that-might-have-turned-into-a-38-minute-crying-fest—_ was reach out to the best-of-the-best cardiologists in the hopes of removing the abomination in his chest. But there were risks. The thought of lying on an operating table, however sterile, utterly at the mercy of a handful of strangers—

He shuddered involuntarily. Pepper squeezed his hand.

Someday, he resolved, feeling his human heart pounding, he’d work up the courage. The odds were in his favor. He just had to get over the hiccup of _last time I was on a metal table, I was awake_.

No dice. He was shivering. Pepper squeezed his hand again. “What’s wrong?”

Tony shook his head, reached for the water with his free hand, retreating at the feel of cold condensation on his fingers. “Just in my own head.”

“Tony,” Pepper entreated, “don’t go to Norilsk.”

“Not up for debate.” He squeezed her hand gently. Didn’t release it, didn’t pull away. _Don’t let go_. She didn’t. “I have to. Please don’t—” He swallowed. “It’ll be fine. It’ll be fun. Maybe I’ll see a polar bear.”

“Thought they were up in the Arctic circle.”

“It is the Arctic circle, sweetheart.”

Pepper sighed, bringing her free hand into it, clasping Tony’s with both. It was immensely comforting. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

A chuckle bubbled out of him. “Stupider than storming Russia in the middle of November?”

She leveled a serious look at him. He tried to sober up. Couldn’t. It was too dangerous to look at closely. He had to keep his distance from it, deal-with-it-when-he-got-there. _That’s a recipe for disaster_. He shoved the voice down. 

“It will be fine,” he insisted. There wasn’t even the faintest tremble in his voice. “I’m ready to take the polar plunge.”

“If you change your mind,” Pepper said, still holding his hand, “I’ll be here for you. Okay? No questions asked.”

“Thank you,” Tony said seriously. She squeezed his hand one last time and released it. “You’re too good to me.”

“Maybe you deserve better than you think,” she said, more kind than wry. He couldn’t name the way it sat in his throat, not quite choked-up but not _nothing_.

. o . 

_2:25 PM_.

Tony grabbed Steve by the shoulder strap. 

“What—?”

“This is a kidnapping,” Tony announced.

Steve lifted his eyebrows, setting his tablet down on the conference table in front of him. “I do have actual work, you know.”

“Can it wait till tomorrow?”

Something fragile, unwanted, crept into Tony’s voice. Steve flicked the tablet off and stood.

“Probably,” he admitted, pulling Tony into a no-questions-asked hug. “Where’re we going?”

Tony melted, resting his forehead on a warm shoulder, hands gripping the flanks of the equally warm suit. “Magical place,” he mumbled noncommittally, reasonably sure he could fall asleep standing up.

“More magical than Walmart?”

Tony snickered helplessly, feeling Steve’s hands rub up his back in a broad sweeping stroke before settling in his hair, cradling his head. “I love you,” he told Steve’s shoulder.

Steve hummed. “Love you, too,” he said, just as soft.

Tony forced himself to step back, tugging on his sleeve—he could’ve grabbed Steve’s hand, but it felt almost safer, holding onto the suit. He’d half-expected to find Steve at S.H.I.E.L.D., but he’d holed up in an unused board meeting room. Tony didn’t mind the space being put to actual use. And he was glad for any excuse for Steve to stay away from the ever-watchful eyes of S.H.I.E.L.D. He was an Avenger first.

 _Ours. First_.

Steve didn’t ask why Tony pulled him into bed in the goddamn Captain America uniform, himself only one layer removed from black-tie, at two-thirty in the afternoon. He nuzzled Tony’s cheek, said, “Shouldn’t sleep in a suit” and smiled when Tony draped his arm over Steve’s side, latching onto a shoulder-strap firmly.

“Try me.” Tony tugged. Steve shuffled closer, face-to-face and radiating warmth. He held up his own arm; Tony gratefully slid under it. It slid around his back; a hand carded gently into his hair. “God, you’re so warm.”

Steve hummed, using a foot and a little creativity to reach the covers, transferring them to his hand and pulling them up over them. “Been with a lot of vampires in the past?” he asked.

Tony snorted. “Vampires?”

“Cold-blooded, right?”

Tony sighed. “No, I have not dated a lot of vampires.” A mental pause. “Just five.”

Steve slid a leg over both of his, warm from head to heel. “Five more than I’ve dated,” he teased.

Tony snorted, shuffling so he could press his cheek against Steve’s shoulder. “How many people have you dated?” he asked idly, half-expecting Steve to tense up and avert the question.

But Steve answered breezily, “Don’t know if ‘dated’ is the right word.”

“Means _courted_ ,” Tony said helpfully. “You know. Flowers. Hand holding. Smooches.” He pressed an audible _mwah!_ to the underside of Steve’s jaw. Steve huffed a laugh.

“Smouches?” Steve said.

Tony asked, “What’s a smouch?”

Helpfully, Steve kissed the top of his head. “Smouch,” he said.

“Smouch,” Tony repeated dubiously. “Are you pulling my leg?”

Steve shrugged. “Was a little dated. Kids smooched, smouching was for the rest of us.” He tilted his head to press a kiss to Tony’s cheek. “We’re classy folk.”

“That how you woo all the pretty people? Smouching?” Tony ribbed, stroking his side lightly to show he was teasing.

Steve chuckled, rubbing his cheek against the top of Tony’s head, mussing his hair. “Yeah, of course,” he agreed calmly. “Had to beat them back with a stick.”

“I’ve seen your old costume, you know.”

Steve groaned. “Costume’s the word for it.”

“You were cute.” Steve huffed dubiously. “Liked the little wingies. Winghead.”

“Can’t all be blessed with a metal helmet,” Steve murmured. “Shellhead.”

Tony hummed. “I could make you one. I’d keep the wingies.”

“They’re not _wingies_.”

“Then what are they?”

Steve sighed, tucking him closer. “Shaddup.”

“Rude.” Tony nosed at his neck, able to feel the heat of his skin, wanting more of it and less of the suit. “Take off the jacket.”

Obligingly, Steve shuffled back. Tony watched, hand under his own cheek, as he sat up so he could peel the jacket of the suit off with surprisingly little fuss. He scooted back into place with just the white undershirt and blue pants. “Better?”

Tony returned to his own hiding place until Steve’s arm and sighed against him. “Much.”

He was vaguely aware of his own curiosity—nothing like having living, breathing history to keep you awake at night, endlessly wondering about what life was _like—_ but he was more aware of Steve’s restfully fast heartbeat under his ear, and the warmth around him, and how very soft sleep was.

. o . 

_6:05 PM_.

“Trick or treat.”

A soft, wondering _whoa,_ followed by an enthusiastic cry of: “Iron Man!”

Stepping forward in the gleaming Mark IX, Tony held up a toy plastic dinosaur and said, “Happy Halloween, Alex.”

“Iron Man!” Alex was seven-years-old and a chronic cancer patient (Tony never looked deeper, never wanted to know the depth of the poison these kids were facing). She was also, according to Mom and Pop, a fan, like many seven-year-olds, of the city’s first true superhero.

“I brought you something,” Tony preluded, holding out the dinosaur. Alex reached out, impeded slightly by the wires strapped to her—hell, Tony hated hospitals, hated that there were kids in hospitals, but there was something timeless and wondering as he held out the dinosaur, said, “Here you go, champ,” and Alex’s little hands clasped not the plastic toy but the Iron gauntlet.

“Wow,” Alex repeated.

“Wow,” Tony echoed softly, letting her feel it, turning it obligingly. “It’s pretty neat, huh?”

Alex nodded wordlessly, reaching belatedly for the _T. rex_. Tony handed it to her carefully. “Got it good?” Alex nodded again. Tony let go.

“Good job,” he said. “Heard some kids got candy on Halloween. I think dinosaurs are cooler.”

Alex hugged the _T. rex._ Tony’s heart cracked in a few places. He was grateful for the mask. “You gonna be okay?” he asked, surprising himself.

Alex looked at him and assured, “Uh huh.” Then, reaching out one-handed, she said, “Wanna—?”

Tony bowed his head, letting the kid hold the mask. She looked at blue-white eyes for a long moment before hugging the mask, dinosaur at her side. “Love you, Iron Man.”

Tony swallowed. “Iron Man loves you, too.”

. o . 

_7:53 PM_.

“Hey, sport.” Knocking on the doorframe, Captain America asked, “Trick or treat?”

Leaning against the wall, emotionally wrung out but indefinably happy, Tony watched him step forward, the kid already reaching for the teddy bear in Steve’s hands. “Yeah, I brought you a treat,” Steve admitted, “you want it?” He handed it over, smiling and saying, “It’s yours.”

Looking around, taking in a collection of drawings pinned to a cardboard frame, Steve asked in his upbeat, endlessly reaffirming Captain America voice, “Did you draw these?” When the kid nodded, he walked over, hands on his hips. He said appreciatively, “You’ve got talent.”

Shyly, the kid—maybe eight, maybe nine—said, “I like to draw.”

“You’re real good at it.” Turning back to the boy, now clutching the bear to his chest, he added, “You know, I like to draw, too. It’s a lot of fun.”

The boy nodded, hugging the bear. “You’re my hero.”

Steve said, “Am I?” His voice was so soft. “You’re a good kid. A fighter. Like me.” He hesitated when the kid held out a hand before stepping forward and taking it gently in a gloved one. “Yeah, you’re super. You’re gonna be fine.”

The kid nodded, holding onto his hand before letting go. “You’re Dad’s hero, too.”

Steve looked up and over. Pop, standing with Mom in the corner, smiled.

“Captain America,” he said respectfully. Tony had seen the Captain America effect in public countless times before, but there was something deeply honored in the man’s voice. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Steve stepped over to him, every inch the American hero he’d been made up to be. He held out a hand and gave it a nice firm shake. “It’s my genuine pleasure, sir. You and yours,” he smiled at Mom, nodded at the kid, “are what inspire me every day.”

Mom hugged him, arms around his neck. Tony saw her eyes were damp when he pulled away with a murmur of “Everything’s gonna be okay.”

Looking back at the kid, he stepped close and gently ruffled his hair. “Keep it up, champ. And happy Halloween.”

The boy squeezed the teddy bear and nodded, looking wonder-struck. Tony watched as the door closed gently behind Steve and his shoulders slouched, leaning against the wall for support, sliding down it unexpectedly.

Tony was there in an instant, but he was already back on his feet, shaking his head and saying, “I’m okay. I’m okay.” Tony held out an Iron hand, ready to catch him, but Steve’s word was as good as gold. “That the last one?” he asked, voice completely normal.

“That’s the last one,” Clint said, holding up a stack of empty bags. Natasha stood nearby, her own expression soft. Bruce had chosen to stay home and Thor wasn’t around, but the band of four made good time in the distribution of goodies around the children’s wards. “Go team,” Clint added, stuffing the extra bags inside one bag and slinging that one over his shoulder. “Who’s ready for pizza?”

. o . 

_9:30 PM_.

Six pizza boxes deep, Tony smashed a hand on the table loudly enough that Clint knocked over his drink, Steve _caught it,_ and Bruce, who’d joined them for the evening festivities at the little pizza joint, barked, “Where’s the fire?”

“ _Pumpkins_ ,” Tony said, suddenly, single-mindedly standing. “We forgot the pumpkins.”

“Those are optional,” Natasha said dryly, taking another slice out of box number seven.

Tony flapped a hand, already flicking the helmet back on the suit. “Pumpkins,” he insisted, marching out of the restaurant—to the amazement of many, costumed onlookers—and took off into the night.

Pumpkin hunting in the daytime was challenging work. At night, it was almost absurdly difficult. But Tony Stark was not a quitter. He found a pumpkin patch, grabbed as many as he could carry (he left a “thanks for the pumpkins! —Iron Man” note, complete with $300 in cash, so he felt he’d be forgiven), and zipped home with his payload. He dumped them on the balcony, returned to the pizza joint, and zipped inside, landing right in front of them.

Clint _flipped_ the table, Natasha rescued the remaining pizza boxes, Bruce bawled, “ _ **Tony**_ ,” and Steve laughed like it was the funniest joke he’d ever heard.

“I am _so_ sorry about this,” Bruce was already telling the restaurant manager, who blinked owlishly in earnest surprise while Steve laughed and laughed and Natasha, still holding the pizza, said dryly:

“No harm, no foul?”

“ _Yes_ foul,” Clint said, a hand over his chest. “Holy hell, Stark.”

Calmly, Tony said, “Come on, losers, daylight’s waning, we got two hours, chop chop.”

“It’s already night,” Clint pointed out.

Bruce was already leafing out a handsome tip to the bewildered restaurateur, insisting, “We’re leaving now.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” the woman said, slipping the tip into a pocket. “Can I get you anything else?”

“No, no, we’re good,” Bruce assured, the picture of solicitous apology. “Thank you so much.”

“Come back any time,” she encouraged earnestly.

“We _will_ ,” Tony effused, while Clint and Bruce groaned and Natasha and Steve made off with their bounty. “You can count on it.”

. o .

_10:17 PM_.

Seven. He’d brought seven pumpkins home.

Steve grabbed all of them in his arms in one trip, ignoring the goading from the peanut gallery as he announced calmly, “Nope, can’t help ya, these are mine now.”

Tony calmly plucked one off the top. Steve didn’t so much as twitch, but he ducked smoothly out of reach when Clint tried it, laughing in delighted surprise when Natasha used a chair to leap onto his back, reaching for a pumpkin.

Working together, they freed one. Clint roared in triumph as he held the twenty-pounder over his head. Then Bruce snatched it and _ran._

Clint charged after him full-tilt while Steve, carrying Natasha and five twenty-plus pound pumpkins, waltzed over to the table where Tony was sawing the top off his pumpkin. “What’re you doing?” he asked.

“Carving,” Tony explained, peeling off the top and beginning to shovel pumpkin seeds from the interior. Steve dumped his bounty on the table. Clint returned, red-faced with exertion but triumphant, as he smashed the pumpkin down with almost enough force to break it.

Natasha grabbed one from the pile; Bruce joined them to pick his own. Steve, with three pumpkins left, blinked in surprise. 

“Carving,” he echoed dubiously, accepting the knife Natasha pulled from her hip without explanation. “This a tradition?”

Tony scoffed. “It is _the_ tradition,” he retorted.

Steve sawed off the top of his pumpkins with deliberate care. “’f you say so.”

“Pass me that when you’re done,” Clint advised. Obediently, Steve flicked it across the table.

“Someone’s gonna lose an eye,” Bruce predicted.

Tony slid him his own kitchen knife. “Doesn’t seem like it slows Fury down much.”

. o . 

_11:02 PM_.

Yawning continuously, Tony grunted between takes, “Behold.” Spinning his jack-o-lantern around, he smirked at the bored looks and lazy whistles from the peanut gallery, everybody sprawled on couches and passing around a mixed bowl of candy.

“Very nice,” Bruce commented, sitting on the arm of the couch. “Tasteful.”

“Narcissist,” Clint said, lying belly-down on the floor, but he sounded more amused than accusatory.

Tony shrugged unrepentantly. “Guilty as charged.” He beamed at his own Iron mask pumpkin and added, “Okay, who’s next?”

Rolling to her feet from her seat next to Cap, seated on a couch, Natasha fetched her own pumpkin and another soda, holding the pumpkin under one arm. “Aww,” Bruce said.

“Cute,” Steve added.

Natasha shrugged. “I’m trying to stay on brand,” she said, nodding at the cartoon spider on her pumpkin. Tony snapped his fingers approvingly.

Setting it next to Tony’s, right in front of the dormant fireplace, she barely sat down before Clint somersaulted to his feet and darted to the bar area. He leaped clean over the couch on the return trip, his own pumpkin tucked under his arm like a football. “Think fast!” he added, flinging it at Bruce and cackling when Bruce cowered while Steve lunged and caught it.

“Trying to take somebody out?” Steve muttered, amused, as he held the crooked-smiley jack-o-lantern in hand. Hucking it back, he added, “Nice work.”

“Thank you, thank you.” Clint took a bow, smiling at Natasha, who offered a tiny smile in return.

“I wanna see Bruce’s,” Tony announced imperiously, lying across Steve’s couch, putting his feet up on his thighs unabashedly.

With only a little flinch, like Clint would throw his pumpkin again, Bruce skittered to his feet, returning and holding his pumpkin in both hands like a mother presenting a pie.

“This is Gerald,” he announced.

It was the most stereotypical pumpkin Tony had ever seen. “Gerald’s a bitch,” he declared.

Bruce pouted. “Don’t talk to him like that.”

“It’s true.”

“Tony,” Steve chided. “That is not nice.” Looking at Bruce, he added seriously, “I think it’s great.”

Bruce beamed. “See, _Captain America_ approves. That’s good enough for me.”

“Gerald is dead. Long live Gerald,” Tony said.

“Tony—” Steve began.

Tony cut him off at the pass, chanting, “Cap, Cap!”

The others picked it up readily. Steve sighed, reaching up to scrub the back of his neck for a moment as he stood. “All right, all right—settle down, I’m getting ‘em—”

He returned with all three carefully balanced in his arms like chickens. The far left pumpkin had a little Iron Man mask next to Mjölnir. The middle pumpkin had Cap’s own shield and a spider-web. On the far right, a closed fist and an arrow.

No one said a word, stunned. 

“Wow,” Natasha finally summed up. Steve looked at her and smiled shyly.

Clint said thoughtfully, “Hulk-Eye?”

Bruce barked a laugh. “Nope.”

“Hulk-Eye,” Tony repeated thoughtfully. He was grateful that Steve, in his own enormously subtle way, hadn’t put their symbols side-by-side. The ribbing would be merciless. “Nice work,” he added.

Steve set his pumpkins with the others, returning to his seat and adding, “Thanks.”

Tony said, “J.A.R.V.I.S., kill the main lights.” The room went nearly pitch-dark, night-black, before Tony said calmly, “Okay, light ‘em up.”

The little LEDs he’d passed around prior to the show lit up in each of the jack-o-lanterns. “Happy Halloween,” he announced, shamelessly shuffling around so he could lean against Steve’s side instead of the arm of the couch, watching the twinkling pumpkins and grinning.

“Happy Halloween,” Steve agreed softly.

. o .

_11:58 PM_.

“Eat all my candy, die by my sword,” Tony threatened, draped over Steve’s shoulder like a drunk college kid. “I know where you all live.”

“G’night, Tony,” Bruce said, breaking off another Kit-Kat, perched on the floor with his laptop. Clint snored audibly into a couch cushion near him. Natasha, curled up on a chair with a blanket, said:

“ _Alien?_ ”

Clint, voice muffled, said unexpectedly, “Hell yeah.”

“I also love not sleeping at night,” Bruce agreed, but he obediently pulled it up on the holo-screen.

Tony hummed, content to be carried while Steve calmly flitted around, tidying up the kitchen. “Nerd,” he accused.

“Shh,” Clint called. Steve reached up to rub Tony’s head affectionately.

“Shh,” he added more quietly, finishing in record time before saying, “good night, everybody.”

“Night, Cap,” Bruce said, evidently without realizing his own hilarity.

Tony snickered. Natasha said, “Night, Steve.” Clint just repeated:

“ _Shh_.”

As soon as they were outside the main balcony room, Steve set Tony down—Tony was not proud of the sad little sound that escaped him—before picking him up properly. “All right,” he murmured, “I gotcha.”

“I love you.” Tony told him, cheek against his shoulder. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Chuckling softly, barely audibly, Steve said, “Yeah, love you, too, buddy. It’s bedtime.”

“Best time of the day.”

“Mm-hm.” Elevators with motion sensors were a _dream_. Steve didn’t have to shuffle him around at all as he stepped into it. He didn’t jostle Tony as he pressed the button for their floor, though. He was just that good. “You have a good Halloween?”

“Best Halloween.”

Steve hummed approvingly. Tony didn’t plan to, but he fell asleep in Captain America’s arms.

Somewhere in space-time, twenty-year-old Tony Stark _swooned_.


	20. WAVE FUNCTION COLLAPSE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might notice that this story is canon divergent in a few major ways (e.g. palladium is still an issue, Iron Patriot is a S.H.I.E.L.D. construction, etc.). One of the crucial ingredients for this story is the brevity between Steve's arrival in 2012 and his call-to-action for Avengers 1. Rather than having a year to adjust, he has about a month, which is why this story plays out the way it does. Canonically, he wakes up in 2011, but here he wakes up in 2012.
> 
> Anyhoo, that's all for now!

_Tuesday, April 3, 2012._  
Times Square.  
New York City, New York.

“I’m sorry, sir—I didn’t catch your name.”

The man said, “Director Nicholas Fury.”

Standing in the middle of the street, Steve Rogers nodded once. “And you work for—?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D.” Steve frowned. Fury elaborated: “The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division.” He paused, a heavy silence interjected by noise from every angle, cars and people and sounds he couldn’t quite place. “It would be better to do this in private.”

 _Like hell_. “Walk with me,” Steve suggested, his tone cool but not overtly threatening.

“Captain,” Fury said, equally calm. “The world’s changed. It might prove—a bit of a shock, all at once.”

 _This is a trap._ “I don’t wanna hurt you,” Steve said in an undertone, glancing at the black-clad agents surrounding them, “but I will if I have to.” There were civilians gathered around, pressing close to the circle of strange tank-like cars, holding up silver screens. _W_ _hat the hell are those?_ Steve itched for his uniform, feeling exposed and unarmed without it. _Where’s my shield?_

He couldn’t fight his way out, he already knew: too much collateral, too many innocents. 

_Every time someone tries to win a war before it starts,_ he thought, scanning the crowd, _innocent people die_.

He could fight Hydra until his dying breath, would, in fact, if that was what he had to do – but he couldn’t get civilian blood on his hands.

“Captain?”

It was a question. He noticed absentmindedly that the leather safety-latch on the gun on Director Fury’s hip was unclipped. He stared at it before meeting the man’s eyes. He could read ill intentions in anyone, but he didn’t see anything sinister in Fury’s expression.

Some people thought he had a sixth sense for it, the way he could pick the phony out of a crowd. Really, he was just very observant. Nothing slipped past him.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed one of the agents reach for a baton on their hip. A nearby agent shook their head fractionally. The first agent stood down.

 _Good move_ , Steve thought.

He took one step towards Fury and _felt_ a dozen guns suddenly lock on target. None were pointed out in the open – whoever they were, these weren’t amateurs – but the threat was implied and earnest. _This is your leader_ , Steve realized, more impressed than afraid as he extended a hand, an olive branch. Fury took it and gave it a single firm shake.

Fury’s hand was clammy. Steve didn’t miss that, either.

He could imagine first contact differently, one fatal punch to the sternum and they’d lose their leader. They’d give him hell for it, spray him with bullets, but it wouldn’t change the act, wouldn’t change the outcome, might not even put him down. They were afraid. He could feel it, the way they shifted, the way they stayed _back_. They didn’t want to get too close. Provocatively close.

Fury stayed in arm’s reach. As their leader, he had to _know_ what Captain America could do to him in close-range, had to know what danger he was courting. Yet Steve could see he wasn’t wearing special padding under his suit. Either he was very foolish or very sure. Fury didn’t breathe unsteadily, didn’t shift back; he didn’t feel threatened. 

He felt the tension, as Steve could, but he wasn’t braced for a fight.

They were allies, Steve realized. In Fury’s mind, they were on the same team.

It was the sheer conviction that made Steve realize they had to be. You couldn’t fake that kind of certainty.

To Fury alone, Steve said somberly, “Sorry to cause such a scene, Director.”

“Believe me,” Fury said, as if he knew exactly how close they’d come to the nuclear outcome, “this was about as good as I hoped for.”

. o .

**_Present: Thursday, November 1, 2012_.**

“If you could go back, would you?”

Steve slanted a glance at Tony, arms folded on the railing, watching the sunrise. He rolled his shoulders like he’d been standing there a while. “It’s home,” he said quietly. “Would you?”

Tony joined him, coffee in hand. “I don’t know. I haven’t been to Mom and Pop’s since. . . .” He didn’t finish.

There was a long pause. “You don’t talk about them much.”

“What’s there to say?” When Steve frowned at him thoughtfully, Tony waved a hand. “They died when I was twenty years old and I’ve been on my own ever since.”

“I’m sorry, Tony.”

“You didn’t kill them.”

Steve stared out at the city in silence. “How did they—?”

“Car crash.”

“That’s rough.”

Tony made a soft sound. “That’s one word for it.” Taking a seat in an ice-cold chair, he lifted his coffee to his face, breathing in warmth. “Mom was nice. Dad was— _not_ father-of-the-year material.”

Steve turned to look at him with somber regard. Tony couldn’t stop the words. “It kind of—royally pissed me off, growing up, how he—I honestly don’t think he even liked me.”

“That’s a damn shame,” Steve said quietly. There was earnest loss in his voice. Tony nodded, unable to articulate all the things he wanted to say.

“I don’t know how you hate your own kid,” he said quietly, more to himself and the sunrise than Steve. “What kind of wire gets cut that you don’t even care?”

“The kind that never should be cut,” Steve said philosophically, looking out over the city. “You deserved better.”

“What about you?” Tony asked, sipping his coffee. “Got any stories about your old man?”

Steve leaned against the railing, almost insolent in his idleness. “Yeah. He was very loyal.”

Tony waited. Steve didn’t disappoint, even if he took his time. “He’d write Ma letters,” he explained. In a cadence that reminded Tony of Shakespearean dialogue, Steve recited, “‘Dear Sarah. I am writing to you a last time before we march on Soissons. France is a beautiful country. I wish you could see it. I hope this letter finds you and Steven well. I miss you daily. I love you always.’”

Tony couldn’t swallow around the lump in his throat. Steve said, surprisingly soft, “He had scratchy handwriting. Like. . . .” He turned, patting his suit down—what a sad suit it was, Tony thought, aching to replace it, make it better, stronger—before pulling a moleskin-like journal from a hip holster along with a short pencil. With three abrupt cutting motions, he slashed the notebook before turning the pages to face Tony. In a sharp, slanted, curt script, the words _Joe Rogers_ stood out.

Steve went on, “Ma, though, she had—really lovely, kind of—” He turned the page and carefully, for nearly a minute, wrote, pausing and smudging and finally turning the book back to Tony, justifying, “I can’t do it justice, but she had handwriting you’d frame.”

Tony said suddenly, “They did.”

Steve’s expression went blank. His brow furrowed. “What?”

Tony backpedaled. “I mean, I don’t—I don’t know if.” Steve’s eyes went dark, sad. “I don’t know,” he said softly. It wasn’t a lie; he _didn’t_ know if they had Sarah Rogers’ notes anywhere, but Steve’s eyes pinned him down. He admitted, “They’ve got some, you know, some—old—artifacts. At the Smithsonian.”

Steve’s expression was completely unreadable. There wasn’t anger or insecurity, worry or frustration. He echoed calmly, “The Smithsonian.”

“Have you been?”

Steve narrowed his eyes, then visibly relaxed, slouching against the railing, the picture of calm. “No.” Sliding his journal back into place, he added carefully, “No, I have not.” He gripped the railing tightly before consciously relaxing.

Tony said, “I’ll talk to them.” Steve didn’t look at him, turning to face the city, shoulders bunching. Tony could see the storm building there. The anguish. The disbelief. “They need an Avengers hall anyway,” he babbled, mostly to fill space with something that wasn’t Steve’s tight breathing, “you know, team unity, that kind of bullshit—”

Steve reached up to grip his head in his hands. Tony stopped talking. “Steve?” he tried. Steve didn’t respond. Tony set his cup aside and approached. Steve ducked his head towards his chest, covering his face, hunched over like if he couldn’t see the world, it wouldn’t exist anymore. Tony hesitated, tempted to leave him be, not make anything worse.

He rested a warm hand on the back of Steve’s ice-cold shoulder.

Steve told his hands, “I can’t do this.”

Tony wrapped his arms around Steve’s waist, hugging his belly, pressing against his back. Holding on. He shook so hard it almost made Tony’s teeth chatter. He didn’t make a sound, didn’t seem capable of moving an inch, frozen completely. His breath came short, quick.

Tony said softly, “It’s okay.”

Steve’s voice was muffled. “I feel like I’m gonna be sick.”

“Preferably not over the balcony,” Tony said, keeping his voice steady even though his heart ached with every beat.

“They took everything.” With a full body shudder, stronger than the rest, Steve lowered his hands and said in a ragged voice, “I don’t—I don’t underst— _W_ _hy_?”

Tony said softly, “People suck.” It felt so inadequate. Steve shivered, hunching inward. “It’s okay. You know you don’t have to hold it in all the time, right?”

Steve pushed back from the railing suddenly; Tony almost stumbled off him. “Sorry,” Steve said, turning to put a gentle hand on his shoulder, steadying him. His face, though pale, was dry. His entire demeanor bespoke silent agony. “Can we—?” He swallowed hard, closing his eyes, then opened them. His whole demeanor shifted as he took a deep breath. In a surprisingly normal tone, Steve acknowledged, “I’d like to see it.”

Tony blinked at him. Even the color returned to Steve’s face, like all traces of the flash flood panic had been wiped. He actually dredged up a smile. “Can’t tell you the last time I went to a museum.” Like he was having a conversation with himself, he added, “’36 or ‘37, maybe, can’t—get some numbers mixed up, see, but it was after the Depression ended, think I’d like to—I’d like to see one again. What’s changed?” When Tony stared at him, he rested a heavy hand on his shoulder, giving it a companionable shake. “C’mon, you told me you’d show me—what was it, the Zoo? Let’s go to the museum.”

Tony suggested mildly, “I don’t know, the Zoo sounds more fun.”

Steve frowned, hand on his shoulder. It was still shaking. The dissonance was staggering, incomprehensible. If it wasn’t for the coherence in Steve’s voice, Tony would have thought that he was talking to two different people. “Let me tell you something,” he said in a soft, dangerously steady tone, drawing Tony closer so he could all but whisper in his ear, “nothing here scares me more than anything there.”

He leaned back, let go, and walked away.

. o . 

Tony couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Captain America in an openly bad mood.

It was strange to witness, reminding him of old-timey mirror universes, evil clones and the like. Steve was civil but completely aloof, radiating enough _don’t touch me_ energy that Tony expected a physical shock if he dared to encroach on Captain America's personal bubble. The last place Tony wanted to be was here—that wasn’t entirely fair to a Universe full of a phenomenal plenitude of terrible places, but the sentiment stood—but he didn’t dare leave.

He knew Steve wouldn’t hurt anybody. 

He was reasonably sure of that.

He wanted to text Rhodey, knew it was an oversight not to text him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Steve in uniform. Captain America moved across the hall and an audible hush fell over the space as people turned to watch. Phones went up, lit up. Tony wished he had an EMP to put them in their place, but he didn’t. Steve didn’t look at them, proceeding like a man on a mission down the hushed hall.

Respectfully distant and as well-disguised as he could be on short notice, Tony sauntered after him, making sure to linger on the way, to not beat a straight path. Absolutely nothing in Steve’s posture invited visitors ( _Captain America is no longer accepting visitors for the day, please try again tomorrow_ ) and the people respected his wishes. 

Tony knew what it was like to be shuffled around, to have a camera in his face and a wrist sore from signing autographs. It wasn’t glamorous. It was just an awful lot of noise, strong enough to grate on the toughest nerves. If he were Iron Man, he would have cleared out the whole damn hall. But he didn’t want to make a scene.

There was no stopping Captain America. He strode through their midst boldly, making the news without even trying to. It wasn’t pandemonium, firecrackers and champagne bottles, just sober, breathless, wondering anticipation. 

Tony could hear it in the silence. _It’s really him_.

Tony sometimes forget that of the seven billion people on Earth, only a tiny fraction had seen Captain America in the flesh. Wherever he went, it was like the first time he’d ever been received, the first time he’d ever made contact.

A solicitous fleet of museum staff members, evidently unable to read the silent tension radiating from him, flanked him, offering, “It’s a privilege to have you here” and other paltry but sincere praises that Tony could barely make out from fifty feet away. “It’s not every day one of our most honored guests walks through the door,” another said.

Captain America replied with the kind of sound bite perfection the press loved, “I’m humbled to be here.”

The ice broke; warmth returned to the building, like they’d been waiting for the first words. Having heard them, everyone could move forward with their lives. The visitors didn’t crowd around him, unconsciously aware that it was a _look-don’t-touch_ kind of moment. Instead, they continued to discreetly record and cherish the moment.

It was strange, but Tony could see how being treated like Captain America actually brought the Captain America everyone knew and loved back to the forefront. Captain America listened attentively to one of the staffers, nodding and frowning thoughtfully, occasionally flashing a hint of a smile that was worth more than a pound of palladium.

Tony was near enough to hear him tell the staffers in an undertone, “What I have done is nothing more than what the millions of soldiers who died in the wars did. I don’t want my voice to drown out their silence.” He reached out, then rested a gloved hand against a wall depicting an American flag. 

“Did you know forty-five million civilians died in the second War?” he said. They must have, but none of them had the indecency to say it aloud. Captain America went on, “Sixty million, if you include soldiers. That’s over a million people per star.” He tapped one of the flat white stars educationally. “One million, two hundred thousand people for every star on this flag. And I’m the one who gets this.” He rubbed the silver star on his chest, tarnished, worn with time, no longer gleaming. He said, “I carry this for them.”

Tony didn’t miss the way his hand crept to his throat, tugging once at his collar. The gesture could be mistaken for the warmth of the hall, which must have been stifling in the suit, but Tony didn’t mistake it. It was pain, raw and choking. Nobody around him bat an eyelash, entranced by the lie that Captain America was invincible.

Captain America stared at the glass case, suddenly immobile, not merely still but rendered inert, like he’d lost all forward momentum. One of the staffers offered, “Let us know if we can be of any assistance.” Captain America didn’t acknowledge her. He didn’t nod, didn’t turn. Sensing the changing winds, the staffing group dispersed. Standing alone, Captain America gazed into the glass box like he was looking into the abyss.

Slowly, hand trembling, he reached for it. He hesitated, hand hovering over it. The glass was bulletproof, Tony knew, which was why visitors could touch it. It seemed—surreal, watching Captain America hover between reaching for and retreating from the contents of that glass box. Tony saw trembling fingers settle on the glass. He could almost feel the raw power in Captain America’s shoulders, ready to tear it from its foundation, to rip it free— 

Tony turned, losing interest in feigning interest in anything other than the box and its sole object. 

A box radio, crackling obscurely, announced some War story on a loop. Tony strained to hear it and could barely make out the words, but he realized that what was obscure and almost inaudible for him was crystal clear for the man staring into the box like it held all the world’s secrets.

Tony remembered the first time he had truly blanked out after Afghanistan. It hadn't been in the shower, like he'd expected, hadn't even been in the car, like he'd feared—it had been in the Stark Industries elevator. It made sense in retrospect, but he hadn't been thinking clearly at the time. He’d felt pretty good, all things considered, shivering with relief because the nightmare was over ( _it wasn’t; it was dormant, waiting to be revived_ ) and he was home. He'd thought he might escape the whole damn encounter relatively intact.

Then the elevator doors had slid open and Tony had stepped inside. He'd turned around and watched his entire world shut down, the doors closing almost in time with the darkness crowding the corners of his vision. He hadn't been able to move, hadn't been able to _breathe_ , couldn’t believe that he’d believed for a second that everything was over because his entire world had _collapsed_ , mathematical, instantaneous, catastrophic.

He wasn't sure he'd even made a sound, but he had frozen completely, like all the air had evaporated. He'd felt ghost hands on him, ghost hands _in_ his chest. He hadn't hit the ground again until he had been huddled in the middle of the conference room floor with his hands in his hair, covered in a cold sweat and gasping for breath. Pepper had sat next to him; Rhodey had paced in front of him. Tony had watched Rhodey until he'd found his voice. He'd been surprised to hear himself say, “Your socks don’t match.”

Rhodey had replied, “I had other things on my mind.”

Tony felt like he was stepping on a landmine as he eased an inch closer to Captain America. Steve didn't acknowledge him, holding the box in his hands and staring at the radio inside. It was strange, to see what was happening and _know_ it.

With sudden certainty, Tony knew that if he assumed Steve was home, he could get seriously hurt. Tony felt trepidation for everyone in a fifty-foot radius even though none of them seemed remotely alarmed. They were mildly intrigued—and it was growing by the second, the intrigue, the _drama_ of it—but Captain America’s posture was so balanced, his demeanor so calm, that everything must be fine.

Tony knew that even if he had lashed out at Rhodey after Afghanistan—and he may well _have_ lashed out at Rhodey; there had been lost seconds, dark seconds, that he’d subconsciously tried to drown before they could become permanent—his ability to do damage had been limited by his own physical malnourishment. But any parent with a screaming four-year-old knew that even a small person could cause a lot of trouble and not inconsiderable damage for the incautious. 

Captain America was 240 lbs of raw power. He could infiltrate steel bunkers with his bare hands. It wasn’t easy, but it didn’t need to be. Tony wasn’t built of reinforced steel: Captain America's strength against Tony Stark's mortality was overkill, laughably so. Tony wasn’t sure if he felt more relieved or disconcerted by the memory of Steve holding Bruce in a non-lethal chokehold when he could have, in one simple movement, snapped his neck.

 _Please don’t kill me_ , Tony thought, imploring a higher power more than Captain America as he took another step closer. He felt tempted to shed his jacket and throw it over him, test the waters, _don’t get too close_ , but that would cause a fucking _scene_. 

_I need a scene_.

He didn’t even need to get his phone out of his pocket to hit Rhodey’s speed dial.

Easing away from Captain America, who wasn’t even _breathing_ , Tony murmured to his earpiece, “Give you a million dollars if you show up at the Smithsonian in the suit.”

Rhodey sighed noisily, but he said, “ _Okay_ ,” and it was the best thing Tony had ever heard. He was dead-serious, too, even though he knew Rhodey would tell him where he could stuff his money. Which was why he would ply him with a million dollars’ worth of favors instead. He was already planning possibilities—pet tiger came to mind, for some ungodly reason—when the ebb of human traffic shifted towards the opposite end of the hall as the Iron Patriot waltzed into the atrium, holding up a stack of pizza boxes and insisting, “I plugged in the right address, why would it—?”

 _Bless your heart_ , Tony thought, sparing a quick look around the empty hall—as anticipated, Iron Man’s shinier cousin held court, and the smell of fresh pizza wafted enticingly across the room—and shrugging carefully out of his black jacket. One last paranoid glance—“I mean, they’ll be cold by the time I get there, you want ‘em? I can’t eat all these”—before Tony said in an undertone: “Here goes nothing.”

His aim was perfect—hard to miss, really—and the jacket landed on Steve’s head like a comically oversized falcon hood. Steve twitched; the glass cracked audibly. Tony exhaled. _Thanks for not doing that to my bones_ , he thought. There’d be hell to pay for all this, he knew, but paying for hell was an occupational hazard for Tony Stark. Besides, Iron Patriot was holding court.

He waited, hoping Steve might snap out of it and yank the jacket off, but his fingers creaked ominously on the glass. Tony thought, _Aw, hell, don’t break it_. Even Rhodey’s charisma couldn’t compete with a full-scale heist. _Time to go_.

He took a risk, reaching out and grabbing Steve’s belt. Steve didn’t budge. Tony wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or concerned: relieved, again, to have evaded having his bones forcefully depressurized; concerned because Steve was a _statue_ , the definition of stand-your-ground. He wasn’t sure he could physically haul him away.

Feeling oddly like a matador, he reached up and in one quick movement grabbed his jacket. He jumped in surprise when hands capable of crushing glass suddenly alighted on his forearms, barely stopping an alarmed yelp even though they were just—there. He looked at Steve, who blinked at him, fingers flexing, testing the human give of Tony’s bare arms— _don’t break my bones, don’t break my bones, don’t break my—_ and deliberately loosening his grip, barely holding them.

In a desperate whisper, he said, “Stark?”

Tony winced. He could tell from the tone it wasn’t meant for him. “In the flesh,” he muttered instead, because it was him, technically. He’d seen photos of his Dad at his age and the family resemblance was there. “Wanna step out, Cap?” he asked, torn between trying to act natural and trying to tune into the frequency that responded to soldiers’ orders.

Steve clung to him. “You gotta get me out,” he whispered. “Can’t feel my legs, Stark.” He was clawing at Tony, mercifully gently. Like he was holding onto him, not for stability but like the last rungs on an unstable ladder. He trembled where he stood. “Radio’s busted, hear it? Don’t know how to—you can fix it, can’t you?”

Tony stared at him, completely flabbergasted. “Yeah,” he promised emptily. “Sure, bud.” Steve frowned, the unexpected dissonance making his expression go distant. Wary. _Shit_. “You’re Captain America,” he added, in an inflection he’d never used but heard a thousand times, his father’s showboaty twang, so different from his own _worship me_ drawl. “You can do it, buddy. I’ll get you out, okay?”

Steve asked faintly, “Why’re you here?”

Tony wanted to reply _where’s here?_ Instead, he gave the uniform an experimental tug, but Steve didn’t move an inch. _Not by force_. He winced. They were on the clock. “I wouldn’t leave you, would I?” he said vaguely. “Nah, that’s not the Stark way. Starks always see things through.”

“What about your flying car?”

“My flying car?” Steve nodded once, looking right at him and not seeing _him_. It was strangely disconcerting. He felt like he was in the mirror universe. “Yeah, don’t worry about it, it’s always catching fire. That’s how it is. Everything catches fire first; then it works. Give it time.” Inspired, he added, “You come with me, I’ll show it to ya, won’t that be fun?”

Steve’s frown deepened. His fingernails dug in but not enough to hurt. “St—” He swallowed. “Stark,” he rasped. “It’s gettin’ kinda hard to breathe.”

Tony drew in a deep breath, centering himself. “Yeah, that’s why we gotta go,” he said, turning his hands over, tugging on Steve’s arms. “C’mon, let’s go, can’t stand around all day, can we?”

“How’d you get here?” Steve repeated wonderingly, shuffling forward and _staggering_ , gripping Tony with almost—almost, but thank God _almost—_ bone-crushing force. Tony bit his lower lip to stifle the startled cry and Steve pulled himself up, muttering nonsensically, “Outta the—cold, real cold.” The radio hissed in the background. Steve winced. Tony gritted his teeth against the bruises being pressed into his forearms, saying as patiently as possible:

“Hey, it’s all right, we’re going. We’re leaving now.”

Steve said, “I can’t—I can’t see, Stark.”

Tony stared at bright blue eyes, the black jacket on the floor, forgotten. “Sorry,” he said lamely. “I didn’t know what you’d do.”

Steve didn’t seem to hear him, tilting his head towards the box. “’m alive,” he said. “Gotta—gotta tell ‘em—I’m alive, Stark, I hit some ice, not the water, don’t look in the water.”

Tony closed his own eyes, suddenly, chillingly aware of _where_ they were. “Yeah,” he agreed, deciding going along with the narrative was easier than trying to change it. “Mm-hm. Don’t worry. We’ll getcha. Be patient.” He gave as strong a pull he dared. Steve limped forward half a step after him, grip mercifully loosening.

“Oh, geez,” he said. His words were aware even if his tone wasn’t. “Aw, hell, Stark, I’m sorry—are you okay? I—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tony cut him off, pulling, eager, desperate to get him moving. Steve moved glacially, barely lifting his feet, hunch-shouldered. If they could duck around the corner, they’d be—well, not _safer_ , but at least less visible. That was the goal Tony set his eyes on even as Steve started to fall. “Hey, hey, no, no, no,” he pleaded, “c’mon, three more steps, you can do three more steps, you’re Captain America. Captain America!” he insisted, holding his ground. “Man with a plan!”

It was cruel; it was desperation. And it _worked_. Steve pulled himself to his feet, using Tony more like a ladder than a person. Tony didn’t give him time to even draw breath, pulling as earnestly and urgently as he could. Steve stumbled, one-two-three, after him. Tony encouraged, “There you go.” 

Steve’s brow furrowed in pain. Tony had seen him less reactive to a broken _spine_. “How much farther?” he asked, eyes shut.

Tony sighed, wanting to say, _Just a bit_. There had to be a museum hidey-hole around here somewhere, a _do not enter_ area where he could deal with the immediate crisis. But he couldn’t _drag_ Captain America around. He was amazed no overeager security guard hadn’t charged over to intervene, but without the jacket he was fairly recognizable. Rhodey’s voice was projecting from the front of the hall. _Go Rhodey_.

A woman behind them asked, “Do you need help?”

Tony startled, glancing over his shoulder and asking, “Where’d you come from?”

Pointing a thumb over her shoulder, somber-faced but serious, the woman added, “I can get someone.”

Tony nodded, feeling like gravity itself was trying to haul him down as Steve slumped, clinging to him but not keeping his own weight up. “Grab someone who works here,” he instructed. “Please be discreet.”

Nodding, the woman blitzed past him. Tony felt cold and relieved, giving up on the backbreaking effort of keeping them upright and sinking to the floor instead, backs to the wall, legs stretched out in front of them. “All right, buddy,” he said quietly, exhaling harshly. “S’okay.”

True to her word, the woman reappeared with a sober-faced staffer. “I’ll close the exhibit,” she said at once, disappearing.

“Anything I can do?” the first woman asked.

Tony looked up at her, but before he could respond Steve said, “Peg?” He released Tony, shuffling like he’d get up. Tony advised the woman:

“Stay back.”

The woman took a step back obligingly, frowning. “Is he okay?”

Tony couldn’t bring himself to lie. Steve did it for him: “’m okay, Peggy.”

The woman nodded once. The museum staffer disappeared around the corner. Iron Patriot’s voice was no longer audible.

“Who’s Peggy?” the woman asked.

“Nobody,” Tony said reflexively. “Who’re you, anyway?”

“Nobody,” the woman said. Tony scowled before she added, “I mean, I’m Darcy Lewis, but that’s basically nobody to Tony Stark.” A pause. “You _are_ Tony Stark, right? Iron Man?”

Tony sighed, locking a firm hand around Steve’s shoulder strap, holding him in place. “Don’t put this on your Facebook feed.”

“How do you know I have a Facebook?”

“You’re under forty.”

“Touché.” Darcy looked him over, then Steve, who made a soft disappointed sound.

“Can’t get up.” Looking at Darcy, he added softly, “Need to rest my legs a moment, sweetheart.”

Darcy actually blushed. “Take all the time you need,” she said, looking at Tony for guidance, but Tony had none to offer.

Steve nodded absently, reaching down and rubbing his suit-clad legs. “I’ll be good,” he said in the same slow murmur. “Promised you a dance, didn’t I?” He kept rubbing at his calves, adding softly, “Howard’s here.”

Darcy cocked her head. “Yeah?”

Tony almost wanted to tell her _stop talking_ , but Steve nodded calmly. His calm demeanor was worth keeping. “Mmm-hmm. Won’t tell me how.”

“Flying car,” Tony supplied, the switch labelled _sarcastic rejoinder_ flipped without consulting _rational adult_.

But Steve smiled, eyelids sliding shut. “Such a liar, Stark. Kinda dad are you gonna be, huh? Promise your kid the Moon, won’t give it to him, will you?”

Tony swallowed. “Not a dad yet, champ.”

“Yeah, you are,” Steve said. “Tony.” He squinted at Tony, then said, “Been to the future.”

“Have you?”

Steve nodded seriously. Tony knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help himself. “What’d you think?”

Steve’s eyelids slid shut for a long moment. “S’not so bad,” he murmured. “You’d like it. Lots of shiny toys. Your kind of playground.”

“My kind of playground,” Tony echoed.

Steve nodded. “Yeah,” he said, blinking at Tony. “Me, I miss the quiet.” He closed his eyes again. “Can you hear it, Stark? Radio’s broken. Same story, over ‘n’ over—somethin’s wrong. Somebody’s pulling my leg.” He frowned more deeply. “They lied to me.”

Tony didn’t know what to say. Steve slumped against the paneled wall. “’m I dead, Howard? ‘S that what this all is?”

Tony reached out and took his hand in one of his own. It was ice-cold. “No,” he said seriously.

Steve sighed. “How long you think it’ll be this time? Hundred years? Two hundred?” He shivered. “Comes a point, Stark, you stop wanting to wake up. Gonna be a long forever, y’know. Lonely.”

Tony squeezed his hand tightly. He wasn’t worried about hurting Steve. Without the armor, he wasn’t even sure he _could_. “Shouldn’t talk like that,” Steve murmured. Darcy had stepped back a few paces, texting someone, subtly giving them space. Tony gripped Steve’s hand until his own arm shook, needing him to feel it. “’m grateful. I am.” He gave Tony’s hand a faint squeeze, more reflexive than responsive. “Good place to land, you know. All the cold dark everywhere out there, I found a nice little place.”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed softly, “you did.”

Steve nodded. “We win,” he said. “We win the War.” He shifted his hand out of Tony’s grip, rubbing his leg again. “We go to the Moon. You believe that?” He exhaled, leaning against the wall more, hunch-shouldered. “Me neither. Maybe it’s a dream. Maybe I’m still in the ice.” He exhaled slowly.

Tony said, “No. Not the ice.”

Steve inhaled deeply. It looked like it hurt him, shuddering in his chest. “You’re not real,” he said, so softly, “are you?”

Tony couldn’t force the words out of his throat. Steve looked at him, nodding and murmuring, “S’okay. Not your fault.” He reached out and patted Tony’s knee clumsily. “You go home, Stark, you go home and you live and everything’ll be okay.”

Ignoring their audience of one, Tony shuffled closer until he was pressed up against Steve’s side, sliding an arm around his back. “I’ll stay with you,” he said. Steve rested his cheek on Tony’s shoulder, his legs shifting like he would try to stand before stilling. “S’okay. It all works out.” He pressed his cheek against Steve’s golden hair, eyes closed, and repeated, “It all works out.”

. o . 

Rhodey said, “You look like a kicked puppy.” He held out a glass of water as a peace offering.

Tony sighed, slouched deeply on Rhodey’s couch, mirroring Steve, who was steadily eating his way through an entire box of Oreos. He made grabby hands for the water and slugged down a third of it in one go. “Here I was getting ready to fly up,” Rhodey said lightly, sitting on the arm of a chair in his living room. “Had my bag packed and everything.”

“That’s the saddest story I have ever heard,” Tony deadpanned. Steve crunched another Oreo in half. Tony snagged one for himself and split the cookie as God intended. 

Lounging on a chair, Rhodey said, “Yeah, well, this does save time.” He looked at them. Tony knew they must look the part of despondent duo. “Honestly, I consider today a win.” Tony stared at him. Rhodey shrugged. “Nobody got arrested and so far, Twitter is trending ‘Bananiversary,’ whatever the hell that means, so I think we’re in the clear.”

“Yes, that completely negates everything else that happened,” Tony said.

Rhodey sighed. “At least that Darcy kid works for Thor.”

Tony arched an eyebrow. “I thought she was being facetious.”

Rhodey huffed. “Me too, but she’s got the creds.” When Tony cocked his head, Rhodey explained, “Selfies. Lots of selfies with Thor.”

“Huh.” Tony fished out another Oreo without looking. “Somehow I didn’t see him as the selfie-type. You learn something new every day.”

“Mm-hm.” Tony split his Oreo and popped the cookie into his mouth. Rhodey said, “Shoulda told me you were stopping by.”

Tony shrugged, swallowing his mouthful. “Unplanned visit.”

“Hm.” Rhodey looked between the two of them. “You’re trouble, you know that?”

Tony made a kissy face at him. “You know you love me,” he said.

“Uh huh.” Rocking to his feet, Rhodey sauntered back into the kitchen. “You’re lucky I do. I almost got arrested for you.”

“Not the first time.”

He heard Rhodey huff, rummaging around. “Uh huh.” He stepped back into view with a pair of Icy-Hot wraps. “I should be sainted.” He cracked a pack, tossed it to Tony, who frowned uncomprehendingly at it. Demonstratively, Rhodey curled his hand around his own forearm. Tony looked down at the deep blue bruises and sighed, reaching for the band and sliding it around his arm.

“I really don’t deserve you,” Tony said seriously, setting his empty glass aside.

Rhodey said, “It’s not about deserve.” He shrugged and reclaimed his chair. “Just what you get.”

“Guess who’s getting a private jet for his birthday.”

“Where the hell would I park a private jet?”

Tony sighed. Steve peeled another cookie from the box. “In an airfield? Get with the program, Rhodes, I thought you were a pilot.”

“I _am_ a pilot,” Rhodey agreed. “I just don’t need a private jet.”

“Baby private jet. For babies.”

“That’s your jet. The one for babies.”

Tony frowned. With methodical care, Steve freed the last Oreo from the box. He held it out, but Tony shook his head. Wordlessly, Steve finished it in two bites. “Do Oreos count as a meal?”

Rhodey asked, “How?”

Tony shrugged, taking the empty box from Steve’s hands and setting it on the coffee table. “Cheese and crackers were a meal,” he said. “I mean, if you take loose definitions of both, frosting and cookies, same thing.”

Scrunching up his nose, Rhodey said, “You may have ruined Oreos for me.”

Steve said softly, “I thought Oreos were fruits.”

Tony sighed. “Listen,” he began. Steve tilted his head, not looking at him but clearly present, chafing his fingers against his knees. “Should’ve brought a change of clothes,” Tony said instead, frowning.

Rhodey breezed, “I got some stuff that might fit. You’ll swim in ‘em,” he added, pointing at Tony.

Tony scowled. “Do you want a cassowary for Christmas? Thin ice, buddy.”

Steve turned to look at him, then Rhodey, then shrugged ambivalently. “I’m fine in the suit.” He patted down the jacket, relaxed when he felt the journal in the hip holster. He slouched back into the cushions.

“You two fly?”

Tony shrugged. “Left my briefcase with security, picked it up—after.” A beat. “Traffic is lighter upstairs.”

“Fair point.” Rhodey looked between the two of them pointedly. “We gonna talk about it?”

“Didn’t wanna cause a scene,” Steve murmured. Tony leaned his head on Steve’s shoulder, partially for self-comfort, partially for support. Steve inhaled deeply and admitted, “I don’t know what came over me. I’m not usually. . . .” He frowned. “I don’t know.”

Rhodey said, “You’ve had a tough life, Cap.”

Steve smiled. “No.” Tony worked an arm around his back carefully, holding onto his waist. Steve let him. “No, I’ve—I’ve had the kind of life people would die for. A lot of people did die for it. Died for less.” He inhaled deeply. “I’m grateful, you know. I really am. Always managed, kept at it even when things were tough. Had what I needed. People.” He tipped his head, cheek resting against the top of Tony’s. “Got to outlive the War. Few people who wouldn’t be grateful for that.”

“You know,” Rhodey said gently, “gratitude and pain aren’t exclusive. It’s not ingratitude to admit that you’re in pain.”

“I’m okay.”

Rhodey was quiet for a long moment. Tony didn’t speak, feeling each slow, steady inhale rise in Steve’s chest, each soft, unsteady exhale fall. He closed his eyes, feeling warm and safe and sad, all at once. In a soft voice, Steve asked, “Did I hurt anyone?”

Rhodey sighed. Tony said firmly, “No.”

Steve nodded, then said somberly, “I’d almost believe you.” Before Tony could ask, he slid a hand down and rested it, barely ghosted it over Tony’s arm below the pack. “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted. “I can’t. . . .” He sighed, hunching forward. “I need to be part of something.”

 _I have to belong somewhere_.

The unspoken seemed too painful to touch. Tony said, “You’ll always be part of our family.”

They were quiet, but after a minute or so Rhodey stood. Tony wanted to inquire, but he heard a tiny sniff above him, barely there. Tony sighed softly in understanding.

Part of Tony wanted to say, _You know why we cry? Bottled-up emotions. It’s a biological depressurizer, literally helps us clear our heads_.

But there was a part that knew it wasn’t logical, that even levelheaded, emotionally surprisingly-well-adapted people like Bruce kept some things to themselves. He’d never seen Clint cry, either; Natasha, once. He’d been quick to leave her be. It had seemed too personal. Maybe it was; maybe he wasn’t supposed to know what broke their hearts.

He nudged Steve until he reclined on the couch, ducking his head so his cheek rested against Steve’s heart, feeling every subsurface tremble, resting on top of him, feeling Steve’s arms lock around his back, holding his own wrist. Lying on his chest, eyes closed, Tony felt Steve’s fingers grasp at his shirt, then flatten against his back, curling as a sob slipped past him.

“Shh,” Tony said, a sound, a comfort, _I’m here_. He wrapped his arms around Steve as well as he could. “It’s okay. It’s okay.

“I’m here, sweetheart. I’m here.”

. o .

Sitting cross-legged on the bed in the dimly-lit room, Steve looked up when Tony stepped over the threshold. Leaning desultorily against the frame, long black sleeves over his hands, Tony said dramatically, “Fashion.”

Steve bared a toothy smile. “Very chic.”

“I knew you’d appreciate it.” He pushed off the frame and added, “You really love that uniform, don’t you?”

Although he’d taken off the jacket and boots, Steve was still dressed in familiar blue-and-white pants, white undershirt carrying the motif. “Not to sound like an old timer,” he said, “but back in my day, you could count the threads in clothing. It’s very comfortable.”

“Hm.” Tony ambled over and sat next to him. “Bet I could do it better.”

Steve arched an eyebrow, looking down at his long-sleeved decadence. “This is Rhodey’s,” Tony reminded, shaking out the sleeves. “I’m improvising.” Sliding a hand boldly down Steve’s front, sternum to belly, he added, “It’s honestly kind of an insult to humanity at large that you’re hiding washboard abs under _vertical stripes_.”

Steve rolled his eyes, hooking an arm around Tony’s back and tugging him onto his side, face-to-face. “Honestly, nobody cares but you.”

“That is a boldfaced lie and you know it.”

Steve huffed, closing his eyes. “Well,” he murmured, “humanity at large better get used to it. I’m not going shirtless any time soon.”

Tony hummed, wondering if he always looked this angelic, cheek nuzzled in a pillow, expression relaxed, or if it was the combination of golden hair and the white undershirt. It wasn’t for show, he knew, reaching out to stroke the fabric above Steve’s hip. 

The jacket was fully 90% of Captain America’s protective armor, but the undershirt was thicker and tougher than it looked, hard to cut, harder to tear. Steve could rip it in half without effort, but any baddie trying to carve a pound of flesh would have a hell of time sawing through it. Tony gave it an experimental tug and Steve didn’t even bother opening his eyes, murmuring, “Hm?”

“I could do it better,” Tony insisted.

Steve blinked at him, eyes open to slits. “Better,” he echoed. “It’s already good, Tony.”

“Yeah, but.” Tony leaned forward and kissed his nose. “ _Better_ ,” he teased.

Steve closed his eyes but smiled. “Uh huh.” Reaching out, he curled an arm around Tony’s back and pulled him close. “You’re trouble, you know that?”

“No,” Tony said with perfect sincerity, squirming out of his hold—Steve slanted a glance at him—and with much ado about nothing, tugging the shirt over his head. “Full offense to James, I’m roasting,” he said, shuffling closer and picking up Steve’s arm, sliding back under it with a sigh. “How _does_ he do it?”

Steve hummed, stroking his bare shoulder blades idly. The light-blue glow of the reactor illuminated his face. “We could fly home,” he reminded.

Tony sighed, telling his shoulder, “Too late, already comfy.”

“‘m sorry. About today.”

“Don’t be.”

“Tony—”

“Honestly, I’d have done the exact same thing,” Tony said seriously. “Except I probably would’ve smashed the glass.”

Steve said softly, “Gotta be careful.”

“Always are, big guy.” He patted Steve’s hip. “Always are.”

. o .

Tony spent half the night on his tablet, back to Steve’s chest so he could work, tapping away silently while Steve breathed against his shoulder, sleep-deep, sleep-warm.

He contacted not one but three different curators, writing a strong but not impolite letter about his wishes that he copy-pasted verbatim across the board. Then he spent three hours fucking around online, needing to turn his brain off so he wouldn’t dream terrible things. 

It was the same reason he ducked out of horror movie nights, even though he’d taken pride in his ability to stomach them prior to Afghanistan. Things changed. He’d changed. And he couldn’t sleep if the last thing on his mind was the _Valkyrie_. The line between fiction and reality wasn’t as thick as he wanted it to be. Thus, he sifted through the Internet until he came across a sanctuary for sea otters that ran a web cam.

Maybe it was tempting nightmares to observe a water-based animal before bed, but he stared with mind-numb absorption at the black-and-white footage of a sea otter floating serenely in a pool, occasionally flapping a foot or scrubbing its face. He watched, intending to shut it off before he fell asleep, but he failed step two, head pillowed in his arm and snoring softly in seconds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jimmy's here!!
> 
> (You don't know how much I love Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes. Also this chapter is kind of a part-one, next chapter will pick up where we leave off here. I figured it'd be oversized to keep it all in one chapter and this felt like a good end point for this chapter, hence why it might seem brief at right around 8k.)
> 
> Until next time,  
> Captain Pandamore


	21. TOMORROW AND TOMORROW

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guysss. I’m cry.
> 
> We made it. 200k.
> 
> I use the royal _we_ because even though it’s only little ol’ me over here typing the words, these endeavors are always a sort of group effort. 
> 
> Whether you leave any trace of your presence or come and go at your leisure—you have added so much to this experience for me.
> 
> Enjoy, my friends. I'll see you soon in Chapter 22.
> 
> Yours sincerely,  
> Captain Pandamore

_Stepping alone into a small cabin, Tony looked down at a bunch of papers scattered across the floor. He crouched and barely got his fingers around one before, from the other side of the wall opposite, he heard the scratch of a pen on paper, a familiar, comforting voice talking to the emptiness._ _Narrating, Steve told him:_

_“Dear Tony,_

_“How does this go? I can’t remember. That’s because it’s a dream. You never remember the exact words, just like you can’t snap your fingers in a dream. Try to snap them, Tony, see what happens.”_

_Tony tried, but his fingers didn’t click, didn’t make the sharp_ snap _he expected them to. It was empty, airless. He reached for the papers, tidying up. Steve kept talking, somehow clear but muffled, as if he was much, much farther than ten feet away._

_“Never mind: I'm getting off-target. Back to the start._

_“Dear Tony,_

_“Tomorrow, we march on Nice. No, not Nice. It wasn’t Nice. Where the hell was it? Paris? No—I’d remember if it was Paris. Maybe it was. . . . God, why can’t I remember? Started with an ‘S,’ didn’t it? Okay, give me a minute.”_

_Tony did, sitting with his back to the wall, facing the opposite one, behind which the ghost dwelled. He held the stack of scrawled, illegible papers in his hands. And_ _Steve resumed:_

_“Dear Tony,_

_“Tomorrow, we march on . . . hell. Does it even matter? We march on. The War is almost over. Can you believe it? Four grueling years, more bloodshed than the world has ever known. We’re about to break its shackles. Emerge into peace-time. It’s not going to last long, Tony, but that’s hindsight, you know. Of course you do. You’re from the future. You know what happens next.”_

_He did. He shut his eyes. It didn’t help. He startled as a distant spat of gunfire sounded off, rat-a-tat-a-tat, perilously close, a muffled sonic_ boom _making him shiver. Deaf to the threat or unafraid of its promise, Steve continued in the same unruffled voice:_

_“Dear Tony,_

_“Tomorrow, we march on Soissons. Beautiful name for a beautiful place. I wish you could see it. It’s an unforgettable countryside. You looked it up, I know you did, you like to know how things work, so you know that there were over 100,000 people that died in the Battle of Soissons. 100,000 dead soldiers scattered across the Earth. How many were like me, Tony? How many had children? Siblings, parents? I don’t have any, but my father, he had a brother. Did you know his brother died of cancer two years later? I know you know: you looked that up, too._ _I don’t think he ever got over his baby brother’s death. I know Ma never got over Pa’s.”_

_He heard the scratching pause and set the papers aside. He stood and wandered over to the wall, sliding down until he was back-to-back with the ghost. The illusion of closeness didn’t make him seem closer. Steve resumed in the same muted tone:_

_“Dear Tony,_

_“Tomorrow we march and tomorrow I die. Don’t worry about me; I don’t know what’s coming. I’m safe and comfortable and thinking of you right now. That’s all that matters. I have no fear. How could I? Hindsight is twenty-twenty, but right now, all I can think about is how good it’ll feel to finally step off the ship on the dock under the watchful eye of Sweet Lady Liberty and find you again, wrap you in my arms and hold you tight and promise not to leave again. Don’t worry, Tony. Soissons is a beautiful place to die. It’ll be okay. This is as good a place as any to die.”_

_Tony told him, Don’t die. But he was voiceless. The soldier in the woodwork never heard him. He kept talking._

_“Dear Tony,_

_“Tomorrow is coming fast, it seems, or maybe everything else was slow and we never noticed it. Do you remember how we fell in love? Seems like a long time ago, now. I’m glad we fell in love. I wish we could have been in love a little longer.”_

_Tony tapped the wall. The scratching never stopped. Steve couldn’t hear him. He was thirty-six hundred miles away._

_“Dear Tony,  
_

_“Do you believe in the Afterlife? I hope it exists. I want to see you again. That’s the part that hurts. I know it’ll hurt tomorrow when I lay dying, but tomorrow is tomorrow and tomorrow never really comes. But I hope there’s an Afterlife. I know I have to go, I have to, Tony, I can’t stay here anymore, but I hope we get to see each other again. I didn’t get enough of you, I don’t know if I’ll ever get enough of you. I need more time. If I don’t get it. . . .”_

_Steve’s pen trailed off. Tony waited. He waited so long he thought Steve wouldn’t speak again. He thought,_ I don’t know what I believe without you _. He_ _tapped the wall, desperate for a response. He was rewarded; softly, Steve narrated:_

_“Dear Tony,_

_“I miss you already.”_

_Tony shut his eyes again, unable to bear it. It only made Steve seem closer. That illusion of closeness made him seem farther away._

_“Dear Tony,_

_“Would ‘I’m sorry’ help?”_

_I’m here, Tony thought. I’m here. I can hear you. I can hear you, you’re not alone. Talk to me._

_“_ _Dear Tony,_

_“I may not be George Washington, but I can’t lie to you.” His voice was so calm, so robustly normal, it almost nullified the pain of what he said next: “It’ll hurt. A lot, actually, more than I thought it would. When I shipped out, I always thought it’d be quick and it wouldn’t really—well, this is gonna sound crazy, Tony, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt._

_“Just snuffed out like a candle, bang, snap, it’s over, that quick. Seemed like a peaceful way to die, none of the sickness or decay like those who die of time alone. But it’s not peaceful. It’s drowning in air and it’s not quick. It’s hoping against hope that I can get out and knowing before I take ten steps, I’m a dead man. There’s a little animal fear in all of us, Tony, that only comes out when we are direly afraid. It’s not rational. It’s not honest. It’s fueled by the belief that we will live forever. When we die, it emerges to fight the good fight once more. And inevitably—inevitably, Tony—it loses.”_

_Tony couldn’t breathe. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need to. It was a dream. It wasn’t real._

_It felt real._

_“Dear Tony,  
_

_“One last time, sweetheart._

_“Do you know what it’s like to love someone as much as I love you? Maybe that seems strange—of course, Rogers, it’s a mutual thing, inn’t it?—but I need you to know how much I love you, to understand that I didn’t leave you because I didn’t love you, that I love you more than any human being has ever loved another and I don’t care if that’s irrational, I am irrationally, irrevocably in love with you. Why’d I leave, why’d I go, why’d I find a place to die? I went because I loved the life the world was trying to take from you more than I loved my own._

_“I have always loved you more, Tony. If it was my choice I would never go to War. I would stay home. I would choose you. But I can’t stay when there is a War, because War is hungry, War is inevitable, War will take and take and take and take, and I am ready willing and able to give everything to it because I would stand between God Himself and you before I sacrificed the life you’re going to lead, oh, Tony, I wish I could see it, how high you’ll fly, but I’m glad I got to watch you this far. And Tony? I need you to know, it’s okay. It’s okay that this happened. It’s not right, it’s not fair, but it’s okay. I had a feeling it would. Even though I hoped against hope it wouldn’t, sometimes there is no winning. Sometime there’s only the War and what it takes and takes and takes and what it leaves behind.”_

_Tears slipped down Tony’s face. He turned so he could press both palms against the wall, like he could somehow get through it, but it was seamless, immovable. It would never give. It would never move._

_With devastating finality, Steve recited:_

_“Dear Tony,_

_“Tomorrow, we march on Soissons. It’s a beautiful country. I wish you could see it. I hope this letter finds you well. I miss you daily. I love you always.”_

. o . 

There were tears on Tony’s pillow.

He didn’t startle awake, nothing so violent as a flinch or a yelp. No, he merely opened his eyes, felt coolness at his back, and dwelled for a moment with agony in his heart at the thought that he was alone.

Then he heard voices, familiarly warm and muffled by the door, one he knew as Rhodey’s, the other he knew as Steve’s. He closed his eyes as relief settled over his bones.

By the time he joined them in the kitchen, he still hadn’t shaken the specter of the soldier scrawling notes across the Sea, hoping to placate, to comfort, to offer his company one last time. It felt so real he wondered if _this_ wasn’t the dream, the beautiful lie in place of the painful truth.

It wasn’t until he wrapped his arms around Steve, warm, solid, breathtakingly _real_ Steve, that at last he felt the dream lie down and die.

Steve turned in his hold, kissing the top of his head. “Mornin’,” he said sweetly. Rhodey wandered out of the room. Tony hid his face against Steve’s shoulder, hugging him from behind. “Tony?” Steve asked, turning in his hold and draping his arms around Tony’s shoulders. “Hey, what’s wrong?” Tony kept his head down, forehead against Steve’s sternum. He gripped the back of Steve’s shirt in his hands. “S’okay,” Steve assured, resting his chin on his head, cradling Tony’s head in his arms. “S’okay, I’m here. I gotcha.”

Tony sniffed. Steve crooned, pulling him closer still. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m here.”

Tony pleaded, “Don’t go.”

And Steve promised, “I’m not going anywhere, Tony.”

He didn’t care if it made no sense. “Don’t die.”

Steve exhaled. “Oh, darling.” He didn’t lie— _I won’t—_ just rocked on his feet, like he was looking for the words, the right ones.

He didn’t find them, but he rocked and Tony held on, and it started to feel like peace.

. o .

“I can’t lose you.”

Steve nuzzled his cheek. “You won’t.”

“Ever.”

Steve sighed. “I’m not going anywhere, Tony,” he assured. They sat on the kitchen floor together, and Tony was aware that it was Rhodey’s kitchen, not the Avengers Tower kitchen where Clint or Natasha or Bruce would be liable to walk in inopportunely. It felt comforting to sit in Steve’s lap and hold onto his shirt. He didn’t know where Rhodey was, but Rhodey was good about personal space.

“I’m not talking about us,” Tony said. Steve hummed, inquisitive. “I’m talking about _you_. I know you. You’re a daredevil.”

“Tony—”

“A risk-taker, a win-it-all-lose-it-all kind of person, and I—I can’t watch you fall.”

“Tony, you know I’m good,” Steve murmured, arms slung around him warmly. “I don’t—” He paused. And decided, with quiet reluctance, to not lie: “It’s hard to hide from you, but I really don’t mess up often.”

“That’s just it.” Another inquisitive sound. Tony sighed against his collarbone. “You might do everything right, but there are no-win scenarios out there. Maybe _you_ don’t mess up, but someone else does, and that’s it. Game over.”

“What are you sayin’, Tony?” There was no accusation, no frustration. Only gentle curiosity. A touch of honest confusion.

Tony’s fingers flexed in his shirt. It felt bold to say, but he’d never forgive himself if he didn’t try: “I want you to stay.”

“Stay,” Steve repeated, not raising his voice, merely echoing, processing.

“I want you to stop fighting,” Tony elaborated. “There’s no end to this war, Steve. You can’t win. Trying will get you killed, and I can’t—” Swallowing, he emphasized, “I can’t let that happen. I can’t watch you die.”

Steve was silent for a time, thumb stroking Tony’s hip. “I know it’s hard,” he said at last. It was Tony’s turn to make a soft disbelieving sound. Steve insisted, “I do. What it’s like to watch somebody you care about—somebody you love go off and do the right thing even when it’s—it’s not the right thing for _them_.” He was tiptoeing, seemed reluctant to say it out loud, but he sighed and gathered his words, adding in the same calm tone, “Sometimes I wish Nat had closed the portal when I told her to, the first time. Then you couldn’t have flown through it.”

He rubbed his hands up and down Tony’s back, more self-comforting than anything, as he went on, “But there were a lotta lives at stake. I knew it wasn’t right, wasn’t right to try to stop you. I still wanted to. I barely knew you, Tony, but I knew that—we were a family, all of us, the _Avengers—_ and losing you would be the end of it. I’m sure Bruce would’ve found work; Clint and Natasha were agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Thor—he’s the King of Asgard. Everyone’s got their place, they’d’ve been all right. But it would’ve cut that string, the one keeping us all together.”

There was a pointed pause. Tony didn’t say anything, felt Steve shift, back to the smooth cabinets, making himself comfortable. “Know somethin’, Tony?” he mused. “I was pissed off that it was you—the guy who had so much to prove to the world—who was gonna die for it. I was mad that we’d put you there, made it necessary. But I knew you had to do it. It was your choice to do it, to make that sacrifice. I—I had to respect that. Not because it was the right thing for you, not even because I wanted to, but because it was your call.”

He hugged Tony closer as he admitted, “I lost my best friend in life on a mission. I knew it was his choice to come with me; I still wished I’d told him to stay home. But he never would’ve, not when I was there and he could be. That was his choice: to cross the line. I didn’t want him there. I knew it was dangerous. And I would still give—” He paused, swallowed. “Honestly, Tony, there’s little I wouldn’t give to have him back.”

He was quiet for a time, breathing, in slowly, out slowly. Finally, he said, “I get it. I get the—the fear, of watching somebody you care about in a place you can’t reach, the knowledge that you can’t always win, that sometimes . . . sometimes they do fall, and you can’t catch them.” He drew in a short breath. “But I also know that we’re only alive for so long, Tony. And if we don’t do what we believe in, what’re we living for, exactly?”

Tony didn’t respond, listening to his heartbeat. Everything about Steve was emphatically alive, right down to the prodigious warmth he radiated. He felt like a star that’d never burn out, too brilliant to be finite.

Lightly, Steve ran his hands up and down Tony’s back and admitted, “When I see a situation pointed south, I can’t ignore it. Sometimes I wish I could.”

Tony sighed. “No, you don’t.”

Steve kissed his temple. “No, I don’t,” he agreed. “I’m sorry, Tony.”

To his collarbone, Tony admitted, “I know you can’t quit.” Steve hummed in agreement. “I don’t even know if I want you to quit.” He drew in a deep breath of his own, then said, “I . . . I can’t do _nothing_.”

“And you aren’t,” Steve assured, releasing his grip when Tony shuffled backwards and sat on the floor cross-legged in front of him instead. Blue eyes looked back at him, earnest and implacable. “You’re there for me, for the team. That means the world.”

“How much is it gonna mean when they ship you home in a box?” Tony asked.

Steve blinked once, hands resting on Tony’s knees like he was grounding himself. Looking for an answer. “It won’t happen.”

Tony sighed, leaning up so he could cup Steve’s face instead, insisting sternly, “You. Don’t. Know. That.”

Steve frowned at him but didn’t try to break his grip, didn’t look away, unflinching, unrepentant. Tony shook his head gently, back-and-forth. Steve closed his eyes. “I can’t watch you die,” Tony said.

Steve blinked at him. Reaching up to cover Tony’s hands with his own, he said, “Nobody lives forever, Tony.” He released Tony’s hands. Tony let them fall, feeling defeated. Steve settled a heavy hand on his shoulder. “I know it’s terrifying. I do. I know it’s frustrating. If I had Buck in front of me, I’d probably try to shake the sense back into him. I get it.” He tightened his grip unconsciously. “Know what keeps me up at night, Tony? I could’ve survived that fall.”

“You’re not invincible.”

“No,” Steve agreed, “but it was 782 feet. Coulda made it. I _know_ I could’ve made it. But that wasn’t what happened. And nothing I do now is ever going to change it. Nothing I did then could, either. And it’s not fair—it’s not fair, it’s barely right to ask you to trust me, to take these chances, but I can’t get off that train, Tony, I can’t stop doing what I was born to do. I can’t stop because I might slip. He didn’t, I can’t.”

Tony said, “Even for you, a two-hundred-foot fall could be lethal.” He paused, then amended, “One-twenty. Got a lot of pointy ribs to contend with, once you start breaking them.”

Steve’s teeth bared in a grin. “That it? You think I’ll shatter?”

“You’re still made of flesh and bone,” Tony said flatly. “Super-soldier or not, those’ll break. I’m sorry, Steve, but that fall? Would’ve killed you, too.”

Steve’s eyes darkened. He let Tony go. “Yeah, that used to help me sleep at night, too. Making it is easier to swallow when nobody could’ve survived the alternative. But I _could’ve_ ,” he insisted. “I could have. I know I could have.”

“You _know_.”

Steve’s expression smoothed over, all hints of dark guilt gone. “I’m not that easy to kill, Tony.” Emphatically, he added, “You know why I go? Why I take on these missions that no one else can? Because I know I can survive them. I know that I’m the one who can take the fall if things go south.” Looking Tony over, he added sedately, “I need you to trust me. If you can’t trust me, trust the serum.”

“It’s got limits.”

Steve nodded once. “You’re underselling it,” he said without elaboration.

“How can I even sell it? I don’t know what it is,” Tony pointed out.

Slouching forward in silent agitation, Steve said, “That it? You need to know what you’re working with to trust me?”

“I need _you_ to know that you’re not invincible.”

“I’m a lot less vincible than you think,” Steve said, almost a snap. He smoothed over his own feathers by sitting back further, lounging against the cabinets again. “If you worry about me like I’m only human, you’re gonna drive yourself crazy. I can’t ask you not to worry.” With a rueful smirk, he added, “Hypocrisy. I know. But you gotta remember who I am, Tony. What I can do. What I _have_ done.” He flexed his hands. “What I’ve survived.”

Tony stared at him, leaning back on his own hands, processing. “What’d they do to you, bud?”

Steve smiled. It wasn’t particularly warm. “That,” he said calmly, “is for me to know and nobody else to find out.” Knocking a foot against Tony’s knee, he added, “C’mon. Everything’s worse before breakfast. Can’t have an existential crisis over a piece of toast.” He vaulted smoothly to his feet and held out a hand.

“Watch me,” Tony replied, but he gave him his hand and Steve pulled him to his feet. Tony groaned, legs prickling with restored circulation. He shook them out, one at a time, then groused, “Ow, fuck.”

“Aww,” Steve teased. Tony scowled at him.

“Listen—” Yowling, he added, “Some of us aren’t twenty-fucking-seven.”

Steve smirked. “Technically—”

“Shut up.”

“I’m ninety-four,” Steve finished.

Tony rolled his eyes, putting a hand over Steve’s mouth. “Yes, I know, you want the senior discount at Denny’s.” Steve’s brow furrowed. “Breakfast joint. IHOP?” He moved to drape his arms over Steve’s shoulders instead, locking his hands behind his neck. “Didn’t have those?”

Shaking his head, Steve said breezily, “No, no we did not.”

“Huh.” Squinting thoughtfully, Tony added, “Did you even have breakfast diners?”

Steve shrugged. “Sure.” Resting his hands on Tony’s hips, he added, “Mom-and-Pop shops, mostly. What’s a Denny’s?”

Tony rested his thumbs against the back of Steve’s head. “An experience.”

“Hm.”

Stroking the short hairs at the nape of his neck, Tony informed him, “It's something you can only appreciate when you’re skunk-drunk and your father’s butler is trying to close the restaurant so you can’t stay all night. Also, you might have stolen a priceless artifact from a family friend that your butler is trying to return over the phone, except he only speaks twelve words in Spanish, so it’s a lot of ‘lo siento, señora’ and ‘en seguida, señora.’”

Steve admitted, “I don’t know if I meet the prerequisites for it.”

Brushing his thumbs over short hair thoughtfully, Tony said, “You speak Spanish, don’t you?”

Steve huffed. “What’d you steal, anyway?”

“Rembrandt painting.” Steve’s eyebrows arched. “Before you judge me for indecency, you should know that they let me walk out the door with a Rembrandt. A fourteen-year-old child-billionaire walked out the front door with a twelve-million-dollar Rembrandt stashed under an AC/DC hoodie.”

“Must not have been a very close family friend.”

With a roll of his eyes, Tony agreed, “That’s one way of putting it. To be fair, I was going through my art theft phase—” Steve frowned. Tony sighed. “I was fourteen. We’re all stupid fourteen-year-olds. I returned it,” he added defensively. “Jarvis returned it.”

Steve tilted his head in Tony’s hands. “Jarvis? Like the—”

“The man, the myth, the legend,” Tony agreed, sighing wistfully. “Good guy. Bit uptight, but he was British, so our Dadaist ‘fuck you and everything you stand for’ Americanism kind of went against his bloodline. Credit where credit is due: he predicted Apple’s rise to fame.”

“Apple? Like the—”

“No. Well, yes, but no. It’s a tech company. Make phones.” Sniffing haughtily, he added, “Call ‘em iPhones. Because they’re supposed to be user-friendly. Know what _I_ think is user-friendly? Airtight privacy laws. They also make very user-friendly computers.”

Steve blinked once. “Do they call them iComputers?”

“Macbooks, actually.”

“That makes sense,” Steve said dryly.

Tony leaned up to kiss him. “And people say you don’t have a sense of humor,” he said sweetly, squeezing the back of his neck. “Jarvis could’ve been a rich man in his own right, but he was cautious. He’d watched my father win it all, lose it all enough to appreciate the neutrality of a salaried position. Ambitionless,” he added affectionately. “A rare man who knew where he wanted to be, attained it, and still found joy doing it, thirty-eight years later.”

“Knew a guy like that,” Steve mused, swaying. “Mortimer. Old Morty. He used to paint houses, repair roofs, that sort of thing. Always in a decent mood, enjoyed being out-of-doors. He could teach you anything—how to shoe a horse, tune a radio, install a new window. How to handle a gun.” His voice sobered, body stilling. “He was in the War—the first one—but he made it out okay, never seemed touched by it. I don’t know what—what happened to him.” A pause. “What happened to Jarvis?”

Tony shrugged. “Stomach cancer.” Sliding his hands down to Steve’s shoulders, he added, “He had a good long life. Seventy-nine. Was a bit stiff in the leg, towards the end, so I made him a cane, made him a brace for his right leg. Would’ve put him in a chair, but he was a stubborn old mule. Wanted to burn bacon and vacuum the den.” He smiled. “They say your personality gets more concentrated over time. If I’m half as graceful as he was at his age, I’ll be grateful.” Sliding away from Steve, he patted his shoulder and added, “God help us all when you’re eighty.”

. o . 

“Fewer than 2,000 giant pandas remain in the wild, with an additional 300 pandas living worldwide in captivity. Habitat destruction remains the primary reason for the panda’s push towards extinction.” Steve frowned when Tony took the brochure from him and replaced it on the rack. “What?”

“As lovely as your David Attenborough impression is,” Tony said, fishing a disposable camera out of a bag and stuffing it into Steve’s open hands, “we’ve got other things to do.”

Steve’s eyebrows arched as he turned over the camera. “This is a toy.”

“No, it’s a camera.”

“This is a toy,” Steve insisted.

“Take a picture,” Tony challenged, folding his arms across his chest.

Warily, like he was expecting a prank, Steve fiddled with the camera for a few moments, accidentally taking a picture of the brick sidewalk and nearly jumping out of his skin at the click. “Huh,” he mused, fiddling with it, winding the reel before lifting it up and pointing it at Tony, who scowled.

“No, no—” Holding up a hand to cover the lens, Tony said shortly, “Zoo animals only.”

“Ground isn’t a Zoo animal.”

Sighing, Tony said, “One freebie.”

Joining them, Rhodey, sporting sunglasses and a sun-hat, asked, “You two having fun without me?”

“Tony got a new toy,” Steve announced, holding up the disposable camera.

“Cute,” Rhodey said, tilting his head to the side and striking a pose when Steve pointed the camera at him. Steve took the shot and beamed.

“Rogers,” Tony scowled. “You’re missing the _point_.”

“You said I got a freebie,” Steve said, winding back the camera’s film dial calmly. “That’s my freebie.”

“You already _used_ your—” Pinching the bridge of his nose, Tony said, “We can take portraits with _phones_ , this is for the _Zoo_.”

“Seems fair to commemorate who was there, doesn’t it?” Steve argued lightly.

“Sounds fair to me,” Rhodey said. “C’mon, I wanna see the elephants.”

“Elephants?” Steve repeated incredulously, falling into step alongside him as he walked along the beaten path. “They have _elephants_?”

“You sweet summer child,” Rhodey said gravely.

. o . 

First, the red sidewalk. 

Then Rhodey, head turned, chin uplifted, effortlessly debonair, a man made to be photographed.

A cluster of purple aubretia, pink chrysanthemums, and blue geraniums. 

Tony, seated on a park bench, a Zoo map covering his face. 

A stretch of yellow black-eyed susans.

A cheetah lying in the grass. 

A tiger wading through a pool. 

A lion resting on its rock. 

Between Tony’s outstretched hands, the upside-down Zoo map. 

Tony’s ten-thousand-dollar black watch, shining 11:39 AM. 

An elephant mid-stride, left foot leading, ears forward, trunk down.

An elephant mid-stride, right foot leading, ears backward, trunk down.

An elephant standing still, ears forward, trunk grasping a handful of hay. 

An elephant standing still, ears forward, trunk near its mouth, eyes closed in contentment. 

A harbor seal blitzing across the water.

A river otter blitzing across the water.

A sea lion basking in the sun.

A gharial with eyes and mouth wide open, shiny teeth, expression prehistoric.

A baby mallard duck standing near Steve’s shoe.

A baby mallard duck standing _on_ Tony’s shoe.

Tony, seated at a table holding the Zoo map in front of his face again, Rhodey looking on with amused disapproval.

An orangutan seated with professorial stateliness in the middle of its yard.

A gibbon dismantling a stick.

A fuzzy close-up of a flat-browed creature labeled ‘smooth-sided toad.’

An even fuzzier close-up of a pointy-snouted, bright green reptile labeled ‘rhinoceros snake.’

A pair of zebras huddled near a shed.

A trio of somber-faced gremlins labeled ‘Geoffrey’s marmosets.’

A pigeon.

Tony, standing in front of a glass wall, hands in his dressy pants pockets, opposite a black-and-white bear munching on a stalk of bamboo.

Tony, crouched in front of the same glass wall, arms folded on his knees, looking up at the camera with both eyebrows raised, like he was daring the cameraman to take the picture.

In an open palm, a pressed penny with a giant panda lounging on a rock, the words ‘Smithsonian National Zoological Park’ stamped beside it.

And last but not least: Steve, standing next to the blocky ZOO entrance sign, one arm crooked against the ‘Z,’ a baseball cap and dark sunglasses obscuring his identity but not his lottery-winner smile.

. o .

“Magical,” Steve declared earnestly, looking at the spread of printed photos on the floor. “Absolutely magical.”

Tony looked down at him, seated cross-legged in the living room surrounded by pictures and smiling. _Simple joys_ , he mused. “Live up to your expectations?”

Steve looked over the photos again. “No,” he said truthfully. "I didn’t have any.” Looking up at Tony, he added, “Only ever been a couple times, too young to remember. Back before I got sick and times got tough. Not very memorable when you’re six.” Picking up a picture of the gibbon, he added, “Didn’t even know these existed.” The marmosets: “Or these.” Setting them back down, he said, “Strange new world.”

Tony slid onto the floor next to him, back to the couch, grateful the sleeves on his shirt covered his forearms. “Not so new.” Steve looked at him, cocked his head. Tony shrugged a shoulder. “They’ve been around for millions of years.”

“Yeah.” Surveying his bounty, Steve mused, “Wish I could go home, show the boys, you know, show ‘em the wonders of the new millennium. They wouldn’t believe it. I mean, look at this!” He reached over and held up the tiger picture, exclaiming, “Did you ever see a tiger before? A real tiger? And they _swim_.” Shaking his head in disbelief, he added, “You heard stories, exotic stories from people who traveled elsewhere, some hotshot might even bring one home, but to—walk right up and _see_ one.”

Reaching for the pigeon photo, Tony asked gravely, “And these? Did you have these?”

Steve’s laugh was unexpected and unexpectedly sweet. “Oh, yeah, we had those,” he assured, taking the photo. “Had ‘em all over. Kind of nice, you know, knowing they’re still around, causing trouble.”

“Pigeons will never go extinct,” Tony prophesized.

Slinging an arm around Tony’s shoulder, Steve toasted, “And may we never go extinct with ‘em.”

. o .

_Dear Mr. Stark:_

_It would be our privilege to entertain you on a tour of our Captain America exhibit. While it would be premature to make promises, we would like to maintain an amicable relationship with you and your team and are willing to discuss matters in person. Would Sunday, November 4th, at 6:30 PM work for you?_

Tony zipped off a half-line response to the email— _see you then—_ and slid his phone back into his pocket. “Work?” Rhodey asked knowingly, sitting at the kitchen table.

Tony shrugged. “Something like.” He popped a blueberry into his mouth, pacing between the two rooms. Steve was out on a midafternoon run, said he wanted some time to clear his head—didn’t say from what; Tony didn’t ask, wasn’t sure he could bear much more of the weight creaking on his own shoulders—and Tony felt restless in the space. So, he talked: “You’re an angel, you know that?”

Looking up from his laptop, reading glasses slung low on his nose, Rhodey said dryly, “What’d I do this time?”

Tony paced, bag of blueberries in hand. Rhodey kept a small stockpile for him; they were his go-to comfort food. He held the bag up. “Somehow got around all of my neuroses.”

“They’re not as bad as you think they are, Tony,” Rhodey said. “We’ve all got our quirks.”

“Is that what we call them now?”

Rhodey sighed, sliding the laptop aside, looking at him in that _what’s this really about_ way that made him feel like the fourteen-year-old Tony Stark who’d first broken down in front of him. “What’s wrong?” he asked bluntly.

Tony kept pacing, grateful his eyes were dry and there was no quiver in his voice. “I just wanna be able to move on from it all, you know?”

Rhodey’s expression was somber. “Yeah. I know.” A pause. “I think about it sometimes, you know. How different our lives would be if we’d been in the same Jeep. How—?”

“They would’ve killed you.”

Rhodey didn’t blink. “You don’t know that.”

“Hundred-and-ten percent,” Tony said without a hint of overstatement. “They barely wanted me. I think they expected me to die on the table.” He reached up spastically for the arc reactor.

Rhodey said, “Easy, Tony.”

“I’m fine.” Drawing in a deep breath, Tony closed his eyes. “I’m fine.” He looked at Rhodey and repeated, “I’m fine.”

“You’re fine,” Rhodey echoed. “You did it, Tony, made it back home, built a nice place for yourself and your new Brady Brunch.”

Tony dropped his hand and wrinkled his nose. “Brady Bunch?” The tremble in his hands ceased. He popped another blueberry in his mouth.

Rhodey shrugged. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

Tony didn’t. “Thank you.”

“Any time.” Nodding at the reactor, Rhodey asked, “Is it bothering you?”

“Sometimes,” Tony admitted. Pacing, he went on, “Did you know I’m the world’s first long-term palladium-exposure lab rat? Nobody knows what it does to the human body. It’s supposed to be a clean source of energy.”

“Most of us don’t have—” Rhodey cut himself off, but Tony heard it. _Car batteries in our chests_. “It’s a unique situation,” he diffused.

Tony scoffed. His eyes stung. “That’s an understatement.” He drew in another deep breath. “Can’t deny, from a scientific standpoint, it’s downright fascinating. Either I’m proof-positive that palladium is harmless and we can start getting creative with it—what do you think about a palladium pacemaker? It'll be all the rage with the millionaires.”

“Tony.”

Tony sighed, closing his eyes. “Or maybe it’s going to get ugly.” He was clutching the arc reactor again. It was benignly warm, not even hot under his fingertips, but he yearned to rip it out. He felt his breath coming in sharply. “I hate this thing. I hate that the thing that makes me _Iron Man_ is their scar tissue.”

“That’s not what makes you Iron Man.” Tony looked at him, forcing himself to let go of the reactor, afraid he _would_ rip it out in sheer animal panic. He busied both hands with the blueberry bag, sealing it. “What makes you Iron Man is what’s in here,” Rhodey said, pointing at his own temple. “Nobody but you could be Iron Man, Tony.”

“Anyone could wear the suit,” Tony pointed out.

“Maybe,” Rhodey agreed, “but nobody else is ever gonna be Iron Man. That’s all you. Not them. Not this.” He pointed at his own sternum. Tony was grateful. Rhodey had never tried to touch the reactor. No one was allowed to. Nobody. Not Pepper, not Rhodey, not Steve, _nobody_. “Just you. Nobody ever made a suit that could fly like yours, Tony.”

“Give it time. Someone would’ve.” 

Rhodey shrugged. “Still wouldn’t’ve been Iron Man.”

“No.” Tony set the blueberries aside, folding his arms over his chest, hiding the reactor’s faint glow. “It wouldn’t’ve.”

“You get rid of this, you’re still him.”

Tony closed his eyes. “I can’t. I can’t get rid of it.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I can’t.”

“It’s okay, Tony.”

Clutching the glass-like surface, Tony said, “If I cut it out, I’ll die.” He forced himself to open his eyes, to look at Rhodey, still seated, calm and collected and utterly normal. He exhaled forcefully, hand on the counter to steady himself.

Rhodey repeated, “It’s okay, Tony.”

Nodding, Tony gripped the counter, grounding himself. He admitted, “Kind of freaks me out, you know?” Inhaling, he said, “I’ve got a glorified _car battery_ inside of me, inside my _chest—_ ”

Rhodey pushed his chair back. He walked over and leaned against the counter a few feet away. Gasping, Tony shuffled over to him, crashing into him as he clutched at Rhodey’s shirt, anything other than the reactor. Rhodey hugged him back firmly. “I’m okay,” Tony said, shaking. “I’m just a little fucking freaked out, you know? I think I have a right to be freaked out.”

“It’s okay, Tony.”

Gasping, Tony said, “What if it’s not?”

“Gotta trust me on this one.”

Nodding, only a little frantically, Tony said, “I die on your watch, I am _haunting_ your ass for eternity, you got it?”

Rhodey huffed, patting him on the head paternally. “Fine. If you die—which you won’t, but if you do—you can haunt my ass for eternity.”

“It’s basically what I already do,” Tony told him, voice muffled by his shirt, shaking, heart pounding, but comforted by how normal Rhodey seemed. Couldn’t be that bad if Rhodey wasn’t scared. Rhodey got scared when it was bad. “I’m pretty sure I was born to make your life difficult.”

Rhodey sighed, hugging him and saying, “No, you just mess with my yoga routine.”

“You do yoga?”

“I would, if someone didn’t mess with my time so much.”

“I can’t see it.”

“I’ve heard it’s very healthy.”

“I still can’t see it.”

“That’s because I haven’t started yet.”

Sighing, Tony said, “Stop trying to steal my crown. I’m the king of circular arguments.”

“How many crowns do you need?”

Lifting his head, Tony frowned at him. He knew his hair was messed up. He didn’t care. “I need all of them,” he said seriously.

Rhodey rolled his eyes and ruffled his hair before he stepped aside. “Sure. King of Everything.”

Closing his eyes and swallowing, feeling the trembling aftershock of panic averted, he admitted, “You can have the ‘not a piece of fucking emotional dynamite’ blue ribbon.”

“That’s big of you.” Taking a seat, Rhodey said, “Really, Tony, I’m touched.”

Tony rubbed a hand over his face. “I’ll have it sent postally. You will be billed for stamps.” Looking at Rhodey, he added, “You’re better than I deserve.”

Rhodey shrugged. “We don’t choose our family.”

“We’re not technically family.”

Rhodey rolled his eyes and pulled his laptop towards himself. “Is this the reason why you can’t admit you’re dating Captain America?”

Tony opened his mouth, then shut it. He opened it again to reply before Rhodey cut him off: “Look, I don’t need to know, I just need _you_ to know that if you lie, I’m calling you on it.”

Holding up his hands, Tony admitted, “It’s not _my_ hang-up.”

Nodding sympathetically, Rhodey said, “It a forties thing?”

Tony’s brow furrowed. “What?”

“You know. Hand-holding outside marriage is the death of America.”

“Were they really that uptight?”

“Hell if I know. I was born in the sixties.”

“Old.”

“Yeah, you’re the real baby,” Rhodey said. “Seventies. No wonder you’re a rebel.”

“What’s wrong with the seventies?”

“It’s the seventies.”

“And?”

“Not the sixties.”

“Or the forties.”

Reaching over for a glass of water, Rhodey sipped it before saying, “I don’t think he wants to hide it.”

Tony cocked his head at him. Rhodey shrugged. “Think about it. You’ve made regrettable life choices.”

“Your blistering honesty is, as always, a great comfort.”

“You’re welcome. But, seriously—you date someone you wouldn’t bring home to Mom and Dad, you don’t talk about it, you keep it on the down-low. I guess it’d be believable if he was that cuddly with _everyone—_ ”

“He’s not.” Tony chose not to argue on _cuddly_. He wouldn’t win.

Rhodey nodded regally. “Then he’s not hiding it. And I don’t think it’s because he’s stupid. I think he just wants everybody on the inside to know you’re off the market.”

Tony lifted both eyebrows. Rhodey typed, explaining, “Lemme finish this, then we’ll talk.”

They didn’t: half an hour later, Steve walked through the door, saw the soap opera Tony was watching, and asked, “Spanish?”

“Hm?”

Steve nodded at the TV. “It’s in Spanish.” He wasn’t even red-faced, the bastard, could’ve taken a leisurely stroll for all Tony knew. 

Tony tuned in instead of vegetating and said, “Huh. Guess it is.” Arms behind his head, feet on the coffee table, Tony asked, “How far?”

Steve squinted thoughtfully. “Hard to tell. I don’t know the area very well. Thirty-eight?”

Deadpan, Tony demanded, “Even forty, Rogers.”

Steve shrugged agreeably and turned around, announcing, “All right. Back in a jiffy.”

The door snapped shut smartly behind him. Tony sighed and closed his eyes. He heard Rhodey mutter, “Who says _jiffy_?”

“Morons,” Tony supplied, rubbing his eyes. “Don’t joke around him.”

“Can I lightly imply that I have about ninety miles of diplomatic paperwork to sort through?”

“No. Don’t even think about it.”

Rhodey sighed. “Selfish,” he said disapprovingly.

Tony smirked, unable to help himself. “Get your own.” The door opened and Steve, slightly flushed but otherwise no more troubled, greeted:

“Even forty.”

Tony looked at his watch. “I didn’t time you.”

Steve frowned, already turning. “I could—”

“No,” Rhodey vetoed calmly.

Steve grinned, rocking on his feet and saying, “Hey, Jim. Didn’t realize you were home.”

“It is my home,” Rhodey said, typing away. “Who runs forty miles for fun?”

Shrugging, Steve sauntered into the room and flopped down next to Tony. He said, “Feels like slow-motion if I’m not going at least thirty. It’s a jog.”

“It’s a jog,” Tony parroted, eyes on the screen, rolling them as Steve cozied up next to him, radiating heat.

“My jogging pace is 3.9,” Rhodey said.

“3.9?”

“On a treadmill.”

“What's a treadmill?” Steve asked.

“Didn’t have those?” Tony mused, looking down at him. Steve shrugged, resting his cheek on Tony’s chest. Tony kept his arms behind his head, for all the world like he wasn’t even there. Pride alone kept him from caving immediately, aware of Rhodey’s surreptitious glance from the adjacent room. “It’s like a conveyor belt, for people.”

“A conveyor belt,” Steve repeated, very deliberately, “for people.”

“Rhodey, help,” Tony said.

“I think you nailed it,” Rhodey supplied. Tony scowled, lowering his arms so he could fish out his phone, one arm settling across Steve’s shoulders.

“Have to do _everything_ ,” he grumbled, pulling up a video of a person on a treadmill.

Steve watched attentively for a few moments before asking, “And that’s . . . fun?”

“It’s great when it’s thirty-below and icy,” Rhodey replied.

Steve tilted his head in a partial nod, wrapping an arm around Tony’s belly. “That’s fair.” Conversationally, he added, “Getting brisk out. Might hit freezing tonight.”

Rhodey groaned. “Don’t jinx it.”

“Sorry.” Watching the soap opera in silence, Steve all but purred as Tony idly ran a hand up and down his side, radiating enough heat to almost make Tony sweat. “There a central plot to this, or—?”

“It’s a soap opera.”

“What’s a soap opera?”

Tony sighed, reaching up to rub his free hand over his face. “You’re so old.”

Steve said in a tone that implied he was one step away from pouting, “C’mon, we didn’t _have_ TV.”

“Liar.”

“Royal ‘we,’ Tony.”

“Apparently, they were invented in the ‘50s,” Rhodey chimed in. “Because soap companies sponsored them.”

Tony lowered his hand. “Really?”

“Gotta admire the dedication,” Rhodey mused. “Helluva an advertisement, don’t you think?”

Watching the bereaved wife walk out on her husband on screen, Tony said, “I don’t see the soap.”

“Maybe it was in the kitchen,” Steve suggested.

Tony rolled his eyes. “It has to feature centrally in the narrative.”

“Does it?”

“Yes. Otherwise what’s the point?”

“Exposure.”

Sighing, Tony slid his hand up to cover Steve’s eyes, saying, “And you call _me_ confrontational.”

. o . 

Standing in the threshold between the two spaces, Rhodey announced, “I’m hungry.”

Slouched on the couch, the picture of debauched contentment, Tony informed him, “Anita just left Carlos for Mario.”

Rhodey pinched the bridge of his nose. “That's great. I'm hungry.”

Polite to a fault, Steve responded by shuffling up, albeit languidly. “No, yeah, we can get food.”

“ _Anita_ ,” Tony reminded him. “I have to know what happens to Anita.”

“If I record it, will you come with us?” Rhodey asked.

"Record it?" Steve echoed, frowning as he sat up, hair mussed on one side. Reaching up to smooth it, he asked, “You mean, with a camera?”

“More like DVR,” Rhodey said, fussing around with the remote. “There,” he added triumphantly. “Now we can go.”

Tony sighed dramatically but pushed himself further upright. “ _No_ respect for the art,” he mumbled, even though his own stomach was growling. “What time is it?”

“7:30,” Rhodey replied. “I mean, we can order pizza, but it’s Friday night.”

“I don’t see how those are exclusive,” Steve admitted. 

“More fun options out there,” Tony elaborated, yawning loudly enough to crack his jaw. “Ow. My bones.”

“Evolution’s coming for you,” Rhodey declared, throwing a jacket at him. “Cap called it. It’s thirty-two out. You’ll want that.”

Another groan. Tony scrubbed his face, trying to wake up more. Two hours of cuddling with Captain America were lethal. “I need a drink.”

“That’s why we are going outside,” Rhodey informed him. Steve, already on his feet, shrugged when he said, “You want a coat?”

“I’ve got the—” He paused, then admitted, “The suit’s kind of noticeable.”

“Kind of.” Rhodey disappeared again. Tony lay insensate on the couch, Rhodey’s jacket draped over him. 

Nudging his knee, Steve asked him, “Alive down there?”

“Mm.” Holding out his arms, he demanded, “Carry me.”

Steve chuckled, an almost soundless laugh. “Later, if you ask nicely.”

“I did ask nicely,” Tony grumbled, sitting up and stuffing his arms through the jacket sleeves. Backwards. 

“You’re hopeless,” Steve told him, crouching in front of him and rearranging the jacket. “Absolutely hopeless,” he added, leaning up to kiss his forehead before standing up, turning as Rhodey reappeared with a jacket in hand. “Thanks, Jim.”

“It’s Jimothy to you,” Tony muttered from the couch.

Rhodey wrinkled his nose, telling Steve, “Don’t zip it. I don’t have your heroically triangular shoulders.”

Steve shrugged into the jacket with obedient care. “Heroically triangular?” he repeated.

“Dorito,” Tony declared.

Steve turned to look at him. Tony eyed him up and down before nodding. “You’re a Dorito.”

“All this food talk’s making me hungry,” Rhodey said, shutting off the TV and blazing a trail for the door.

“What’s a Dorito?” Steve asked, looking down at his own chest like it held the answers.

Tony groaned as Rhodey hauled him to his feet by his shoulder in passing. “Mean, meanie.”

“Your blood sugar crashes are worse than your hangovers,” Rhodey told him.

Tony pouted after him. “You’re just mad that Anita is prettier than you,” he retorted.

Steve snorted a laugh. Rhodey let the door shut behind him pointedly. “For the record, _I_ think you’re much prettier than Anita,” Steve told him.

“ _Thank_ you,” Tony simpered. “It’s not easy being this beautiful.”

“Bus is leaving,” Rhodey called through the door.

Tony waved a hand even though he couldn’t see it and said, “Hold your horses, Jimothy.”

With surprising sincerity, Steve asked, “Is his name really Jimothy?”

“Yes,” Tony deadpanned at the exact same moment Rhodey said emphatically, “ _No_.”

. o . 

“Aww,” Tony said, lying across the couch as Mario and Anita kissed. “El amor gana. True love wins, Rogers.”

“Sap,” Steve murmured affectionately, lying on the floor with a pillow under his head, eyes closed. “She kiss him?”

“On the boardwalk.”

“Romantic.”

“Know what else is romantic?”

“Hm?” Steve tilted his head, blinking up at Tony when he didn’t respond. “What?”

Tony held his arm out, shaking down his overlong sleeve to let his watch show. _12:01 AM_. “Midnight’s pretty romantic,” Steve agreed.

“Know what day it is?”

“. . . Saturday?”

Sighing, Tony declared, “You’re hopeless.” Steve looked at him, eyebrows arched, waiting. “Nope. You figure it out.”

Steve stared at his watch, then glanced up at his arm, frowning at the dark band around it. Tony shook down his sleeve as surreptitiously as he could, but the damage was already done. “Don’t.”

Sitting up, back to Tony, Steve didn’t respond.

“Don’t,” Tony repeated seriously. “Hey.” Sitting up, he insisted, “Don’t blame yourself. It was an accident.”

“An accident.” Steve’s voice was low. There was no absolution. Reaching up to rub his eyes, looking suddenly tired, he added, “Can’t afford an accident, Tony.”

Sighing, Tony flicked off the TV and slid onto the floor next to him. Steve was a rock wall, unyielding as he bumped his shoulder against Steve’s. “Hey.” Steve slid his head into his hands, holding it, hunched inward, almost a ball. Made it easier to wrap his arms around him, at least, Tony thought, insisting, “It was an accident.”

“I hurt you.”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed, resting his cheek on his hunched shoulder. “It happens. It does. C’mon, Rogers, you’ve never stepped on someone’s toes?” When Steve didn’t emerge from his shell, he teased, “You haven’t, have you?”

“‘m not like that, Tony. I don’t wanna hurt people.”

Sobering, Tony said, “Yeah, I know, big guy.” He held him as close as he could, no easy feat. He said, “Sometimes it just happens. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve hurt. And you know what I did? When I dropped a toolbox on Jarvis’ foot, know what I did? I said sorry. I felt awful. I broke his fucking foot, Steve. It was an accident, but I hurt him. I’d caused him more pain than I ever inflicted on dear old Dad, and all I could do was apologize. But he forgave me. Because he knew—and I knew—that it was an accident. Sometimes accidents happen.”

“I killed people, Tony. I’m—” He drew in a shallow breath. “I can’t—I can’t apologize, I can’t say sorry, they’re dead, they're all dead, I hurt you and _I killed them_ , Tony.”

“You never killed a good person,” Tony said softly, aching to take the knife out of his heart.

Steve _broke_ , sobbing into his hands like he couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t hold it in. Tony felt a lump form in his own throat, holding on and insisting softly, “Hey, hey, I’m here.”

He wished, suddenly and sincerely, that Jarvis was still there, that Jarvis could offer the comfort he barely knew how to give. _Oh, Anthony_ , he would say with such quiet and understanding sadness, resting a cold hand on Tony’s shoulder as Tony sat on the floor and wept for the parents he’d had and never had and _lost_. _Everything will be all right_.

Shuffling closer, he said, “I’ve got you. I’m here.”

Steve gasped. Tony huddled at his side, wondering if he could ever understand everything, if he could carry the weight of his own tragedies and Steve’s. He didn’t even think Steve could carry his own.

No: he knew. He couldn’t. No one could.

Nobody could handle _that much_ weight. He clung to Steve, desperately trying to keep him present, away from the pain of the past, but the pain was right here, too. Everywhere. It couldn’t be outrun, couldn’t be shoved down, couldn’t be ignored. And it was unbearable to hear Steve sob and sob and sob.

“I’m here,” Tony promised, closing his eyes so they wouldn’t burn. “It’s gonna be okay. I promise. I don’t like making promises but I promise, I _promise_ , it’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

He wanted to speak it into existence, _Ok_ _ay, okay, okay_. As he sat—bowstring taut, so tense he was shaking, or maybe it was just Steve, radiating earthquake tremors—he started to feel it, the boiling anguish retreat, the unbearable easing into something negotiable once more. Steve shivered, gasping. Tony promised, “I’m here,” over and over, “I’ve got you,” again and again.

And at last, at some unspoken moment, the shivering ceased altogether. Steve stayed in his huddle in silence, molten instead of frozen, soft and warm again. Humming an old tune to fill the space, Tony felt Steve’s breathing deepen, even. He had almost lulled himself into a doze when Steve finally shifted, unfolding.

With a surprising lack of preamble—like it wasn’t possible to be ashamed; it wasn’t—he turned so he could hug Tony instead, burying his face against his shoulder. Breathing deeply. Tony adjusted his grip, hugging him, reminded of a time so long ago, Steve leaning into him, melting with nameless emotion. Tony had been desperate to hold on then, for forever. It felt so safe. 

Scruffing a hand in Steve’s hair now, Tony murmured, “I’ve got you.”

“Thank you.” Steve’s voice was husked out. Tony wasn’t sure he’d ever heard the tone before. It was so honest, so vulnerable it sounded like another person. “Thank you,” he repeated, like he didn’t know what else it was named.

Scruffing his hair—scruff, release, scruff, release—Tony murmured, “Stay forever. I won’t budge.”

Steve sighed against him. It was full of something that made Tony’s throat tight. Affection, gratitude, simple earnest relief. Leaning back against the couch, hauling Steve along with him, he said, “Stay with me. We’ll be okay.”

Nodding, Steve wrapped his arms around Tony’s lower back, fanning them out, spreading warmth. He didn’t say anything for a long time, but Tony felt strangely whole, like he’d needed the release as much as Steve. He became aware of damp tracks on his own face, but he didn’t know when he’d started crying, when he’d stopped. All he knew was that Steve was heavy and warm and safe against him, relaxed for the first time in . . . a long, long time, Tony thought.

At last, Steve shifted, moving closer, hunching inward like he could hide in Tony’s arms. Tony ached and ached and ached, sliding his own arms around those big shoulders, reassuring, promising. In the same soft tone, Steve admitted, “Never cried like that.” Tony scratched the back of his shoulder lightly to let him know he was listening. “Now I kinda wish I had.” More to Tony’s shoulder than him, he added, “Might’ve made it easier.”

“Pride’s a stubborn thing,” Tony said, offering absolution.

Steve nodded. “Expectation, too.” Sighing, he added, “World went to war _twice_ , and nobody was supposed to feel it.”

“It’s scary. Letting it in.”

Nodding again, Steve said, “Yeah.”

“Sometimes it feels like it’s easier to pretend it didn’t hurt than it is to actually feel it,” Tony said. “It’s not.”

“No. It’s not.” Breathing in, Steve said, “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“I want to.”

Tony kissed the side of his head. “Anytime.” Squeezing him, he added, “Big guy. Got the biggest heart of anybody I know.”

Swallowing, Steve admitted, “Sometimes I think you’re the only person alive who loves me.”

Closing his eyes, drawing him in close—not bothering with the denials, because he knew what Steve meant—he murmured, “Oh, honey.” Sliding his hands up to cradle the back of Steve’s head, he said, “You, Steve, _you_ are so lovable. Not the suit. Not even the name. Just you. I promise.”

Nodding, Steve sniffed. Tony slid his hands up and down Steve’s back, letting him hold on, spreading the affection aching inside him with every brush-stroke of his fingers. “You love me,” he murmured. Steve nodded again, never met a rhetorical question in his life, “me, Steve. That’s how I love you.” He settled his hands around Steve’s waist, holding on. He felt Steve’s breathing, deep and settling, very present but not crushing.

A soft chuckle, unmissable this close, made Tony ask, “What?”

“I figured it out,” Steve told his shoulder, voice warm with amusement. “God. I love you so much.”

“Hm?” Kissing his hair, Tony asked, “Figured out what?”

Leaning back, face soft in the dimly-lit room, blue arc reactor light the brightest thing between them, Steve cupped his face and said, “Happy three-month anniversary, Tony.”

Tony looked down, murmuring, “Now he gets it,” and trying to suppress an amused smile when Steve kissed his cheek. “All right, you big sap,” he murmured. Steve kissed along his jawline. “I don’t accept bribery.” Steve leaned back, then, regarding him with melting affection. Tony admitted, “Okay, I accept one bribe,” and leaned forward to kiss him properly.

. o .

Tony said, “I was kidding, you know.”

Walking along, Steve replied with warm amusement, “Uh huh.”

Resting his cheek against Steve’s shoulder, Tony admitted, “I wasn’t kidding.”

Steve set him down on the bed. “Yeah, I know.” With military ease, he shucked off his shirt and pants, standing in boxer-briefs before crawling up beside Tony and settling on his side.

“Bold,” Tony teased, reaching out and resting a hand above Steve’s hip, luxuriating in bare skin.

Steve shrugged, holding out an arm. “It’s hot,” he said. Tony mirrored him in record time before slinking under his outstretched arm, huddling close. “Mm. Better,” Steve murmured.

“This a problem?” Tony asked, tapping the reactor.

Steve hummed. “No.” When Tony looked at him dubiously, he added, “I don’t feel it. Just you.”

“Yeah?” 

“Mm-hm.”

Tony leaned up to kiss his nose. “I really love you.”

“I really love you, too.” Steve got the blanket up and over them, a semblance of privacy, but Tony didn’t care. He had Steve all to himself. No one in the world could take that away. “Thanks. For today,” Steve murmured, eyes closed.

“You mean yesterday?” Tony couldn’t help teasing.

Steve sighed, tossing a leg over both of his. “That, too.”

Tony nodded, kissing his bare shoulder. “Thank you.”

“For?”

“Tomorrow.”

Steve hummed. “Always and forever, Tony. Always and forever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spanish translations in chronological order:  
> Lo siento, señora - I'm sorry, "madam."  
> En seguida, señora - At once, "madam."  
> El amor gana - Love wins.


	22. AN OPEN BOOK

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Darling friends. <3 All I can say is enjoy. 
> 
> P.S. Picks up somewhat where we left off. While it'll retrospectively make sense, I'll share that we're in early evening/late afternoon on November 4 in the beginning.
> 
> P.P.S. Okay, I admit, this chapter was mostly an excuse to see how much Softness I could fit into one chapter. <333

“Let’s just stay here,” Tony proposed, lying on top of Steve. “Forever.”

Steve hummed, warm and grounded underneath him, miles of bare skin and enough heat to fill a room. He had the suit pants on, but he was gloriously shirtless. Tony wasn’t above taking advantage of it. “One day, Tony,” he murmured, running his hands up and down Tony’s bare back, “I’m gonna wake up, and this is gonna have been the best dream I’ve ever had.”

In mock remonstrance, Tony said, “Don’t you dare wake up without me,” and pressed an exaggerated kiss to the little smile at the corner of Steve’s mouth. “You’re so selfish sometimes. It’s giving me a complex.”

“A complex?” Steve mused, eyes closed, enjoying the kisses Tony traced along his jaw. “What kinda complex?”

Right in his ear, Tony whispered conspiratorially, “The _my boyfriend is Captain America_ complex.”

Steve flushed, but his voice was admirably smooth as he said, “Well, I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but I’ve got you beat.”

“Do you?” Tony leaned back to look down at him, arching an eyebrow. “You know I don’t like losing.”

Steve huffed a laugh and slid a hand up to cup the back of Tony’s neck, saying, “Oh, don’t you know? _My_ boyfriend’s Tony Stark. _The_ Tony Stark. He’s got a flying machine, too, a real fancy one. Bet you’ve seen it, everybody’s seen it—” He laughed as Tony covered his mouth with a hand, sliding both of his around Tony’s back. He rolled them effortlessly, keeping eighty percent of his weight off Tony, more the suggestion of caging him than the reality as he caught Tony’s palm and kissed it. He added sweetly, “Now hold on, I’m not done.”

Tony rolled his eyes, using his free hand to muss up Steve’s hair. “Fucking nerd,” he said affectionately.

“Watch your mouth,” Steve said, eyes dancing with amusement. He nuzzled Tony’s palm, eyes closing as he mused, “I don’t ever wanna wake up.”

“Got some good news, bud. It’s not a dream.”

Steve sighed, leaning forward to bury his face between Tony’s neck and shoulder. “I know,” he murmured. “I just don’t trust a good thing.”

“Do you trust me?” Steve nodded. Tony ran his hands flat along Steve’s flanks, reveling in a rumble that was almost a purr. “Then believe me: if this is a dream, we’re either both waking up or we’re never waking up.”

“Hmm.” Steve leaned up again, looking down at him with bright eyes, amused eyes. “What d’you even think you’d wake up to?”

“A life of debauchery,” Tony said breezily, raking both hands through Steve’s hair, mussing it up more. Steve's eyelids fluttered, sinking almost shut, watching him. “Parties, booze, pretty people. That sort of thing.”

“Very different from today,” Steve said gravely, scrunching up his nose when Tony flicked it.

“I can still throw _epic_ parties,” he retorted, “and I’ve got more booze than you could ever dream of, farm boy.”

“Farm boy?” Steve repeated, settling most of his weight on his own legs, braced on either side of Tony’s, as he slunk down, pressing his lips to the side of Tony’s neck. “Who’re you calling farm boy?”

“Straw-hair, abominably early riser, Grandpa clothes, muscles for days—you can’t hide your true self from me,” Tony murmured, scruffing a hand in Steve’s hair in silent appreciation. “I don’t know where to start with reform. You’re hopeless.” Steve hummed, nuzzling his shoulder.

“’m I an embarrassment to the great Tony Stark?” he asked, voice tinged with playfulness. “Can’t be seen in public with me because I haven’t held a political office or been featured on a raunchy magazine?”

Tony snickered. “Did they even _have_ raunchy magazines back then?”

Steve sat up and looked down at him with a wounded look on his face. A pout. Tony slid a hand around, hooked a thumb in one corner of the frown, then gently pushed it upright in a mock-smile. Steve tried to keep frowning at him, but his pout melted into a smile. He let out a surprised laugh, squirming away, when Tony pinched his side with his free hand. “Hey!”

“You have super-reflexes, no sympathy,” Tony said, deliberately tickling him, grinning when Steve caught his hands and pinned them, simpering, “I’m just the lowly mortal who felled Captain America. I deserve a medal.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Steve muttered, smiling. “Turnabout’s fair play, you know.”

Tony said, “If you _try_ , I will—” and deliberately curled his fingers around Steve’s, capturing them. He knew Steve could break his grip in less time than it took Tony to say, “ _Hey_ ,” but he didn’t twitch, looking benignly down at him.

“You’re the troublemaker,” Steve said with reassurance in his voice. Before Tony could offer an incredibly witty repartee—really, he had one, he was never one to be bested in verbal combat—Steve was kissing him properly, leisurely, like he believed Tony when he said they had nowhere to be for a while, a man who never slowed down content to bask. Tony melted, freeing his hands without much thought and reaching up to cup Steve’s face, holding on.

Steve was heavy enough to be felt but careful to keep a quarter inch between him and the arc reactor, never pressing down on it, only implying that he was there. He broke the kiss first, eyes shut. Tony didn’t wait, leaning up to kiss his cheek, feeling him smile and mutter fondly, “When’re you gonna get bored of me, Stark?”

“When you start being boring,” Tony replied easily. “Which is never.”

Steve hummed dubiously, but he relented under another kiss, sighing, warm breath on warm skin. “In another life, Stark, I think you and Ms. Potts had a life together,” he murmured, rolling off him, flopping onto his back. Bed didn’t even creak. Rhodey knew how to furnish a guest room. “Sometimes I feel like I’m—interruptin’ something. Y’know?”

“Homewrecker?” Tony suggested lightly, flinging an arm possessively across Steve’s chest. “That the word you’re looking for?”

Steve’s lips twitched in a smile, one hand settling over Tony’s arm. He shut his eyes. “I mean, think about it,” he murmured, stroking Tony’s arm. “I’m not supposed to be here.”

“By your absurdly rigid definition of acceptable temporal placement, yes,” Tony agreed somberly.

Steve huffed, largely ignoring him as he added carefully, “And you and Pepper—she’s good to you.”

“Is _this_ your gay crisis?” Tony asked.

Steve turned his head to look at him, arching both eyebrows. “You think I’m gonna turn tail?”

“Well.” Tony clambered on top of him, straddling his chest. “Now you can’t. Sadly.”

“So sad,” Steve agreed, setting his hands on Tony’s thighs. Tony resented the dress pants he hadn’t had time to shuck off before pouncing on bare-chested Captain America. To be fair, he was pretty sure his quota of bare-chested Captain America hadn’t been filled since Oahu. He wasn’t above vocalizing it: “I think it’s a crime against humanity that you wear a shirt.”

“I think you’re exaggerating.”

“Mm.” Tony ran his hands down Steve’s chest, slowly enough he all but chased the blush that followed. “I don’t think so. Would Adonis wear a shirt?”

“Good thing I’m not—” Steve pouted under his hand. “Tony,” he muttered, sinking his teeth into the meat of Tony’s palm, gently enough it didn’t hurt but enough to get the message across. “I could have you on the floor in a heartbeat,” he added, rubbing his hands up and down Tony’s thighs benignly.

Tony waggled his eyebrows. Steve sighed. “Have you ever had a serious conversation in your life?” he asked, trying unsuccessfully to hide a small smile.

“Oh, is this a serious conversation? I was distracted.” Tony flattened a palm against Steve’s rib cage. “Specimen,” he added, pouting when Steve captured his hand. With familiar ease, Tony shimmied around so he could flatten himself on top of Steve, folding his arms on Steve’s collar and resting his chin there. “Just gonna put it out there, you ever get bored of smashing fists through walls, you could have an _illustrious_ career as a supermodel.”

Steve rolled his eyes, even though his face was a shade redder. “I don’t know how anybody is that . . . shameless.”

“Romanoff.” Steve squinted dubiously at him. “I’m dead serious. You haven’t seen the magazines?” Tony was halfway to sitting up to paw around for his tablet, somewhere on the floor, when Steve wrapped his arms around his back, holding him down.

“Geez, I don’t wanna see it.”

“Very sexist of you,” Tony muttered, feeling Steve’s sigh underneath him. 

“How is that—?”

“Women are allowed to be shirtless.” Steve’s face was flaming. Tony grinned toothily. “Whatever happened to equal-opportunity, huh? I thought Captain America stood for Captain _Equality_.”

“I’m gonna throw you on the floor,” Steve narrated, “and delete the Internet.”

“Too bad, it’s already in print.”

Groaning, Steve reached up to cover his face with both hands. 

“I mean, you’re welcome to _try_ to defend her honor,” Tony said, sinking his teeth into a shoulder lightly. “Don’t expect her to accept it.”

Steve dropped a hand to the back of his head, leaving his other hand where it was. He seemed like he had something he wanted to say, but Tony was having more fun getting his mouth on him. Steve didn’t seem to be complaining, releasing a soft sound that wasn’t quite a sigh before he said gruffly, “Anybody so much as looks at her wrong, I’m giving ‘em what for.”

“You do know that’s her shtick, right? The whole Black Widow thing?” Steve squeezed the back of his neck, firmly enough Tony let out a happy little sound and admitted, “You make a compelling counter-argument. But she’s an adult. She can handle herself.”

“Yeah, well, she’s not the one who can rip cars in half. Captain America is about to stand for Captain _Get-Your-Fuckin’-Hands-Off-Her_.”

“Feisty.” 

Steve growled, honest-to-God _growled_. “A woman’s honor is _sacred_ , Tony. Nothing more heinous than defiling it.”

“She chose to model,” Tony pointed out, kissing his Adam’s apple. “It’s fine. Really.”

Muttering about _dirt-dogs_ , Steve tilted his head up as Tony pressed insistent kisses up the column of his throat. “Yeah, well, anybody _chooses_ to remove the dignity of _choice—_ ”

“You are welcome to rip them limb from limb,” Tony said, voice light. “I want front-row seats, actually.”

Sighing, Steve relaxed underneath him as he worked a spot near the underside of his jaw. He was remarkably quiet, resuming immediately as Tony shifted away. “That’s horrible, Tony. Horrible. No woman should be—be _ogled_ , like some kind of—” He shut up, instantly, as Tony nipped at the same spot, humming thoughtfully. “I’m serious. No one,” he insisted as Tony relented, moving to kiss him properly and shut him up that way.

“It is the year of our Lord 2012, Rogers,” Tony told him, meeting half-lidded eyes with an amused smirk. “Women aren’t damsels-in-distress anymore.”

“Never were,” Steve told him, running his hands up and down Tony’s back slowly. “We don’t deserve ‘em. Never did.”

“Not about deserve,” Tony parroted, shrugging when Steve cocked his head at him. “If it makes you feel any better, most people are . . . decent.”

Steve leveled a doubtful look at him. “I worry about your definition of _decen—_ ” He made a surprised sound as Tony kissed him, cupping Tony’s face like he’d pull him back, _swear to God, Stark, ever met a conversation in your life?_ before melting into it. Tony purred.

“What about you? I gotta defend your honor, too?” Steve muttered against his cheek, fingers firming so he was holding Tony steady, refusing to be bribed.

Tony considered that, briefly entertained honesty about the whole sex tape thing, then decided, “Um.”

Steve groaned. “God, Tony. Already beating them away with a _stick_. You know how people look at you at parties?” Tony pulled back to look down at him. Steve allowed it, sliding his hands to Tony’s shoulders instead. “Hm? You see how people look at you?”

“I imagine it’s no different than the way they look at _you_ ,” Tony pointed out. 

Steve looked down, almost shy. He shook his head. “That’s _Captain America_ ,” he insisted, looking up, bright blue eyes steady. “No, I’m talking about _Tony Stark_. People wanna see _you_. You’re the Big Guy. The one people _pay_ to see.”

“Aw.” Tony poked his chest lightly. “Don’t want anyone else’s hands on me? Can’t stand the idea that my irresistible animal magnetism works on everybody?”

Steve grunted. “It’s fine.”

“Is it?”

Steve sighed. “What do you want me to say? I love it?”

“So, should I scratch threesomes off my fantasy list?” Tony prodded to make him blush.

Closing his eyes, Steve said patiently, “Tony, just once—” 

Tony kissed him. To be fair, Steve’s grip had gone loose. It slackened off, less confining, more holding.

“For the record,” Tony murmured, aware that the reactor was definitely pressing into Steve’s chest but Steve hadn’t moved except to glide his hands up and down Tony’s back, mesmerizingly firm, “you’re not a homewrecker.”

Steve cocked his head, eyes hazy. Tony leaned close and bit his lower lip, released it and sank into the kiss, feeling every inch of Steve’s overabundant warmth like his own. “You’re perfect,” he murmured. “Literally perfect.” He found that sweet spot under his jaw, feeling affection well up inside him as Steve scratched the base of his neck, quiet approval.

It was easy to get lost in, cradled between Steve’s thighs, but he dragged himself back to coherence, unable to resist playing dirty as he added, “So, what would you say if I told you Pepper was one step away from filing a sexual harassment claim the day I hired Romanoff?”

Steve cocked his head. “What’d you do?” he asked, only low-key confrontational.

Tony shrugged eloquently. “Nothing. I was just—disreputable.”

“Disreputable,” Steve murmured. Every word he said sounded like the prettiest word Tony had ever heard. “I can’t see it.”

“No?”

“Mm-mm.”

“Genius, billionaire, _playboy—_ ”

“Philanthropist.” Steve cupped his neck, pulled him for a kiss. Tony wasn’t usually one to deny him, but he turned his head teasingly, enjoying the game of it.

“Now hold on,” he said playfully, while Steve kissed his cheek firmly. “I have a reputation to defend.”

“A reputation,” Steve muttered. “Uh huh. Defend it.”

“I thought that was your job.”

Steve hummed. “Far as I’m concerned, Tony, if you wanna sleep with half the nation, that’s your prerogative. I’m not here to take that choice from you.”

“Captain Freedom for the win.”

Steve huffed. “You’re completely—”

“Incorrigible?”

Steve was silent. “Irreformable,” he decided. And yes: it was Tony’s new favorite word.

“Irreformable,” he repeated, amused.

“Inveterate,” Steve added, nuzzling his cheek. “Unapologetic.”

“Flatterer,” Tony teased, closing his eyes as Steve pressed an affectionate kiss below one. “You’re sweet. You know that?”

Steve said, “I’m a product of the world around me,” and kissed his closed eyelid. “Nobody’s good in a vacuum. You make me . . . better.”

“I bet you’re good in a vacuum,” Tony murmured, eliciting a barely-there chuckle. “You know you don’t have to prove it, right?”

“Love’s a verb,” Steve said. Tony pulled back enough to look at him, blue eyes soft but sincere. “It’s. . . .” His gaze flicked down then back to Tony’s, searching for the words. 

Then he leaned up and cradled the side of Tony’s face in a warm open palm, pressing a firm kiss to the corner of Tony’s mouth. “That’s _I love you_. Saying it is. . . .” He paused thoughtfully, then said, “It’s like a promise. That I’ll love you. And I will. I _do_ love you,” he added fervently. Tony closed his eyes, unable to hold his gaze. “It’s—it’s a little-big thing, you know? You don’t say it to anybody. But you _can_. That make sense?”

Hiding his face in the safe space between pillow and shoulder, Tony said, voice muffled, “You’ve never had a meaningless kiss, have you?”

Steve raked his hands up and down Tony’s back thoughtfully. “I think—I think as long as, you know, you both wanted it—it can’t really be meaningless. Maybe it’s meaningless a day or a week or a month or ten seconds later, but . . . I think, you know, maybe it only had a really short meaningful period. You only needed it for a second, or an hour, or a day, or a year. You know? Some people are what we need for ten seconds.” 

Softly, he said, “Sometimes you need a little love. Who am I to judge for that?” He kissed Tony’s temple. “I’m glad you had something, you know. I don’t—I’m not mad that it wasn’t me, couldn’t’ve been me. You deserved to be loved. Always will.”

“Planning on bailing on me?” Tony asked quietly, because he had to take the lump in his throat down and humor was safe.

“No.” Steve held him close, both arms wrapped around his back, arc reactor pressed right over his heart. “No, I’m not going anywhere. You wanna stay here, I’ll be here.”

Tony said quietly, “That’s a pretty good answer.”

“Yeah?” Steve curled his fingers against Tony’s shoulders, stroking with the backs of his knuckles. “You’re a good guy. You know that?”

“I appreciate reminders,” Tony said, too honest, but he blamed it on the closeness, can’t-lie-to-you closeness. “Daily reminders, actually. I prefer sonnets, but I’ll accept the occasional teatime haiku,” he diffused.

Steve hummed, rubbing his palms up Tony’s back. “I don’t know how to write a sonnet,” he admitted, forever-honest.

“Don’t you dare,” Tony grunted. “I’ll kick you out if you start actually writing me poems.”

“Is ‘Iron’ one syllable or two?” Steve asked with far too much thoughtfulness.

Tony said, “No.”

Steve replied, “I think it’s two, but . . . kind of clunky. How do you feel about ‘ferric’?”

“ _No_.”

“Ferrous?”

Tony sighed, squirming around until he could sit up, insisting, “ _No_ ,” and yelping at the time. “Oh, _hell_.”

“Hm?” Steve cocked his head at him, curious bastard, hair all mussed up. “What?”

“I have a date,” Tony chirped, climbing off him. He nearly faceplanted on the floor, scrambling around. Shit, shit, _fuck_ , he wasn’t supposed to be late. “I mean, technically, it started fifteen minutes ago.” He threw on his shirt, fingers flying over the buttons.

Steve folded his arms behind his head, heroically nonchalant. “Oh, well. What’s twenty minutes between friends?” he asked, smiling. “Sorry to keep you.”

Tony rolled his eyes at that, all but lunged for him, grabbing his face and kissing him soundly. “Moron. Go harass Rhodey, he’ll love that.”

Steve canted an eyebrow, demeanor relaxed. “Hate to have fun without you.”

“Think of it as a double-date,” Tony said, pulling on his jacket. “God, what am I, twenty? I swear I’m not actually a disheveled college student.”

Steve mimed zipping his lips shut and flicking away the key. _I don’t kiss and tell_.

“Cute,” Tony told him, smoothing his hands down his own front and shoving the Iron Man bracelets over each wrist. “Don’t have too much fun without me.”

“How can I? Life of the party’s walkin’ out the door.”

“Life of the party needed to walk out the door twenty minutes ago,” Tony grunted, matching action to words.

Steve still snuck in the last word: “Just remember, honesty’s the best policy.”

Almost the last word: Tony thrust a hand around the door, middle finger up. He snapped it shut as Steve laughed.

. o . 

Tony was twenty-two minutes late when he landed in a nondescript area near the Smithsonian, powered down. It was a full half hour by the time he reached the curator’s office and said, with only a touch of breathlessness, “For once, I swear I wasn’t actually trying to be late.”

Alice Horner smiled. “It’s all right. I’m here until eight, most nights. I asked security to page me when you arrived. Your reputation precedes you.”

Tony held out a hand, accepted a firm shake. “I’m embarrassed to live up to it.”

“It’s all right. We’re happy to have you here. Not every day Tony Stark stops by for a visit.”

“No, it’s not,” Tony agreed, idly—and what he hoped appeared nonchalantly—rubbing his right arm, feeling chilled in the lukewarm office. It was easy to march through security, to follow an escort to the right office, to knock on the door. It was far more difficult to imagine returning to the place that had driven Steve Rogers, immovable and stubborn to the finish, to the floor. “Shall we?” he added, stepping back through the door. “I don’t wanna take up too much of your time.”

“Like I said, I’m usually here until eight,” Horner said reassuringly, joining him and the security escort in the hall, who followed them at a respectable distance back to the elevator. “It shouldn’t take more than an hour to tour. Then we’d be happy to answer any further questions.”

Nodding, Tony asked conversationally. “Horner. Related to Jack, by any chance?”

Horner smiled ruefully. “The paleontologist? Distantly.” Stepping out at the first floor, she added, “Our exhibit has a narration track that goes along with it. Would you prefer to listen to it on the tour, or—?”

“Have at it,” Tony suggested.

As they approached, passing underneath planes and other aviation splendors, Horner began. “As I’m sure you’re aware, Captain America’s legacy is vivid in the minds of millions of people, but there weren’t any formal spaces that retained much of his legacy. In many ways, he remained transient in the public imagination, more myth than fact. We wanted to provide a public space for reflection. People want to remember: we visit graves and exhibitions like this one precisely out of respect for those who shaped our lives today. We wanted to provide a tangible resting place for a story that’s been alive for over half a century.”

Stepping up to the first sign, with a red-white-and-blue flag waving on screen, the words ‘Welcome Back, Cap’ caught Tony’s eye. “Naturally,” Ms. Horner continued, “we were as shocked as everyone else was when it was announced that not only had Captain America been found, but alive and well. We already had a smaller exhibit as part of a World War II series, so we only had to close this one for a week to make a few modifications.”

Horner led the way, pointing out the new segments, elaborating on several of the older features. Most of the technical work, Tony learned, had been finished prior to Captain America’s awakening, which proved handy, since the whole took approximately six weeks to assemble. Included in the pre-awakening exhibition was the little radio that, mute and still, seemed innocuous on its table. Tony tried to imagine it as it was, a sinister and destructive force, but it was just a box. It wasn’t even on. Horner pointed out, “During the day, it plays a short newsreel.”

Tony said, “Can you relocate it?”

“Relocate?”

Nodding, Tony bulled on, “It’s . . . it’s a problem. The radio.”

Horner was quiet, then said carefully, “I imagine we could make a substitution. We have a more extensive World War II collection that is mostly full, but behind-the-scenes storage space is available.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Tony said. He meant it. “It’s . . . it's a sticking point. Can I say ‘nonnegotiable’?”

Horner frowned, not in frustration but sympathy. “I’ll see if we can’t have it removed.”

It almost didn’t matter—Tony wasn’t sure Steve would ever return—but on the off chance that Steve wanted to, Tony really didn’t want the radio there. Steve was stubborn enough to walk right back over a landmine to prove he wasn’t afraid of it. He’d hold a snake that bit him to remind the world that a violent thing in one context could be tame in another. “Thank you,” he made himself say. 

He followed Horner around the corner, sobering as he absorbed the information, pausing for long moments in front of the panels to read, word-for-word, what they had to say about Captain America.

He was impressed and off-put by how many times they mentioned Steve himself—always Captain Steven Rogers, but bringing focus to it enough that Tony couldn’t pretend there wasn’t a living breathing human being underneath the legacy. “Our intention,” Horner confirmed, “was to showcase both Captain America’s achievements and the man who performed them.”

He was surprised at the accolades. Despite knowing everything there was to know about Captain America at one point in time, there was something sobering about seeing the stories, almost myths in their grandeur, presented by the museum as the reality they were. He kept a running tally of the people Captain America saved on each mission, 22, 31, 59, 163. He reeled when Horner added casually, “He saved over a thousand lives that day.” 

He knew—every kid went through a Captain America phase, and Howard Stark damn near _invented_ the guy; _he knew—_ that Steve’s heroics weren’t limited to that last mission, but Steve had never once mentioned a winning mission. He mourned the dead. And—Tony realized, with a sobriety that put it all in new light—they were _all_ dead now. There were no more survivors. Only legacies. The children of the people he’d freed.

There was a tastefully understated display about the _Valkyrie_ , discussing the freezing temperatures and the basics of the cryonic preservation that allowed Captain America to survive nearly seventy years on ice. A note about the warhead payload he’d neutralized. A finishing point: Captain America didn’t merely inspire hundreds of thousands of troops, he single-handedly saved over five million people. Some estimates put that number as high as twenty million. No fewer than five million people owed their lives to the hero on the wall, the man behind the curtain.

Five million people. You couldn’t memorize that many names, couldn’t shake that many hands, couldn’t possibly ground that kind of number in reality. It wasn’t about people; it was about numbers, casualties, death tolls, desolation. He wasn’t a hero to five million people: he was the bomb diffuser, the one who leaped onto a plane and forced it to yield because an abstract and inconceivable number of people needed him to win. People he’d never know. Strangers he’d never meet.

That, Tony thought, as he ran his fingers idly over the two-dimensional reconstruction of the _Valkyrie_ , was what made Captain America Captain America. He didn’t fight for himself: everyone fought for themselves. He didn’t fight for his friends, his family, either. He fought for humanity.

And he was ready to die for anyone, absolutely anyone, if war demanded he choose between their life and his.

It was humbling.

Horner said, “Mr. Stark?”

Tony looked up from the display, saying absentmindedly, “Hm?”

Sympathetically, Horner said, “We can do this another time, if it would be easier.”

Shaking his head, Tony assured quietly, “No, no.” Straightening his jacket, he added, “No time like the present.”

Horner smiled, but there was sadness in her eyes. He knew why: “We would like to create an exhibition for all of the Avengers, but it will take some time. With Captain America, it was a happy coincidence.”

A happy coincidence, Tony mused, stepping around the corner of the panel and pausing at the sight of mannequins wearing the uniforms, a familiar shield perched in front of Captain America.

He stepped forward, wonderingly silent, footsteps inaudible on the smooth flooring. He asked quietly, “This the real deal?”

Horner said diplomatically, “We were honored to accept it from S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Tony thought, _Wasn’t theirs to give_. He inhaled sharply. He reached out automatically, heard a sharp _beep beep beep_ followed by the security escort talking into a radio, diffusing. Tony stepping back, apologizing, “Sorry, I—”

“It’s all right. In the day, the floor is lit, indicating the threshold.”

Tony swallowed hard. “This belongs to him.”

Horner was silent. Tony turned to look at her, repeating seriously, “It’s his. Not yours. Not mine. His.”

Looking uncertain, Horner said diplomatically, “It’s an unusual situation. Normally, historical figures don’t reappear seventy years later to reclaim their personal affects.”

Everything suddenly seemed intensely personal. Notes about Steve’s life—the fact that he was a scrawny kid, 5′4, _runt of the litter_ small, not even a hundred pounds soaking wet; his mother’s name was Sarah and she died of tuberculosis, his father’s name was Joseph and he died of mustard gas in World War I; his best friend in life was Bucky Barnes, and they were both smiling in a way he’d seen Steve smile maybe three times in the six months he’d known him; he had a _bike,_ an honest-to-God motorcycle, crippled and stained with age but still his; the uniform, the old _shield—_

He said aloud, “These aren’t relics. These aren’t historical artifacts. These aren’t _memorabilia_. They’re—they’re his.” Lamely, Tony entreated, “Don’t you get it? This is his life. His stuff. His family.” _His story_. Fuck, he was almost glad Steve had had a meltdown before he’d seen the uniform, the bike, the fucking Barnes footage.

“This is his stuff,” he insisted sturdily. “I don’t care what it takes, it belongs to him.”

Horner didn’t respond immediately. At last, still in that diplomatic tone, she said, “It’s an unusual situation.” A beat, then: “The more personal artifacts are kept off-exhibit.”

Tony asked despairingly, “There’s more?”

Horner looked grim, exuberance fading to recognition and sympathy of his plight. “Anything behind-the-scenes, we’re happy to negotiate,” Horner said, aiming for a peace offering, but Tony thought, _I want it all_. “We might be willing to . . . accept reproductions,” she added carefully, “presuming they meet the museum’s standards. We would attach new labels.”

“I’m sure the world at large can be contented with reconstructions,” Tony said stiffly, looking at the suit, God, that was Steve’s suit, Steve who had maybe five items that weren’t absolute necessities, who didn’t have _anything_ less than ten years old except for maybe three possessions. Tony tried to imagine himself on an alien world standing in a museum and looking at one of the four worldly items he cared about, a stranger in a strange land staring at his own life story laid out for the world to see.

( _I didn’t wanna know it—the story, the whole story—from him. People—they know about me. I didn’t want you to go through that_.)

If only he knew, Tony thought darkly, feeling cold, throat tight, with nameless fury, unnameable despair, because he’d lived under a spotlight his entire life. He knew what it was like, to be _judged_ , to be _known_. And despite the articles, the countless encounters, nobody had thought to put it all in a tidy glass box for tens of thousands of strangers to look at at their fucking _leisure_. So that they might _judge_ it all: his decision to try the serum in the first place, his friendships, his tragedies. And surely some cynical soul would say, without irony, _Five million? That’s 0.07% of today’s population. Not one percent, not even one-tenth of a percent. Seven one-hundredths of a percent_.

God, he already wanted to strangle them. He didn’t even know them, never would, because they would never sign their names to the articles or put faces to the faux smiles of mediamen. They’d enjoy it all privately. They’d enjoy it all as the spectacle it was. 

_Look at the dancing monkey._

Except Steve didn’t want to dance, pushed Tony away in public view, hid his face, because he knew they’d document it, keep it. Suddenly he understood why he was so angry and so reserved about it all. 

_They don’t get this_.

And they didn’t. There was no tastefully done side panel detailing Steven Rogers’ romantic involvement with Anthony Stark, the billionaire, the _playboy_. They’d probably paint him as the villain because Steve could never be the villain. No one would ever see Tony Stark as worthy of Captain America. He was the modern man—no, he was the _futurist_. Captain America’s only love was supposed to be his nation, not the fake and insecure, the showman, the transient.

He was leaning on the wall, panting for breath, embarrassed beyond words at his own behavior and _angry_ beyond words at everyone, afraid of what he might say as he forced himself to stand up straight, _hold it together for twenty fucking minutes, Stark_. He unbuttoned the top of his shirt. The simplicity of it, the visible affirmation, _I’m calm, everything is calm_ helped.

“I’d like to see the behind-the-scenes stuff,” he said. His voice was pleasantly normal, almost upbeat. Horner visibly relaxed, nodded once, equally grateful to have a crisis averted. “I’m sure it’s spectacular.”

“Absolutely,” Horner agreed. “Follow me.” 

Tony forced himself not to look over his own shoulder at the suit, at the thing that S.H.I.E.L.D. had given away on Steve’s behalf because why would he want it? Why would the man who had nothing want a single goddamn keepsake—

_Deep breath. Everything is fine._

He followed Horner behind-the-scenes, examined four drawers’ worth of personal mementos, of letters. He had to swallow hard because Sarah Rogers really did have handwriting you’d frame.

He hated that he knew that. He hated that they _had_ it.

As a strange peace offering, strangers in a strange land seeking solid ground, Horner gathered an empty storage box, a single sheet. She wrote down a list of item numbers. For almost an hour, she filled the box, carefully jotting down each item number, each tag. Tagged and bagged, Tony thought. He looked down at the box with numb gratitude as she sealed it off and slid it across to him, tagging that, too.

He gripped it to his chest so tightly he was afraid of denting the corners, damaging the contents. He barely heard Horner say, “Consider it a good faith offering,” and knew, in his heart, that she wasn’t his enemy, any more than the thousands of people who wanted nothing more than to admire their hero, three generations removed, who came to this sacred place.

He was aware of the list, knew equally certainly that he was going to have to offer something—money was easy, money was nothing; money meant _nothing_ , he’d gladly give a hundred million for that ten-pound box—but he just nodded stiffly in response, clutching it. “Thank you.” The words didn’t come easily, but he was glad he said them. He needed to. He needed to be gracious.

It was after nine when the security escort walked him to the door, still holding his box tight to his chest. His stomach had stopped growling hours ago. He wanted nothing more than to walk home. 

_Home_ , sweet home, in New York, at the Avengers Tower, where Clint would be cackling at something on the TV while Bruce sat in his corner hunched over his laptop trying to determine what time zone it was in fucking _Antarctica_. Natasha would curl up in a chair with her favorite blanket, which inconveniently also happened to be _Tony’s_ favorite blanket. Then they would fight over it until Steve magnanimously dug up another blanket. It was inferior to the first one, but it was also Steve-warm. That made it good-enough in Tony’s book.

He shivered in the cool night air, slipping on the suit, loathe to set the box down for even a second. It was a balancing act, but he managed it. He exhaled deeply in the mask, inhaling warm air, listening to J.A.R.V.I.S. say, “Welcome back, sir.”

“Good to be back, buddy,” Tony told him, walking with the box in his arms down the street. “Where do you think they’re at?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t the slightest idea,” J.A.R.V.I.S. admitted. Tony sighed.

“Yeah, me neither.” So he started at his home-away-from-home, knocking on the door twice before using his own key, letting himself inside the dark apartment. It was too late to eat, too early to sleep. He was alone beside, alone with the box and all of its wonders. He didn’t know what to do with it, so he set it on the floor by the couch and sat down in the Iron Man uniform. He flicked on a random episode of the soap, projecting all of his life’s woes on Anita, who was as lost in her own dramatized world and yet in control, proud and loud and gloriously herself.

He was actually snoozing in the suit, startling violently when he heard the door click shut, but it was just Steve saying, “There you are. You weren’t answering your phone.” 

Tony said in the Iron voice, “Left it. Whoops.” He didn’t turn, didn’t emerge from his shell.

Steve sat next to him, dressed down in Rhodey’s clothes. With a frown audible in his tone, he asked, “Everything okay?”

Tony assured, “Everything’s fine, champ.” He didn’t move, didn’t power down. It was safe in the suit. Warm. Diagnostics assured him things that instincts couldn’t, like how healthy he was, despite everything, how he was bulletproof, fire-proof, death-proof. 

He liked it in here, could stay in the Mark IX for a good long time. It was comfortable enough.

Steve glanced at the box, but he didn’t ask. Rhodey said casually, “Some of us have to be up at six. G’night, kids.”

“I’m not a kid,” Tony muttered, while Steve replied breezily:

“Night, Jim.”

They sat in silence for a moment before Steve reached out and flicked off the TV. Tony wanted to quip back— _I was watching that—_ but he felt too tired, too headachy. Steve asked quietly, “What happened?”

Tony sighed in the suit. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Steve asked, “You gonna come out?”

Tony huffed. “What, to my dead parents?”

Very softly, Steve said, “Tony.”

Tony hiccupped, but there were no tears. There was just a hole in his chest. “Sorry. Mom deserved better.” He sniffed. He wasn’t crying. He wasn’t. He had the mask on, anyway. “She tried real hard. I was a tough kid. I was, I was a tough kid. I was too smart. I was too cocky. I knew better. I always knew better.”

Steve entreated, “Please take off the suit.”

Tony sniffed again. “Why?”

Steve had answers when he didn’t have questions: “I can’t hug you in the suit.”

Tony wanted to say, _You can_ because he could. He could hug the suit. It would almost be the same thing. But he craved, suddenly and irrevocably, to be held. Not Iron Man. Tony.

The difficult kid, the kid who was too smart for his own good, who’d disowned his mother in everything but name, who’d never earned his father’s approval despite spending every hour of their time together seeking it. He sniffed again. He reached up with a metal hand to swipe at the dampness on his face, but it couldn’t reach.

Torn, he hovered, trembling. Then he wordlessly flicked the power down switch near the throat. The helmet slid back first. The boots weren’t even off before Steve shuffled closer. Steve didn’t just hug him; he picked Tony up. Tony might’ve been embarrassed if he had ever known shame, but shame was for people who were afraid to lose. Tony Stark never lost. He might not win, but he never lost.

Steve hauled him onto his lap, shoving the suit-box aside with a foot, like it didn’t weight 184 lbs. He twisted around, back to the arm of the couch, curled around him so completely it reminded him of a picture he’d seen once, a husky curled around a baby husky. He chuckled, but it wasn’t laughter that hiccupped out of him and huskies didn’t croon _shh, shh, shh_.

Maybe they did in their own husky-way, he thought, huddled in Steve’s embrace. He’d never been hugged so completely, like he was small and precious at once, like he needed to be protected. He did need it, more than he would ever say because he couldn’t _need it_ so much.

Steve couldn’t be everyone’s shield. He couldn’t. It was wrong to need someone this much. It had to be. Nothing this good could be given; it had to be earned.

Steve rested his cheek on top of Tony’s head, himself curled inward, around Tony. He murmured, “I would give anything in the world to take away everything that’s ever hurt you.”

Tony sniffed, wanted to tell him, _That’s a long list_. He said nothing instead, shaking a little, maybe crying a little, grateful that nobody, not even Steve, could see him. Steve held him, surrounded him, until the cold seeped out of Tony’s bones.

Sniffing, he admitted, only a little pathetically, “I miss home.”

Steve hummed, not moving an inch, assuring, “We can go home.”

“I miss those losers,” Tony added, chuckling, an actual laugh, felt Steve’s little smile against his hair. “I actually miss those fucking nerds.”

“You think Barton set the microwave on fire yet?” Steve asked affectionately.

Tony groaned. “Guess we’ll find out when we find a new microwave, huh?”

“He’s a good guy.”

In a voice that was only a little small, Tony pointed out, “I thought I was a good guy.”

He wasn’t fishing, but Steve’s voice was so goddamn sincere as he said, “You’re my best guy. Put everyone else to shame.”

Tony nodded regally, he liked to think, magnanimously. “I’m glad we’ve got that settled.”

“You are,” Steve said seriously. “You’re my very best guy.”

“I love you.” Clinging to Steve’s shirt—technically Rhodey’s shirt; God Bless James Rhodes—he murmured, “You. Only you.”

Steve rubbed his back. Though he had to work with two layers of clothes, Tony could still feel the warmth of his skin. “I love you, too. More than words.”

Tony didn’t know how long they stayed in their huddle, only knew time passed because he was stiff as _fuck_ when he finally uncurled. Steve’s warm chuckle, soft but sincere, eased some of the discomfort even as he groused, “My bones.”

Nosing along his hair, Steve pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Drink more milk.”

Huffing, Tony reached up to push him away playfully, growling, “Shut it.” He let himself get sidetracked, sliding his hand to hold Steve’s neck, squeezing, before he asked, “Does cheesecake count as a meal?”

. o .

It was two in the morning by the time Tony worked up the nerve to say, “Open the box.”

Steve, who’d obediently carried it into their little guest room, frowned thoughtfully as he set it on the bed, asking quietly, “You sure?”

Freshly showered—God Bless James Rhodes, his uncanny ability to sleep through DC traffic, construction, and Tony Stark’s middle-of-the-night showers—and with a spare blanket draped around his shoulders, chilled despite the generally warm room, Tony nodded. “I don’t . . . I don’t wanna sleep on it. I need you to know.”

Steve’s brow furrowed. He sat on the edge of the bed next to the box, then looked at Tony, picking up the box and sitting down next to him instead, back to the headboard.

Tony swallowed. Steve said, “I don’t have to open it. Whatever it is.” Shrugging, he added sincerely, “It’s okay, Tony.”

It would’ve been easier to pretend it didn’t exist. To burn it. Anything to be rid of it and all the weight it held. It felt like a reverse black-hole: it weighed nearly nothing but contained an immeasurable amount of. . . .

He didn’t even know. Pain? Grief?

He nodded again. “Just—open it.”

Steve did with methodical movements. He flipped open the top and paused. Then he reached inside slowly, sliding his fingers around a sheet of paper. 

It was faded with time, browned with age, delicate and torn. It had once been folded over five or six times, a pocket square in life, a letter in memory. Steve’s breath was even, deep and calm. He looked at it, stroked a thumb over scratchy lettering. He didn’t say a word for a long time, eyes darting across the page, reading it over and over and over.

Finally, he said aloud, “Oh, Pa.” Almost like he hadn’t meant to. 

Steve folded the paper along those lines, fingers only trembling a bit, but the paper was thin, hid nothing. Tony set a hand on his knee. Steve sighed, eyes closed for a moment. Then he tucked the little square aside. He inhaled deeply, then blinked at Tony, bright blue eyes. He husked, “Where did you find this?”

Tony couldn’t lie. He couldn’t tell the truth, either. “Don’t ask me, sweetheart,” he said quietly instead.

Steve nodded, because he already knew. He said slowly, “Thank you.”

And Tony pleaded, “Don’t thank me.”

“I. . . .” Steve’s fingers flexed along the edges of the box, like he couldn’t bear to reach inside it again, afraid of it, but unable to let go. “I lost—everything, Tony. I lost _them_.” Looking right at him, he added, “You found them.” He drew the box to his chest, hugging it.

Tony’s eyes burned. He didn’t want to cry; Steve didn’t. Tony found stable ground between them. “This is. . . .” He reached into the box, pulled out a small handful of letters. He read through them, one at a time, folding them into little squares when he was finished. He read one of them aloud: “‘Dear Sarah. I simply miss you. I hope you are warm tonight. Yours, J.’”

Tony rested his cheek on Steve’s shoulder. “J,” he mused. “S’what I like to call J.A.R.V.I.S., sometimes. Or honeybee. Snookums. Jar-Jar, if he’s being—” He paused, then said quietly, “Steve?”

Steve didn’t respond for a long time. “You think he died cold, Tony?”

Tony swallowed. He’d looked up the Battle of Soissons. It was in the middle of July. He was grateful for that knowledge as he said, “No. No, he was warm, too.”

Nodding, satisfied, Steve folded the letter up. “Good.” Clearing his throat, he repeated, “Good. Terrible way to. . . .” He trailed off. Humor wasn’t his safety net. Silence was. Better unsaid than defended. He swallowed again. “I, um. I think that’s enough for one night, yeah?” He gathered the little folded-up notes, hesitated, before setting them back in the box with the others. “It’s late, anyway.”

Tony asked seriously, “You okay?”

Steve shut the box methodically. “Yeah,” he said. He nodded like he was repeating it. _Yeah. Yeah_. Tony waited, but when he didn’t move, he reached out carefully, taking the box and setting it on the floor. Steve said softly, “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me.”

“I know you don’t want me to,” Steve murmured, his voice full of compassion, God, Tony couldn’t listen, but he listened anyway as Steve went on, “but—this, it means a lot to me.”

Tony waited until Steve shuffled down, flicking off the lamp with an errant swat of his hand, murmured, “C’mere,” with such honest hopefulness, like he expected Tony to leave. He wrapped Tony up in a hug, extra blanket and all, before he allowed into the quiet darkness, “I want you to be happy.”

“Tony.” Steve cradled the back of his head in a hand. “I am happy.”

Nodding, Tony found the safe space between Steve’s neck and shoulder. He breathed in deeply and said, “Thanks.”

“What for?”

Tony didn’t reply, curling a hand in his shirt, letting his eyes slide closed but not chasing sleep, in no rush to surrender. It was safe in Steve’s arms as he said nothing, breathing, like everything was okay.

He told Steve’s collarbone, “Wish you could’ve met my mom. She was nice. We didn’t always see eye-to-eye—didn’t see eye-to-eye with a lot of people, perks of being insufferable, didn’t get most people, can’t have a genius IQ without a few neuroses—but she cared. She worried about me and I know it was love and I . . . I was cold and distant with her when I shouldn’t have been. The timing couldn’t have been worse: everything hit the fan and I never got to say, ‘I’m sorry’ because I was too busy being twenty years old and fucked up.”

Steve hummed, less a response than an acknowledgment of the words. Tony went on, “Wasn’t mad at her, just mad at the world. Easier to be mad at her. Think she thought I was broken, sometimes.” 

He sighed as Steve scratched at the back of his neck, soft enough there was barely the impression of nails, just comforting movement. “Looked that way, ‘f you didn’t know, but I wasn’t broken, I was never broken, I was in pieces but I was a kaleidoscope in a world full of telescopes, I—I needed and needed and nobody knew what. I didn’t know what, bullshitted my way through most of it, easy to lie when you don’t know the answer, not a lie if you don’t know, you know? Not a lie if the answer _is_ an omission.

“First time I ever _really_ flew, it all made sense, all those gray pieces took on new colors the second I took that first jump, felt like I invented gravity, anti-gravity, spent every year trying to find a feeling like that and when I got my hands on it, it was more than I thought it would be. I forgot what it was like to be mad at the world. I was up top; I was _free_. I wanted to be free, I wanted to be free of money, free of life, free of all the vices around me, but I couldn’t find another way, only way out is through sometimes. Sometimes you gotta make the wrong choice, gotta move forward. If you can’t do it the right way, you still have to do it.

“I’m not bad. I'm—I’m a little fucked up, think we’re all a little fucked up and some people are lying to themselves pretending otherwise, know how hard it is to learn the world’s problems and realize you can solve maybe two of them? Too little time, we burn out before we even get warm. We’re not even real stars, we’re white dwarfs. We’re the inbred cosmic dust that sparked to life for a few seconds before disappearing. This world—it’s broken, it’s stuck on its axis, it’s tilted and I’m not talkin’ about the obliquity, I’m talkin’ about humans, humankind is overflowing with troubles and we gotta solve ‘em or everybody’s gonna keep getting hurt. How the fuck do we solve them?”

Steve slid a leg over Tony’s, holding him, breathing steadily. Tony slid down, resting his ear against his heart. “I don’t know, either, big guy. I thought I could figure it out, one time, but now—honestly, I think Einstein died of heartbreak, don’t know what killed the guy but it had to be, I think, God, that’s the worst way to fucking go, spending your whole life looking for answers and realizing you’re never going to find them. People tell you to stop looking but you can’t, you can’t stop looking because people don’t even think we can end death, we can eradicate suffering, I don’t want to build any hospitals, don’t want to put my name on places where people go to bleed, I want to close the hospitals, to eradicate the diseases and reasons people go there. Every vice is a disease and we are barely at the penicillin stage, we can do more, we have to.

“You know what penicillin is, right?” Steve hummed affirmatively. “That’s the why, _that’s_ the fight, that’s the reason I can’t sleep sometimes, because I’m losing seconds, I’m wasting time, I can’t waste time, I gotta make it matter, make this fucked-up little life of mine mean something more than a tragedy, some kind of cautionary tale about creative genius wasted, I am not broken, I am not a broken man, they couldn’t break me. 

“They tried for ninety-two days to break me and I wanted to, I—I wanted my stupid heart to give out, my lungs to stop pulling in air, it is fucking _exhausting_ to want to die and not be able to die. Worse to want to die and have the means in front of you but they’re snatched away or you’re too—you’re too scared, you can’t kill yourself, you can’t do that, you know it’ll hurt and all you want is for it to be over, but what if you fuck up, what if you don’t die? What if it’s a dream you can’t wake up from?”

He sniffed, pausing to breathe deeply, Steve’s hand rubbing up and down his back, grounding him, reminding him that he was there. His heartbeat was its usual rabbity fast pace, but there was something comforting about that. Vitality, proof-of-life. 

“I know in one of those chipped corners of my fucked-up brain, that I didn’t deserve it, I know that, didn’t earn it, didn’t deserve it, spent a lot of time looking in the mirror sayin’ it, _You did not deserve it_ , but sometimes I think about who I was, wasting away, drinking myself stupid and fucking people who didn’t matter, making fuck-all with my life like it was an ordeal to wake up with a roof over my head and a bed underneath me, treating it like it was one of twenty because I had it all and still found more to grab, and then. . . .

“Then the only possession I had was a twenty-pound car battery. And I had to lug it around if I wanted to move. I wanted to move, I felt restless as hell, all day every day, bein’ there, feeling like I was ten steps from freedom and cowering back every time I took three, couldn’t do it, shoulda done it, might’ve been less—less hit by it, you know, if I’d gotten out sooner.”

He didn’t realize he was crying, silent tears that dampened Steve’s shoulder, until he sniffed again and said, “I’m sorry.”

Steve murmured, “Don’t apologize.”

Nodding, Tony said, “I think, I think, I think they got a special pleasure out of drowning because it’s _raw_. It’s not like you can hide from it: your body gives you away. You can grit your teeth or howl if you’re being hit or kicked or stabbed, but drowning is—it’s slower, it’s scarier, it’s forever. And you keep hoping to pass out so it’s over sooner, but you won’t. Your nose is burning, water in your nose in a pool is a goddamn nightmare and this is that dialed to eleven, that’s what you fixate on, how fucked up it all starts to feel, until you can’t breathe, you couldn’t speak if you had a gun to your head, you know, there’s a—there’s a psychological kind of specialty around, around drowning, it’s uniquely heinous, I think, I think we should put it in the Geneva Convention, drowning is a war crime, maybe it already is.”

Steve stroked his back, up, down, slow, steady. Tony breathed with it. “I know, I know you know, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t talk about it.”

“S’okay,” Steve murmured. “S’all right.”

Nodding again, Tony added, “I know you know, you know and anybody who’s—it’s fucked up, how scared, how, how reducible it makes you, you know, least common denominator except it’s _not_ , it’s beneath the skin, it’s the bones, it’s like you’re not even a person, not focused down to a point of light but scared beyond all recognition, in more pain than if you’d been hurt outright, because it’s. . . .

“I—I get scared sometimes that I’m gonna start drowning without being anywhere near water, that someday I’m not gonna be an inch near water and I’ll stop breathing. And I—I can’t, I can’t do that, that’s my limit, I can’t, I can’t—”

Slowly, Steve reached down, pulled the comforter up, covering them to the shoulders. He assured, “S’okay. I’m here.” Tony shuddered, couldn’t stop shaking, trembling like a leaf. Steve pulled the comforter up over them completely, hiding in their little cocoon. It was stiflingly hot and the only sounds were Tony’s gasping breaths and Steve’s soft steady inhales, soft steady exhales. 

“Nothing’s gonna hurt you,” Steve murmured. He hummed, a tune Tony didn’t recognize, but it was comforting, all the same. The shirt in his hands was comforting, too, but he wanted more. He tugged at it. Steve read his mind. He said, “Lemme—” and shuffled back. He got the shirt over his head and banished it from their huddle before he shuffled close again. He draped a bare arm around Tony’s back. “I’m here. Right here, sweetheart. I’m not going anywhere.” And he kept humming, another verse of the same song. Tony kept his eyes closed, listening, savoring Steve’s warm palm between his shoulder blades, the safety of every steady heartbeat.

It had to be safe, if Steve was there and Steve was calm. Steve wasn’t a liar—not by choice, not when it mattered—and Tony trusted him, trusted him more than his own senses, more than the red of danger, of deep water, of death he couldn’t conquer, he couldn’t face without chattering teeth and burning eyes, because he wanted reprieve, not finality, wanted comfort and peace alone. Steve offered these things, comfort, peace, carrying his tune until Tony’s head felt heavy, the arm around Steve’s middle heavier, immovable.

Barely audibly, he murmured, “You make me feel safe.”

Steve kissed the top of his head, heartbreakingly soft, not like he was breakable but important, inerrant. “Everything’s gonna be okay. I promise.”

Nodding, hair brushing his shoulder, Tony said slowly, “I swear I’m not crazy.”

“No,” Steve assured, scritching the base of his neck. “No, you’re not. You’re brave. And strong. And—and so very human.”

“Being human is hard.”

Steve agreed, “Yeah. That’s why we do it together. Couldn’t do it forever alone.”

“Used to be alone.” He paused, then amended, “Well. More alone than I could’ve been, ‘f I wasn’t pushing everybody away. Rhodey, you know, Rhodey’s always—ever since we met, he’s been there. And Pepper, too, she’s—she’s good to me. Like you said. But you—” He kissed Steve’s neck, a brush of lips on warm skin. “You’re very special.”

“Nothing’s gonna hurt you,” Steve repeated. “Not while I'm here. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”

“Always do,” Tony said, brushing a thumb over his bare hip in rhythmic circles, his own breathing starting to deepen, hard to be rabbit-fast with Steve next to him, right there. “I wish I could love you hard enough to convey ‘you are literally the loveliest person that has ever walked into my life,’ but I’m struggling.”

Steve nuzzled the top of his head. “It’s okay, Tony.” Softly, he added, “I can feel it.”

“Love your sixth sense,” Tony murmured. “Love you. Big lovable guy. Heart big enough for the whole world.”

Steve hummed, insisting, “All yours.”

And Tony relaxed against him, letting his heartbeat, steady as could be, lull him off. The last thing he thought was, _I’m all yours_. 

He wasn’t sure if he said it aloud, but it didn’t matter: he knew Steve heard it.


	23. NORILSK, PART 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Privet! Dobro pozhalovat' v Sibir'! (Hi! Welcome to Siberia!)
> 
> Here there be heavy themes. They've been warned for in the tags, so nothing you haven't encountered.
> 
> Also, I apologize in advance. You'll see why. Don't worry - what goes down, must come up! (Um.)
> 
> Onward and upwards, my friends. <3 Naslazhdat'sya! (Enjoy!)

_Sometimes I wish I could disappear._

_Not run away. Vanish, like I never was._ _Feels like the rightful outcome, y'know, the answer to everything. Shoulda been me the first time, would’ve made it all a lot simpler._

_The world doesn’t need Captain America. Never needed Steve Rogers._

Steve heard a friendly, “Cap?” but didn’t turn around, staring up at the stars.

“Kinda nippy out, isn’t it?” Clint observed.

Sitting on the lower balcony railing, Steve replied, “Gonna be a lot colder where we’re going.”

“About that.” Resting his arms on the ice-cold railing above him, Clint asked, “You sure you wanna go?”

Steve frowned. “Never surer,” he said simply. When he was confident his face was dry and not merely numb, he turned and looked Clint dead in the eye. “Maybe two people sounds like an awful lotta trouble, but . . . if two people aren’t worth saving, are any of us?”

Clint didn’t respond. Steve turned back to the docile city-scape, pitch-black but for silver gashes, the lights of the restless living. He heard Clint hook a carabiner around the icy railing before he vaulted over the railing, holding onto the opposite side before dropping down to the lower railing encircling the balcony. Steve felt the tiny vibration as he landed. The line held. 

Steve never used a line. _I won’t fall_.

“It’s not about me,” Steve said, not meaning to talk but needing to, to keep the words from forming ice in his chest. “Not even about them, not really. Gotta make sure all the strings are tied.”

Kicking his feet over the abyss, Clint asked, “What for?”

Steve sat still as a gargoyle, shoulders hunched, protecting his core. “Nothin’. Just don’t like leaving loose ends. Unfinished reports. Abandoned cases. That kinda thing.”

Clint rested a heavy gloved hand on his shoulder, giving it a shake. He’d rarely hold back on solid ground, but they were over a thousand feet off the ground. He was careful. “In that case, once we’re done, you come with me, we’ll hike the Rockies.”

“The Rockies?” Steve repeated, frowning as he turned to look at Clint. “Why the heck would you wanna go to the Rockies?”

“Why the heck wouldn’t you?” Clint replied, dead-serious. “It’s beautiful.” With a modest shrug of his own, he clarified, “So I’ve heard. We’ll hike some, get some bear-scares. It’ll be fun.”

Steve let out a humorless huff. When Clint asked, “What?” he admitted:

“Just—bears.”

Clint sighed and shook his shoulder again. “So fuckin’ young. I wish you were ten years older. No twenty-something should be where you are.”

“Where I am,” Steve repeated, throat dry from the cold. “Where’s that?”

“Leading,” Clint replied, not releasing him. Steve didn’t miss the way his hand rested over one of the shoulder straps.

 _Gonna catch me?_ he thought sardonically.

He felt bad for the malice, but he couldn’t make himself retreat, didn’t want to go back inside. He never liked lying. The routine of it, returning home, being home—at times, it felt like a _lie_.

_You don’t belong here. 2012? You’re supposed to be dead._

Clint admitted, “You know, I had a brother, once.” 

And that was all.

Steve said softly, “I’m sorry.”

Clint nodded in acknowledgment. “Been twenty-eight years. Doesn’t matter—Barney’s still my older brother. Always will be. You don’t ever forget, you know. You don’t really get to move on. But you do get to live a second life, another chapter. We can survive the shit we don’t want to.”

Daring to let go of Steve, Clint gestured at his hearing aid. “Not gonna lie, I thought my days with S.H.I.E.L.D. were numbered after this. Felt like that chapter was over, too. And I was more mad than sad, at first, y’know, _dammit, Barton, you really screwed this one up_.”

Blowing out a smoky breath, he added, “Those days weren’t over. Just different. With these, my life is normal. Not everybody’s normal, but a kind of normal that makes sense to me. And, occasionally, it’s even kinda nice. Turnin’ ‘em off, takin’ it all in. Community’s nice, too. Having a perennial excuse to ignore the telephone.” He smiled. Steve kept his gaze skywards, listening, stone-still.

“Point is,” Clint said, gathering himself and gripping Steve’s shoulder strap, “we do get to live more life than we think we can. Even after the worst happens.”

Steve lied softly, “I’m over it.” He didn’t have anger, couldn’t summon it, but he summoned calm as he added, “I got over it the day after it happened. That's when I found out I couldn’t get drunk. Still can’t. Not for long.”

( _Wasn’t the pain of the glass embedded in his skin that made him writhe; it was the agony of being helpless, of not being able to control any of it, any of it anymore—_ )

“I’m okay,” he added, reaching up to pat Clint’s hand. He could barely feel his fingers through the gloves. “Don’t worry about me. You wanna worry about someone—keep an eye on Tony.”

“He’s not the one hangin’ off a cliff,” Clint said conversationally.

Steve huffed. “Come here all the time, Barton. It’s a nice spot.” Looking at him, he added, “I see you up in the rafters. You’re not subtle.”

Clint tugged pointedly on the lead hooked to his own shoulder strap. “Neither is this.”

Steve assured, “I won’t fall.”

Clint didn’t respond immediately. At last, blowing out another breath like smoke, he said, “I won’t drag you somewhere you don’t want to go, but I won’t let you jump, either.”

Steve said nothing. The correct response didn’t want to be spoken.

_I won’t jump._

He drew in a sharp breath because he deserved to fall, he _deserved_ to hit the ground, to break into a thousand pieces, it shoulda been him, it shoulda been him on that train, he could’ve survived that fall but Bucky didn’t stand a goddamn chance and he _knew_ it. Steve went back to check every square inch of that ravine, plowing through freshly-snowed earth, treading through ice-cold water, soaked to the bone and half-blind with desperation, because Bucky couldn’t just be _gone_.

He’d clawed his hands raw on ice and found nothing. The ravine was sizeable, but he was so sure he’d found the right spot. But he hadn’t been able to find Bucky.

The shame was almost deeper than the pain. 

You weren’t supposed to leave a soldier behind. Bucky had never failed him. Steve hadn’t been able to _find_ him.

He could hear Bucky’s scream lurking in the amorphous sounds of the world: a prolonged train whistle, a newly-enlivened TV, a shrieking oven timer, a bellowing car horn, a cranky elevator (thank God the Tower’s elevator was as fast and quiet as it was, even though some days he needed faster, quieter). Any discordant noise could hide a human voice if you were _listening._

He swallowed. His face was dry. He felt cold, head to toe, in a way that had little to do with the temperature. 

Temperature didn’t help, no. Winter was coming. It was already here, in many ways: the cold was leeching into his bones, inescapable, irreversible. He was too restless to stay in place, to shelter from the storm, to hide underground for a few months until the sunshine came back full force.

He said in a voice that barely belonged to him, “I shoulda kept looking.” Blinking, eyes burning from nothing but _cold_ , he muttered, “Coulda survived. He coulda been down there, dying alone. I . . . I gave up on him.”

Clint gave his shoulder another shake. His own body didn’t feel quite real, like he’d been told to act the part, _normal human_ , but he’d fallen out of step and couldn’t reclaim it. Didn’t want to. Didn’t really wanna wake up from it.

He reached up to cradle his hand in his hands, nearly overbalanced, nearly _fell_. The spike of adrenaline as he slipped a quarter inch forward before he reclaimed his grip on the icy railing—nearly at the same instant Clint’s grip on his shoulder turned firm, ready—woke him up better than a slap to the face.

Heart beating faster, he said, “S’all right.”

There was a click. Then Steve felt the tension of the line as Clint clipped it onto his shoulder strap instead. “There,” Clint said, voice robustly normal, “now you won’t dislocate my shoulder.” He didn’t let go, partially to support, partially to balance himself. He’d die if he fell, they both knew that. Steve might survive. Steve ached with apology, with gratitude, with nameless emotion that tasted like ashes, regret.

He pawed over his shoulder, intending to grab the clip, but his fingers were too stiff to cooperate, couldn’t get the latch. Clint interjected, “I’ll break your hand if you try it,” and meant it. Tough love kinda guy. Lot of verbal threats, although rarely anything to back it up, just the occasional cuff to the head or a less-than-gentle shove. Steve let his hand settle on the railing instead. He was cold, cold enough it burned, limbs trying to reawaken, trying to fall asleep, couldn’t decide.

Clint gave him a less gentle shove, secure in the knowledge that if he slipped off, he wouldn’t tumble all the way to the ground. “Up and at ‘em, Rogers. I’m freezing my ass off.”

Steve sighed and turned around, grabbing onto the upper railing for leverage. With effortless herculean strength, he hauled himself back up onto the main balcony. He moved slowly, giving Clint time to adjust his grip, shoulder, flank, hip, knee, ankle. Then Steve was hauling himself up-and-above the railing and Clint’s grip vanished.

Raw panic threatened to sweep over him as he hauled himself to his feet, but Clint sat, perfectly balanced, both hands on the railing. He said calmly, “Unclip the line, toss it down.”

Easy enough instructions to follow, but Steve ignored them, leaning as far over the railing as he could, holding out a hand. To his credit, Clint didn’t hesitate, reaching up to clasp his wrist. Steve thought, _I gotcha_ and couldn’t make himself move an inch, afraid that his strength might fail him. Clint didn’t miss a beat, reaching up with his free hand to grab the clip over Steve’s shoulder, a stretch, a dangerous reach, but he got the clip and unhooked it, casually lowering it to his own hip, tying in.

It was easy enough for Clint to pull himself up, Steve steadying Clint as he latched onto the upper railing, more lifting Clint than letting Clint monkey his way up until he could slide over the railing, joining him with a huff. Cuffing Steve on the shoulder companionably, he unclipped the carabiner from the railing and propelled him forward with a hand. Steve took the hint.

The Tower was warm, but the air felt _hot_ against Steve’s skin, burning. He reached up to cover his exposed face with his gloved hands, the cold driven deep into the fabric, into the bone. The room wasn’t that hot, but he was half-frozen.

He was afraid that he’d falter, that he wouldn’t be able to handle Russia-cold, _Siberia_ -cold. Huge swaths of Siberia were located right inside the Arctic circle. Even in the forties, it was no mystery that that was killing-cold.

And then the flush of warmth went skin-deep, chasing away the frost. He lowered his hands and breathed, at home in his own skin again. Everything was fine.

He was embarrassed to see Bruce typing away on his laptop near the crackling fireplace, its radiant warmth suffusing the space. Steve watched as Clint flopped belly-down in front of it worshipfully.

“Can’t wait for our next trip to Bora Bora,” Tony announced. Steve closed his eyes, aw, _hell_ , then turned on his heel, feeling upright and mercifully steady as he watched Tony, sitting at the island, chin in hands, eyebrows arched, questioning.

It was either very late or very early, Steve had never committed to the principle of where predawn hours resided, but what he did know was that nobody should be awake. 

Natasha alone had sense among them. Bruce was routinely up until 3 AM and Clint hauled himself out of bed as early as four. Tony varied, but if he was up before seven, he hadn’t fallen asleep yet. And Steve knew he’d been asleep when Steve slunk out of bed, always waited until Tony was asleep before sneaking off, feeling vaguely traitorous but also desperate for something indefinable.

He didn’t like to sleep, not through the night and not at all, sometimes. It made him edgy, uneager to fall deeper than a light doze. Even with Tony, he couldn’t find perfect tranquility—maybe especially, because Tony was trusting, Tony fell asleep knowing that somebody would sound the alarm if things went wrong. Therefore, Steve had to be alert.

Or maybe Tony was just tired. 

Most people were tired after a long day. Steve wasn’t bone-tired often. After a long week, maybe. He’d once gone thirteen days without a wink to see what would happen. He’d only given in when he started hallucinating Falsworth and Dernier arguing in S.H.I.E.L.D., but they’d never been to S.H.I.E.L.D. 

It was that incongruity alone that kept him grounded as he turned tail and forced himself to sit down and shut his eyes. He'd let the world fade to black. Didn’t lie down, just fell asleep slumped over a chair like he was in a waiting room, halfway between the places he wanted to be.

Looking at Tony, Steve felt guilt knot in his throat, preventing the candid words he wanted to say from being spoken. He didn’t like _lying_ , hated being caught in the act of it. He didn’t lie, not often. He was happy. He was happy and grateful and there were hundreds of millions of people who hadn’t won the lottery like he had and awoken after the Wars. It helped that the twenty-first century was likeable, nothing too terrible, nothing to pin down as the sole reason he didn’t want to be here. He liked being here. He liked his little life, even if it felt dual.

Irreconcilable.

 _Gotta let go someday, Rogers_.

He tugged at the collar of his suit and tried to summon the words. _All right, kids. Go to bed. Lights out. C’mon, it’s bedtime_.

But he was tired of lying. And he wasn’t going back to bed.

Clint snored in front of the fireplace, shameless, settled. Bruce typed away, perfectly normal, normal for him. Everybody had their _normal_. Steve knew what his looked like, flexing his fingers hopefully, like Falsworth and Dernier would walk through the door, or Bucky would holler from downstairs. Then he would suit up in his Army uniform and realize this was all a _dream_.

He walked with intention, not mindfulness but mere automated alertness towards the door, striding down the hall, skipping the elevator. He didn’t know where he was going, just started walking at a candid pace, stepping into the stairwell, so many stairs, hundreds, maybe thousands.

He stepped through an unfamiliar doorway and wandered down an unfamiliar hallway, wondered if he’d ever feel settled in a place this _big_. He knew that he gravitated towards a few places because it created the illusion that he wasn’t lost like he was, _losing_ _it_ like he might be. He listened as hard as he could, pleading, _C_ _’mon, c’mon, where are you?_

He paced, frustrated that he couldn’t be tired, that he couldn’t _forget_ , that he’d failed the most important mission of his life and now it was haunting him, a ghost without a ghost. Maybe if he could hear Bucky’s voice instead of his scream, he’d be able to sleep through the night.

He could hear the crunch of ice underfoot, the distant whistle of wind, the click of water on stone, bitter blue turf giving way to numb fingers, white knuckles shaking with cold and fear, afraid to find a body, afraid to not find a body. The latter overtook the former as he scoured the landscape, clawing through it like Bucky was there. Bucky _needed_ him. He couldn’t—

He paused, interrupted the narrative, aware that he was getting nowhere, that he was never going to get anywhere because Bucky was dead, like everyone was. Didn’t matter if he’d survived the train. They were all gone, now.

Leaning a shoulder against the wall, he shut his eyes, listening to the Howling Commandos talk at a table in a crowded bar, their words indistinct and overlapping, hard to discern with all the background noise. Clinking glasses, bartender swiping a rag down the counter, boots stamping snow, door opening and closing on cold winter air. Steve felt his heart pound as he neared the chorus of _ay, Cap! Cap’n!_

He tried to grab Falsworth, but he wasn’t fast enough, the weasel surrendered his seat with a playfully deferential _saved you a spot, chief_. Then he stole a chair from another table, stuffing it unapologetically between Morita and Jones. Jones, who barked about elbow room to Dernier’s _shut up, Cap’s here_ , and yeah, he was, he’d made it. He was accepting a drink from Falsworth that tasted warm, no buzz, but the buzz was in the air, in the smiles, in the way they laughed and argued among themselves, hauling him into the conversation, goading him with repetition, _c’mon, Cap, c’mon, Cap, what’s it like?_ and he didn’t remember what they were talking about, sinking into the ambiguity of it all instead.

Then Dernier asked, _What’s the twenty-first century like, Cap?_ and the dream shattered like glass.

Behind him, he heard a quiet, “Steve?” and felt the distant snows and laughter, the clinking glasses and bittersweet air of interrupted-war disappear like a puff of smoke. He didn’t move an inch, wishing he could sink back into the scene. 

He could remember being hot in the uniform because it was _wool_. Even though it was freezing outside, it was plenty warm in a bar that was probably over-capacity, but that t’weren’t much of a thing, the concept of being afraid of a fire interrupting their revelry anathema. They were just havin’ fun. No force of nature could interrupt their fun.

Steve remembered that Dum Dum had a hell of a laugh on him, like he was about to wheeze up a lung, braying until he set off the whole table and even Cap—proper, steadfast, immovable Cap—smiled in honest appreciation.

Tony repeated, “Steve?” and Steve opened his eyes and pushed himself off the wall.

In a thankfully normal tone of voice, he said, “You’d’ve liked ‘em.”

Tony didn’t ask who. He just said, “They anything like you? I’m sure I would.”

“They were better.” Steve spoke the truth numbly, reaching up to rub his mouth, jaw sore. “Lot better, y’know.” He dropped his hand, exhaled slowly. “Wish you’d all leave me, y’know, I don’t. . . .”

Tony didn’t say anything, stepping closer and wrapping his arms around his waist. Holding on. And the desire to push away, to dig his heels in, to run, evaporated. He slouched against the wall, melted into it, because sometimes he felt like the only thing that _mattered_ , amid the pain, amid the grief, was the way he felt when he was with Tony. He felt human. Not like a relic or a scientific novelty, not even Captain America, just . . . human.

That was what he was. Despite the ice, despite the accolades, despite the absurdity of it all. Not an actor in a twisted play, the second act so different from the first he couldn’t reconcile them. Different chapter; same story.

Inhaling deeply, he turned around, slinging his arms around Tony’s shoulders, digging cold gloved fingers gently into the black hoodie Tony had thrown on, pressing his face against his shoulder, hiding, embracing. Tony was fire-warm, irresistible. Steve felt Tony's fingers card through his hair before cradling the back of his head, heard Tony murmur from point-blank range, “It’s okay.”

Steve knew he shouldn’t lean on Tony, but he couldn’t help it, melting in his embrace. Tony was stronger than he looked, all lean strength. If Steve was determined to meet the floor, he could’ve, but he rested some of his weight on Tony, proverbially shedding his jacket, a light burden, a manageable weight. 

He could feel Tony’s breathing, shallow like everybody else’s. Sometimes Steve felt like he was moving bit faster than everybody else, other times a bit slower. He wasn’t sure which was true. He found Tony's breathing comforting. Tony yawned before stifling it with a mutter of, “I’m awake.”

“Mm.” Steve leaned back, looking down at him, cupping his face in his hands. Tony cocked his head at him, eyelids lower than midday alert.

“I’m an on-call insomniac, I can do this all night,” Tony told him, smirking and closing his eyes instead, nuzzling Steve’s palm. “I do charge overtime.”

Huffing, not quite a laugh, Steve released him and brought a gloved hand to his mouth. Tony watched him with eyebrows arched a hair as he pried first one, then the other glove off with his teeth, easier to unhook than fumbling with his fingers.

Looking down almost demurely, Tony said, “It’s unfair that you have no idea how attractive that is.”

Teeth closed deliberately around the corner of a glove, Steve replied, “Not a clue.”

Tony rolled his eyes and gave his chest a gentle shove, less to push him away than to say _bastard_. Steve smiled despite himself, clipping both gloves into a hook on his belt. “Handy,” Tony noted, curling his own hands in the belt, tugging Steve closer.

Steve shrugged modestly and draped his arms over Tony’s shoulders. He pointed out, “It’s not my design.” Tony hummed thoughtfully. Steve knew what he was gonna say, cutting him off. “Why?”

Tony blinked. “Why what?”

“Why do you—?” He shrugged again. “You know. Wanna upgrade it.”

Tony arched his eyebrows like Steve had insulted his bloodline. “Because I can make it better?” He let his thumbs brush Steve’s hips. “Because it’s torn?” He brushed a thumb over a line, repaired but revealing. The whole suit had been shredded within an inch of its life. Still, it was reparable. 

Tony moved on, setting his hands on Steve’s hips and adding breezily, “Got this under-armor that I use for the suits, works like a _dream_. Maneuverable,” he assured. “Also fire-proof, water-proof, sun-proof, bullet-resistant—bulletproof if you wear six of them at once, which I don’t actually recommend; I only ever wear two at most, kind of nice, you know, like a hug—wind-proof, sand-proof,” he rattled off.

Steve smiled. “Sand-proof?”

Tony nodded gravely. After a beat, he added, “I’m joking, but I’m actually not. It’s pretty self-contained. Roll on the beach to your heart’s content.”

Humming noncommittally, Steve said, “Now that’s a tempting offer.”

Tony brightened, straightening in Steve’s grip and saying immediately, “Is that contractually binding? I think that’s contractually binding. J.A.R.V.I.S.! I want the record to state—”

Steve sighed and covered Tony’s mouth with a hand. “Hold on.”

Tony pouted. Steve released him, returning his arms to their perch on his shoulders. Tony wheedled, “Please?”

Steve sighed affectionately. “You’re trouble, you know that?”

Tony leaned up to kiss him on the cheek, not deigning that with a response. “Wanna come to the lab? We can get into lots of trouble there.” He grinned, adding, “It’s five o’clock somewhere.”

Steve’s gaze flicked down to Tony’s hand to check the time, but he was watch-free, because despite the hoodie and pajama pants—pajama pants; how the world would tremble if it knew how goddamn adorable Tony Stark in pajama pants could be—it was the middle of the night. Tony said invitingly, “It’s open twenty-four seven.”

Steve said, “We should go to bed.”

Tony said, “Is that a ‘maybe’?” 

Sighing, Steve drew him close. Tony nestled under his chin, hair a touch sharp, spiky but soft. Smelled nice, too, like _home._ He closed his eyes, holding onto him, savoring his realness. “Gonna be okay,” Tony promised. “Really. I make extremely few false promises.”

Steve hummed, hands gentle on his back, holding him. “Gonna be okay, big guy,” Tony repeated.

Steve nodded, barely moving. “Thanks.”

Tony squeezed him gently. “Any time,” he said, and meant it.

. o . 

Roll-back-the-tape six hours.

Coming home was nice. 

There was something comforting about your own TV, your own blankets, your own bed. Rhodey’s home was tasteful, but it wasn’t _home_. It was Rhodey’s home. Tony surprised himself with the depth of his gratitude when he stepped into the balcony room, found Clint and Bruce watching a basketball game and Natasha napping on the couch, and realized he was _home_.

Clint and Bruce had been arguing so heatedly that they hadn’t noticed Tony’s entrance. Steve had insisted on a shower while Tony strutted proudly in clothes three days old (that Rhodey, thankfully, had allowed him to wash). He was forced to call out, “Who’s winning?” before Clint replied:

“When the hell’d you get in?”

Fixing himself a blueberry smoothie—Steve had been right; they _were_ excellent—he replied arbitrarily, “Four hours ago.”

“Fat chance,” Bruce called.

“You idiots are so loud,” Natasha contributed, sitting up.

Both Bruce and Clint made respective apologetic noises—“Oh, hey, I’m sorry, that’s on us;” “We’ll be good, right, asshole?” “Hold the phone, _I’m_ the asshole?”—and Tony added sweetly, “Missed you too, Natal—”

He yelped as a shoe came within an inch of smacking him in the face. Clint laughed. Bruce said apologetically, “We can turn it down—hey, J.A.R.V.I.S., drop the volume” while Tony clutched his chest and said:

“I missed you, too.”

And that was that: back to the family, back to the family dynamic. He’d been so distracted with the back-and-forth of it all that he hadn’t noticed that it was taking Steve a long time to freshen up. He decided to be a big person and check in.

Steve wasn’t in his room, which was its own warning, but like he’d anticipated Tony’s arrival he called out, “Down here.”

Tony padded down the hall, standing in the open doorway while Steve sat on the floor, sifting through the backpack Rhodey had allowed Tony to borrow for the sake of bringing home their souvenirs. Boxes weren’t fun to fly with, at least not with a passenger. As it was, he’d found it hilarious, Iron Man with a human backpack with a backpack, but there was nothing funny about Steve’s demeanor as he turned over the medallion in his fingers.

Tony asked, “What’s that?” Steve set it aside, a pile of its own.

“Bucky’s,” was all he said.

Tony lingered in the doorway, offering, “We’re gonna order pizza.”

Steve said, “Okay.”

Tony added, “Any preference?”

Steve replied, “No.”

He rarely had one—didn’t know the area well enough to form strong attachments, whereas the others could argue from six ways to Sunday about the best pizza joint in New York—but Tony had hoped he would join in the creative process. Seeing him sitting on the floor, robotically sorting the pictures and letters and trinkets into piles, was eerie in a way he couldn’t define. It felt dangerous, like watching someone with no experience diffuse a bomb.

Still, there wasn’t much to be said. He’d happily immersed himself in the good fight for the best pizza. Steve joined them so late Natasha was leaving, sparing a friendly kiss to the cheek before walking out with a “G’night” that indicated she wanted to be alone and unless the house caught fire, no one was to disturb her. 

“Night, Natasha,” Steve said, taking a seat at the table and listlessly fishing out a slice of pizza.

Tony, partially engrossed in the game Bruce and Clint were on the edges of their seats for, looked over at him, granting him apparent privacy as he ate alone, munching through a couple slices before picking up the boxes, storing them in the fridge. He tidied up the kitchen, made small talk except for the occasional, “Good game?”

Clint groaned. Bruce said, “ _Great_ game.”

“Give it time,” Clint said philosophically. 

The game dragged on. Steve sauntered over and set a hip against the couch. He watched for a few seconds, but his disinterest was palpable. He didn’t bother with his usual “Night, kids” routine before disappearing.

Tony didn’t wait long, saluting and saying, “May the worst team win.”

“We will,” Bruce said. Clint barked a laugh.

Fast-forward three hours and Tony awoke seconds before the weight behind him shifted. Steve was careful, slinking out of bed with such ease Tony knew he’d never have caught him if he wasn’t already quasi-awake. He didn’t even hear Steve’s footsteps, just the door sliding shut behind him.

Tony waited, refusing to abandon his comfortable space, but curiosity won out. Grumbling to no one, he stumbled out of bed, tripped on the sheets, and somehow avoided face-planting on the hardwood floor.

Proud of himself for avoiding disaster, he only grunted softly when he walked into the wall instead of the door that slid back for him.

And, well, he was grateful that the stupid game had gotten Clint and Bruce so wired they were still up when he joined them in the main room.

. o . 

Fast-forward one week.

Resume in real-time.

. o .

Cloud cover, but low winds. That was a blessing, this far north.

The thermostat hovered just shy of twenty below zero, Fahrenheit.

But it was a lie, because there was a slight wind that halved the real temperature to a scalding forty-below.

It was unfathomable cold. Not for the first time, Tony thought, _Stay in the plane. Go home. Pretend it never happened_.

The Quinjet landed and for one pristine moment was its own controlled ecosystem, perfectly contained. Then the door slid open, letting Siberia in.

The first breath was so cold Tony felt like he’d burned his throat. Despite dressing warmly, he regretted not wearing the Iron Man suit, having insisted on adjusting to the reality of the next seven days as soon as possible. It’d be five if they were lucky. He wasn’t banking on being lucky: he was just hoping it wouldn’t last more than a week.

A woman covered head-to-heel in cold-weather gear, one step removed from Antarctica bad-weather gear, stood near the base of the Quinjet’s deboarding ramp. In a voice that carried over the low hum of the plane, she advised, “Ostav'te dvigateli vklyuchennymi!”

Instantly, Tony felt out of his depth, but Natasha nodded and replied, “Blagodaryu vas!”—and that rang with comforting familiarity, _thank you!_ , fresh in his memory—before she translated for the pilots’ benefit, “Keep the engines running.”

Feeling two percent less out of his depth—thank God for multinational friendships—Tony breathed as shallowly as he dared through the mask of fabric around his mouth and nose, trying not to balk with every step as he marched out of the Quinjet and immersed himself in breathtaking tundra.

Stepping out onto the Moon couldn’t be much different, nix the whole blood-boiling and violent decompression thing. He didn’t feel under-dressed: he felt dangerously exposed. _Like a nerve_. The bite of it conjured an image of a snowball Earth long gone, hostile to all life. There was a metallic undertone to each gasping breath, so muted it tasted more like steel and smoke than cosmic dust. This was a place that belonged on Titan or Saturn, not Earth. It was a cold beyond description.

Hell, Tony realized, _was_ frozen. It crunched like glass and bone underfoot.

He felt momentary pity for Bruce, who was indubitably freezing his ass off two hundred miles farther north, but he couldn’t fathom a more intense cold, couldn’t imagine human survival pushed much farther than this.

The northernmost city on the planet with over 100,000 people. One of the coldest on the planet. Yet despite its hostility to life, Norilsk was far from empty.

Over a hundred and seventy thousand people had staked a claim to the earth here. Maybe they’d done so by huddling together for warmth like Emperor penguins, Tony thought inanely, yearning to scramble back up the ramp, slam the door shut, and thank his lucky stars that he didn’t have to live here full-time.

 _You do for the next seven days_.

A man, also dressed in cold-weather gear from head-to-toe, was busy moving their bags into two gray Lada 4x4s, Jeep-like cars that steamed nearby, engine-on.

Despite his casual gait, there was something unsettling about the sight. They had found the limits of human endurance if _the Russians_ were cold-defensive. A stalled engine could be death in weather this severe. The thought was sobering.

Unconcerned, the man stepped forward, removed his right glove, and met Steve, who had his own glove tucked in his left hand, greeting, “Zdravstvuyte.”

Steve echoed, “Zdravstvuyte,” and gave the man’s hand a shake that was just south of bone-crushing. Tony saw a flicker of surprise in the man’s eyes before he shook Clint’s bare hand in the same manner, the cold forgotten as the ritual repeated itself, never wanting for decorum, a simple greeting, a simple handshake. 

For all the neon smiles of Americans, Tony thought, there were few exchanges that conveyed welcome like a Russian handshake paired with the ubiquitous _zdravstvuyte_.

 _Hello_.

Tony could feel the ice coalescing on their host’s hand as he gripped Tony’s bare palm and shook it. He was grateful he’d spent hours rehearsing it, _learning_ it, _zdrah-stvooy-tye_ , because he was ready for it, not the weakest link, not the outsider disdaining the hosts. The man seemed satisfied, moving on.

Tony couldn’t feel his own fingers as he waited to put the glove back on, aware that their host wasn’t wearing a glove and therefore he shouldn’t, either. _When in Russia, do as the Russians_. 

That had ‘bad idea’ written all over it. Natasha had reminded him _not_ to try to drink anybody under the table, even though Tony prided himself on his robust alcoholic constitution, thank you _very_ much—

A touch awkwardly, the man held out a hand for Natasha. She cupped her bare hand around it delicately. He held it for a moment before pulling back, a quiet kind of surprise in his eyes. Tony didn’t mistake it in the man’s voice as he added expansively, “Dobro pozhalovat' v Sibir'.” _Welcome to Siberia_.

With perfect politeness, Natasha replied, “Khorosho byt' doma.” _Good home_ , Tony thought. _Good to be home_.

Natasha slipped her glove back on. Clint, wily bastard, had snuck his on while Tony fumbled with his, grateful for the excuse to retreat from the biting cold even though he’d lost precious body heat to the Arctic. Steve waited until the man absentmindedly returned his glove to its proper place before following suit. 

The man flicked Steve a glance. Tony could pinpoint the exact moment he decided that Steve and Natasha were in charge.

To be fair, they spoke fluent Russian, nothing halting or hopeful about their words, _say something I know_ mixed with the despair of _I don’t understand you_. Tony knew with the helmet on he could decipher Russian, Tartar, any language with a speaking population worth a hundredth of a percentage point, but without it, he was fumbling, new.

With something like a settled nod, the man looked at them in turn, sizing them up, before nodding at the cars. “Davay pogovorim v mashine.” _Let us talk in the machine._

Talk in the car, Tony deciphered. Falling into step behind their hosts, he tried not to slip as he scrambled on ice. Nobody visibly touched him, but he felt a hand steady him, there and gone between the blink of an eye. Tony relished the heat of it even as it disappeared. Feeling steadier— _not alone; not lost; not abandoned—_ he walked behind the woman and Natasha, who spoke softly together, words he didn’t try to discern. It wouldn’t have been practical over the modest wind that was kicking up to an eerie whistle on the open field. 

The Quinjet waited for them, ready to intercede, but Tony heard the thrum-thrum-thrum vanish as he slid with pathetic gratitude into the backseat of a car and snapped the door shut. 

Refusing to gasp breathlessly, afraid he’d gag from the force of it, he shrunk in on himself as the front passenger door opened, a murmured, _spasibo,_ thank you among friends. Natasha slipped into the seat with debonair ease before Steve shut the door behind her.

Despairing that Steve wasn’t joining them but knowing it was fair—one guide to a car, Tony thought dryly, even though Clint spoke enough Russian to get to Moscow in a bind—Tony was glad for Natasha’s presence as she spoke to their host. Surreptitiously, he dug around in a pocket and found his frozen earpiece. He tucked it over an icy ear.

“. . . Warmer than I thought it’d be.”

He could hear the suppressed amusement in the host’s voice as the car lurched placidly across the snow. “I do not think your American friends would agree with you.”

“They packed socks.”

In a cadence that was lyrical in its ease, their host asked, “And what of you? No American woman holds hands like that. Are you from Moscow? St. Petersburg?”

“Volgograd, actually.” A long pause, interrupted by the rolling grind of snow under tires. “I haven’t been home in a long time.”

Tony felt like he shouldn’t be listening, but Natasha offered up the conversation freely and he was in earshot. “I always liked Moscow, but you never forget home.”

“You never forget home,” the host echoed agreeably. He drove in silence for a while, then asked conversationally, “What is your name?” in a tone that implied he already knew but wanted to hear it himself. _Introduce yourself_.

Even expecting it, Natasha’s answer surprised Tony. “Natalia Romanova,” she said without missing a step. “And you are?”

Glancing in the rear view mirror, meeting Tony’s eyes—and making him feel voyeuristically aware that he was eavesdropping on a public conversation—he said loudly enough to convey he was speaking to both of them: “Dmitry Petrov.”

It was purely a formality—they knew, too, who their hosts were—but there was something comforting, something friendly about hearing it. 

Tony had read, all but memorized the debriefing files. Dmitry Mikhailovich Petrov and Alexandra Mikhailovna Petrova were young, twenty-nine and thirty, respectively. Alexandra was married to a man named Rodion Damirevich Kuznetsov, twenty-seven, who, along with Dmitry, worked for Norilsk Nickel Mining and Metallurgical Company, frequently abbreviated Nornickel. Rodion’s parents, Damir and Anna Kuznetsov, lived with them and helped support the family, but Norilsk had taken its toll on them, leaving them in poor health.

A lifetime of cold could kill tough people. What cold didn’t, poison did. Norilsk was one of the most polluted cities on the planet, producing so much sulfur dioxide that an area the size of _Germany_ was dead, botanically speaking. Wildlife was similarly scarce.

It was a mean place; it only got meaner if you thought about the marching dead who had built it, dying of a cold they couldn’t fend themselves from.

Tony sunk deeper into his coat, grateful for the warmth of the car, for the simplicity of Natasha’s conversation with Dmitry. He wanted to interject, offer a witty one-liner, but he was being good, he was being _good_. He was not going to jeopardize the assignment by sparking a minor international incident. All he had to do was sit back, look tame, and let Steve and Nat run the show.

Easy-peasy. If Clint could do it, he could do it _better_ , he resolved, looking out the window, taking in the scenery.

He’d never _planned_ on visiting Siberia, but he couldn’t deny a certain ethereal beauty to the scene. Eerie gray haze, white snow with blue accents, bare rocks, stumpy trees in the distance. It reminded him of Tunguska, an uninhabited region of Siberia famously leveled by an extraterrestrial object that acted like a meteor but left no trace of itself besides hundreds of thousands of flattened trees.

Earth was tough as hell—had defied their efforts to dig to the core, had held onto them so tightly they had to hemorrhage money to slingshot objects into space—but it trembled under the right pressure. Norilsk made him think of a meteoric impact that wasn’t a meteor, a city transformed by human inhabitants, _leveled_ by human inhabitants, who found a metal more precious than gold and mined it until the air bled poison.

Tony idly wondered how many seconds he’d shave off his life by breathing in unfiltered air. The cold itself was sharp and deconstructive, tearing him apart at a cellular level, ripping into his bones, but the mask-like cloth protected him from the worst of the respiratory vices. The air toxicity was real. He was grateful to thwart some of it, even though he knew he’d have to take it off indoors. Didn’t matter. Indoors was indoors, protected, however humbly, by walls and doors and roofs.

They were only there for a week, five days at best, nine at worst. That was eminently manageable. First day— _today—_ was the longest stretch of it, in a way, crossing eleven hours’ worth of time zones until it was hard to accept that four at night and five in the morning were the same thing on this strange and eerie planet they called home. That didn’t even include the twelve-hour flight, elongated by two refueling stops.

It was, in short, a long day, a lost day, in a sense. Usually after an ordeal like that, he’d be basking on a beach or burying himself in his own bed. Instead, he was jouncing along in the back of a car, staring out at the desolate landscape wondering what it was like to know you were going to live and die here. He didn’t suppress a shiver.

. o . 

_Shoes off._

_Don’t shake hands over the threshold._

_Coat off. Gloves off. Hats off._

_Be polite._

Tony approached it all methodically. Alexandra and the boys were nowhere to be found. Tony wanted to ask, but Natasha wasn’t worried and Tony decided to assume the best, that they were off on their own adventure and he’d hear about it eventually. Right then, he could remember shoes off, coat off, gloves off, be polite.

There was a comfortingly ritualistic quality to it, a lost air of decorum. He was thankful Dmitry had let them in and greeted Anna, kissing her cheek. She said something that sounded like _Dima_ while he slid his shoes off. Wasn’t much different than back home, really. The lesson was just drilled into him: _shoes off, coat off_. Nothing sloppy. He was a _guest_. He could be respectful. He could. He came within an inch of thrusting his hand out prematurely as Damir rounded a corner, asking, “Are the Americans here?” while Anna looked at Tony, at Natasha, and said:

“Yes.”

Tony reached up to flick the translator off, determined to hoof it. He wanted to be part of the proceedings and not merely a hanger-on. And he wasn’t totally caught off guard, either, exchanging polite handshakes and greetings with Damir. He didn’t make the mistake of offering a hand to Anna, even though he instinctively felt like he _should_ , tried to imagine how indignant Pepper would be if he’d brushed her off. But he didn’t brush Anna off, just stayed cordial, keeping his distance, _respect women_ , as Natasha teasingly called it. 

_Aye, aye, Captain_ , Tony had replied, lying on the couch and reading a paperback copy of _Russian for Dummies: Second Edition_.

What? Genius or not, the clarity was appreciated when he only had a week to buckle down and _learn_ it all. Not just the language, either.

Mostly, it amounted to “common decency” and “manners,” but Americans had those in surprisingly short supply, Tony discovered, as he caught himself forgetting to shake hands with everyone when he entered _and_ left a room, or left his shoes on past the threshold, or sat with his legs crossed. 

When he pouted and asked if the latter was problematic because he was a man and it was too feminine, he was informed: “Actually, it’s because the soles of the feet aren’t supposed to be seen.” He looked at Steve dubiously, but he shrugged and insisted, “They’re not” and hooked a hand around Tony’s foot when he defiantly stretched his legs out on the coffee table. “Get in the habit,” he told Tony, more playful than reproachful. Tony stuck his thumb between index finger and middle finger, the Russian equivalent of flipping the bird. He grinned when Steve sighed and ambled off.

He wished Steve would idle back _in,_ even though Natasha and Dmitry were effortlessly engaging, with Dmitry introducing “Natalia” to his parents-in-law. Dmitry didn’t leave him out. Tony offered, “Dlya menya bol’shaya chest’ poznakomit’sya s vami.” He’d spent maybe twenty minutes practicing the phrase, _I’m honored to meet you_ , in anticipation of the trip. 

_Zdravstvuyte,_ on the other hand, was a bear—

_Be polite. Charming._

_But don’t smile. Fake American is scented a mile away in Russia._

He had to suppress a warm, welcome-to-the-party smile, especially when faced with Anna’s invitation to take Natasha’s bag, Damir’s gruff insistence that _he_ take it. Dmitry told them to “sidet’, sidet’,” which Tony barely needed a lick of Russian to know meant _sit, sit_. It started to feel more like a home than an assignment even as he barked: “Podozhdite!” _Wait!_

Dmitry paused. Tony fumbled with snow-numb fingers for the bag on his own back, to Dmitry’s bemusement. Tony got his fingers around the little boxes, differentiating between them and holding them out to Anna and Damir, respectively. Dmitry said, “Tebe ne nuzhno bylo nichego prinosit’.” And Tony only caught _prinosit’_ , bring, but he knew the gist of the polite rejection dance.

Striking the middle ground between nonchalant and sincere, he insisted, “Eto malen'kiy podarok. Malen’kiy podarok.” _This is a small gift. Little present_. He extended Anna’s gift first. She took it with a simple, _blagodaryu vas,_ thank you.

( _Sitting upside-down on the couch, feet hooked over the back and deeply ensconced in_ Russian for Dummies, _he asked, “Do Twinkies count as culturally appropriate gifts?” and yelped when Natasha chucked a pillow at him. “Listen, I’m_ trying _to be culturally aware, it says bringing a gift specific to your home country is considered especially thoughtful!”_

 _“If you bring a Twinkie,” Natasha said, dead serious, “I will kill you.”_ )

So he’d grumbled and picked up some Marie Belle chocolate for the Lady and a Throne watch for the Monsieur. Neither gift was extravagantly expensive—working class Americans might flinch at a $300 watch and he wasn’t about to whip out a receipt and watch Damir’s expression of thoughtful enjoyment turn to shocked disapproval—but both gifts were thoughtful _,_ New York specific, culturally appropriate.

He could be polite, dammit.

( _Rubbing his eyes, more on the floor than the couch, Tony asked, “Who gets the gift? Father, son, Holy Spirit?”_

_Leveling a flat look at him, Natasha said, “If I went to your parents’ house, who gets the host gift?”_

_Huh. That easy_.)

The parents did seem duly pleased, which made Tony _very_ pleased. He accepted a two-handed shake from Damir with only a small smile.

It was only six PM, according to the clock—and the gift watch that Tony had thoughtfully primed in advance—but Tony was bone-tired and his stomach hurt with hunger, hadn’t eaten since that morning, hadn’t had an appetite on the plane. He _yearned_ for a warm bed, but that wasn’t an option, not yet, _be good_. He was good, he was emphatically a good guest when he wasn’t jet lagged as hell and chest-cold and hoping desperately he didn’t catch pneumonia within the first twelve hours because that would make the whole trip eminently _un_ -fun—

Deep breath. Big boy pants. He could handle this.

. o . 

He could _not_ handle this.

He was cold, fucking _freezing_ , despite the blankets and the surprisingly generous warmth of the apartment building. His belly, while full, ached for a different reason. He hated being cold, hated shivering. Worse still, he hated not having J.A.R.V.I.S. to talk to, to say proudly, _Guess who didn’t fuck up?_ and hear a polished reply of:

_Was it you, sir?_

Rolling onto his side, planting his face in a pillow, Tony curled up into a ball, waiting for his toes to warm up. Normally, that was easy: he’d press them against Steve’s calves. Steve would yowl in surprise or merely grunt in annoyance, depending on how immersed he was in his book, before deciding that he _could_ share some of his super-soldier warmth. Then Tony could crawl under his shirt, cheek resting on his chest, while Steve sighed and asked, “Want me to turn the heat up?”

And he thought, _That’s my line_ because cold wasn’t a problem, except it oddly _was_. He couldn’t figure out why until his chest started to burn, a stinging pain that made him grind his teeth. It was the skin around the metal, mostly. Even though the core burned hot enough to match the temperature most of the time, it was under stiff pressure to keep up with _forty below_.

Yes, he wanted the heat turned up, he wanted to roll into a ball and sit in front of the fireplace and read until he forgot the world. That was his ideal Sunday evening. Not lying on a bed in a cold Russian city, aching for company. 

He heard the faintest, barely-there’st knock before the door eased open. He stayed in his huddle, listening to the door slide shut.

Steve climbed onto the bed next to him, creaking. He murmured, “Could hear your teeth chattering from down the hall.”

Tony huffed a breath, wanted to say something sharp and smart, but he stayed in his ball. Steve added quietly, “Gotta be careful. Not like home.”

Tony didn’t bother asking what he meant, because he was cold and tired and yes, his teeth were chattering. No, there was no lock on the door, and yes, it would cause friction if not outright trouble if the host family discovered that Steve Rogers wasn’t sleeping with Natalia Romanova.

Sighing unhappily, he rolled over, holding the blankets tightly. He planted his forehead against Steve’s chest. Steve slid an arm around him, encouraging him to let go of the blanket. Tony made a soft sound of disapproval but obliged. Steve pulled him close, a human space heater. Tony breathed in deeply, shakily.

“What’re we doing here?” Tony whispered.

Steve replied softly, “Just a few days, Tony.” He rubbed Tony’s back with a big warm palm, radiating enough heat to warm a room. “Wish you weren’t here. Wish you were home.”

“Somebody’s gotta keep you outta trouble,” Tony murmured, eyes closed.

Steve hummed. “Saw the mines.”

That got Tony’s attention. Despite the ache in his forehead, he opened his eyes and shuffled back. He met Steve’s gaze, lamplight blue, lighthouse blue, the familiar white-blue of the arc reactor playing on natural irises. “They’re a way’s out,” Steve went on quietly, close enough that Tony could hear him. “Not far. It’s like its own city. Only saw a bit of it.” A beat. “The whole city—those mines are the lifeblood. And there’s so much palladium down there.”

“Don’t get greedy,” Tony murmured, mostly to overshadow the rising unease in his chest.

Steve huffed. “Never. Just. . . .” He sighed. “So many lives ride on that mine.”

Tony asked, “You meet Rodion?”

Steve nodded. “Not long, but—shook hands, you know, said hello. He was shaking. I don’t think anyone else noticed it.” His words were so soft. Tony suspected it wasn’t entirely out of secrecy. “Just shaking. Tremors, you know.” A pause. “I don’t think he’s well, Tony.”

There was a kind of indecipherable sadness in Steve’s tone. Tony wanted to fix it, wanted to say _don’t worry,_ but he knew that it would be a lie. If Steve said Rodion wasn’t well, then he wasn’t. And Tony remembered, almost from another life, Steve telling him: _I don’t think I can lose anyone else_.

“Lotta people live here,” Tony said as comfortingly as he could manage. Steve stared at him, dim and dark and ice-water blue eyes. “Can’t be. . . .” He trailed off. It felt lame to say _that bad_. It was. It felt harsh to say, but he needed to say it: “Let’s stick to the mission. Okay? Let’s do that. Maybe it’ll be fun, you know, minding our own business, toeing the line.”

Steve frowned, brow furrowing. He looked like he wanted to argue, wracking his brain for justification, before deflating. “Stick to the mission,” he murmured. Leaning forward, he pressed a kiss to Tony’s forehead. “Can’t imagine it’s comfortable, but the suit might be warmer,” he mused. He nested a hand in Tony’s hair, letting Tony hide under his chin. “’f you get cold. I can’t stay.”

Sighing, Tony asked, “Where’re you going?”

Steve nosed at his temple, pressed a kiss there. “Nowhere yet,” he assured. “Nornickel headquarters tomorrow. Wish me luck.”

“Why?” Tony asked, equal parts content to be cuddled and wary about being lulled by it. It was impossible to resist.

“Gotta convince some tight-lipped folks that we weren’t kidding about comin’ to Siberia to make sure things’re runnin’ smoothly,” Steve replied, cadence smooth, like he was telling a story. “You can’t break down the front door, of course. But they weren’t willing to talk over the phone, ‘f you catch my drift.”

“Sounds—ominous,” Tony said warily, even though Steve’s breathing was calm, calming.

“Nah. Just callin’ a bluff. Hopefully Natasha and I can get ‘em to let us in the door tomorrow, just—you know, entertain the idea, guided walking tour, whatever they want. Make sure things are all right, make a few friends, that sort of thing. Show ‘em we’re not here to steal stuff.”

“Damn.” Tony sighed in mock disappointment. “I brought my grappling hook and _everything_. God-fucking-dammit.”

Steve sighed, scratching his neck lightly. “Quinjet pickup is Friday. Tomorrow’s all about niceties. Don’t expect to get the keys anywhere sooner than Wednesday, but maybe we can work some magic. One of our friendlies is pretty high up, kind of like a supervisor. Other friendly is a bit more grunt labor. Russian-born, both of ‘em. Loyal, but outsiders. 

“I was supposed to visit, make sure things were okay. S’been three years since anyone on the outside’s made contact. And then two months ago, Nadia sent three yellow alerts in as many days. Kinda strange. A yellow alert is a request for a non-emergency extraction.

“Then we got the call off. And everything was back to normal. Normal reports. No mention of the yellow alerts. Oddest thing is—we haven’t heard from Yelena at all.

“That’s what—” He paused, swallowed. Then he finished, “That’s what scares me.” Stroking a hand up and down Tony’s back, speaking more to himself than anyone, he added softly, “Just gotta have boots on the ground sometimes, y’know? Not enough to hear it. To read it on a screen. Sometimes you gotta go right to the heart of the matter. Something’s not right. I can’t—can’t wait and see, you know, wait for it to get worse, ‘f there’s even a chance that—I don’t know.”

Feeling small, Tony listened to his heart, beating faster than normal. 

At last, Steve said, “If there’s even a chance—”

“And if there’s not?” The question was so soft, so innocent.

Steve’s voice was dead-serious as he replied obstinately, “I’m gonna find ‘em.”

. o . 

Tony couldn’t say he was outright _enjoying_ Norilsk, so much as he was learning its language, and that was its own pleasure.

Not just the linguistics, although he enjoyed that, too, more than he thought he would. Russian was lyrical. Comforting to say, soft and deep in the chest. It felt real. But it wasn’t the words that he’d become most familiar with. It was the cold, the Arctic emptiness, the people who went about their lives in excruciating gray misery with a normalcy unique to the human race.

He joined in, wining and dining (in measured amounts) and touring the town. He’d been surprised to discover architectural marvels scattered around, disproving his expectation of a barrack-city. It was equal parts efficient and beautiful. Natasha said, “There were artists, you know,” and didn’t elaborate. Tony didn’t need her to. The graveyards were everywhere. Everywhere. The architects, the builders, the ones who brought Norilsk to life, reluctant and dying and still finding beauty somewhere—it ached inside him.

To die and leave something beautiful behind, in a land no one would ever want to come and no one would live long enough to truly enjoy.

Yet they were proud of Norilsk. He felt proud of Norilsk, too, that it existed, that it _thrived_ , that it demanded rightful attention for its extraordinary feat of ongoing survival. Dmitry was nothing if not a gracious host, introducing him to seemingly everyone on the streets as a friend, always with the cordial air of no fake smiles and firmly clasped hands, yet speaking on a familiar basis that made Tony instantly feel like he could learn to be part of the conversation, with time, with patience. If he chose to stay, he could become part of Norilsk, too.

There was something peaceful about it all, the oxymoron of bright gray skies, the promise of perpetual darkness hovering on the horizon. Stick around a month and he’d get to experience the full wrath of winter, the kind of cold few people would ever encounter, the kind of primordial _darkness_ that defied understanding, unceasing, undiminishing, for months at a time. The sun wouldn’t rise above the horizon in the heart of winter. It would stay firmly below, occasionally teasing soft light, never enough to make night turn to day. And still the people lived and moved on with their lives.

It was amazing, how hardy and indifferent people could be to the elements. The idea was reinforced as, standing in the Mark IX, he watched a man stroke through a lake, artificially heated by pipes from the Nornickel mines. The air steamed, negative thirty above. He wasn’t sure what the water temperature was, but logic said the freshwater must be at least thirty-three degrees Fahrenheit to stay above freezing, a sixty-three degree difference that offered a glimpse of understanding, if not a true grasp of it.

The suit was fifty degrees Fahrenheit, colder than he’d ever let it be at home, but warm enough that it was a shock every time he stepped out of it. The drastic temperature differences were fucking with the arc reactor enough he was starting to worry about frostbite, the pain was so intense at times, but then it faded away, melted by the omnipresent warmth. He filled himself with warm vodka and decided Mother Russia was a nation worthy of a thousand toasts.

Well, he thought, nursing a hangover on Wednesday morning, maybe a dozen. Or three. Three was a good round number. _W_ _hy_ he’d gone for a fourth was a conversation he wished he could have had with 10:30 PM Tony, now that he was 5:30 AM Tony and so hungover he was afraid to open his eyes.

Russian alcohol was tough stuff, and he wasn’t twenty-five or a super-soldier. Steve was lucky, he thought, head buried under his pillow like a regretful ostrich. _He_ could drink anyone under the table. As it was, he was succeeding on the “making friends” front, if only because he never turned down an invitation to make toasts not war, went fresh to every political fight, a juggernaut of human will power.

Tony felt bad for the poor Russians who didn’t realize that underneath the sweet farm boy exterior was a never-stand-down soldier. To be fair, Steve didn’t announce it, had accepted with only mild reluctance a bullet-proof jacket in lieu of the usual stars and stripes, a clear tape over his shield successfully muting its flashy hues until, from a short distance, it appeared plain silver.

It was a subtle, dare he say _harmless_ , deception, intended to show that they hadn’t come with flags draped over their shoulders, ready to plant them on the first open ground they found. The Russians were accommodating to a fault—Tony learned the hard way that clearing his plate signaled, _I’m still hungry_ , when he was halfway to a food coma—but they weren’t above talking about the Americans in a way that was equal parts playful, calculating, and ruthless. It was fair, Tony decided, given all the _Comrade Kovac_ jokes back on American soil. The two distant worlds lobbed verbal snowballs at each other, knowing that nothing would come of it, thankfully separated by a big blue sea.

(Tony, wisely, kept his mouth shut, refusing to fall for the familiar foreigner trap of friendly agreement when Dmitry’s friend Ivan said something disparaging about the homeland. Tony, nursing a glass of water, adopted the certified Steve Rogers approach to avoiding awkward conversations, draining it in one continuous gulp. Ivan smiled a little, a gesture so slight that Tony might have missed it two days ago. Tony patted himself on the back for once again not causing a minor international incident.)

Alexandra was comparatively reserved, but she hit it off well with Natasha, the two of them like sisters. It was only ever “Natalia,” and Tony was curious— _Russian for Dummies: Second Edition_ only covered so much, after all—but he didn’t want to confront it in the open air, and there weren’t many private spaces in Anna and Damir’s little home.

As it was, they’d filled the space out well. Clint and Dmitry slept in the main room while Tony and Steve shared Dmitry’s room. (Steve, ostensibly, was rooming with Natasha down the hall in the actual guest room that also doubled as a storage space.)

Tony had the impression that the Kuznetsovs were rather well-to-do. There was a friendly, communal feeling to rooms that served as multipurpose spaces. The only distinct area was the kitchen, which was the most communal space of all. The whole arrangement was deeply familial.

Sitting in the snow, watching the terminal sunset, Tony said, “Having fun, Bruce?”

With a staticky sigh, Bruce said over the faceless mic, “ _I’m ashamed to report I kind of am. We saw a polar bear yesterday. Almost worth the trip just for that._ ” Conversationally, he asked, “ _How’re things down south? Warm?_ ”

“Tropical,” Tony agreed. “It’s three-below today. Feels like summer.”

“ _I’m jealous._ ”

“You should be.” A beat. “Your bags packed?”

“ _We going home yet?_ ”

“Call me an optimist.” Another pause. “Steve can drink ‘em under the table, they’ll be waving a white flag any day now.”

“ _Aww. Take it easy on them._ ”

“It’s my stubborn American obstinacy,” Tony said. “Can’t back down from a challenge.”

. o .

Steve opened the door at midnight and slunk into Tony's arms, low enough Tony’s chin rested on icy straw hair.

Wrapping his own arms around Steve, Tony waited patiently, but Steve said nothing. At last, no small amount concerned, Tony prompted, “Steve?”

“Tomorrow,” he murmured, sounding exhausted and triumphant. “Got the key to the city.” He hummed, relieved, happy. “Had a good feelin’, you know. . . . Things seem good.” He yawned. “’m so tired, Tony.”

Holding him close on the bed, his own eyes shut, Tony advised quietly, “Then go to sleep.”

Steve did, snoring softly. Tony was so tired he barely registered it, deep breath in, deep breath out, lulling him down, down, down.

. o . 

Leading the way across the snow-packed earth, into the heart of the beast, Rodion Damirevich Kuznetsov narrated, “My yavlyayemsya krupneyshim v mire proizvoditelem palladiya.” _We are the world's largest palladium producer._ “My takzhe yavlyayemsya krupneyshim v mire proizvoditelem rafinirovannogo nikelya.” _We are also the world's largest producer of refined nickel._

“Otsyuda i nazvaniye Noril'skiy Nikel'.” _Hence the name ‘Norilsk Nickel.’_

“V techeniye mnogikh let palladiy byl lish' pobochnym produktom proizvodstva platiny.” _For many years palladium was only a by-product of platinum production._ “Teper' palladiy—nasha osnovnaya ruda.” _Now palladium—is our main ore._ “Zdes', v Noril'ske, my dobyvayem 3,5 milliona untsiy palladiya v god.” _Here, in Norilsk, we mine 3.5 million ounces of palladium per year_. 

“Eto pochti 100,000 kilogramm.” _That is almost 100,000 kilograms._

“Spros rastet s kazhdym godom.” _Demand is growing every year._ “Predpriyatiya khotyat ispol'zovat' palladiy, potomu chto on sil'nyy i krasivyy.” _Businesses want to use palladium, because it is strong and beautiful_. 

“Etot sayt byl produktivnym v techeniye trekh pokoleniy.” _This site has been productive for three generations_. “Mnogiye lyudi khoteli by zhit', kak my, dobyvaya palladiy.” _Many people would like to live, like us, mining palladium._

Rodion had a voice fit for a stage: just as well, given his competition, the roar of underground machines that might drown out a timid tour guide. The warehouse wasn’t as noisy or disagreeable as the earth below, but it was far from a library.

Tony found his gaze drawn to the walls, marveling crate after crate of high-quality nickel, copper, and platinum, stacked along the walls, awaiting transport. Things moved slow this far north—transportation was limited to obscenely expensive air travel and summer-only ferry travel—but it was clearly enormously lucrative. Looking at the boxes, he found himself drawn to the rarest and most precious of them all: _палладий_ , palladiy.

He’d spent hours memorizing the Cyrillic alphabet back on American soil, determined to be able to read a sign that said, “опасность!” and recognize it as “DANGER!” without needing to first electrocute himself. _Opasnost’_ was the phonetic equivalent. It rolled well off the tongue, even though it had felt indecipherable prior to learning that _п_ had a Western _p_ sound, _c_ was _s_ , and so on. 

One of the most agreeable things about the Russian language was the lack of surprises. English had untold numbers of linguistic quirks, where the letter _c_ could morph into incongruous variants such as “crack,” a _k_ sound, or “cease,” an _s_ sound, without finding itself in an identity crisis. In Russian, _c_ was always pronounced _s_ , and that was that. Opasnost’. _Danger_.

He saw it on boxes and signs and locked doors that Rodion used a key to get through. Rodion had volunteered with what amount to a great deal of zeal by Russian standards to guide them on the first leg of the tour, to offer a look-around prior to descending below ground. They weren’t going far, they were assured, as some of the deepest shafts descended an exhilarating 1,500 meters—5,000 feet—below ground. The human mines, thankfully, cooled off at a temperate 1,200 meters, just shy of 4,000 feet.

Almost a vertical mile carved tenaciously through sheer rock. Most of the mines were at the comparatively shallow depth of 500 meters, around 1,600 feet. Still a hell of a fall: 150 stories separated them from the shallowest deposits of palladium. It was that realization that cooled Tony’s blood more than any article about sulfuric rain or _air temperatures can reach_ _a hundred below zero, Fahrenheit_ ever could.

The city lived on two levels. The extra-terrans, who walked around on the surface permafrost, building houses on the bones of their ancestors, mammoth and man alike—and the sub-terrans, who lived so far down ambient air temperatures were a sweltering 30 degrees Celsius, 86 degrees Fahrenheit. There was less manual labor than in the Gulag forced labor era, but there was plenty of heavy-lifting for the humans, working alongside machines that were the real grunt-labor to mine their precious metal ores.

Should the Earth go through another tempestuous phase and adopt a snowball veneer, Tony thought mines would be a good place to try to thwart extinction.

They’d still be fucked—there was a reason Earth didn’t have stratified societies, only small mobile mining colonies numbering in the hundreds to thousands on the largest commercial scales—but at least they would die warm of carbon dioxide poisoning rather than frozen in a river of nitrogen and oxygen.

It was dangerous to pit man-made devices against Mother Nature. She had been crunching mountains and swallowing oceans whole since time immemorial. Yet it was human nature to defy Nature. The precious palladium wasn’t lying like meteorite dust on the surface, but they weren’t going to leave it. It was down there, formed, according to Rodion, “during one of the largest volcanic eruptions in Earth’s history,” a volcanic eruption that lasted a million years.

The _Sibirskiye trappy,_ Siberian Traps, covered a staggering portion of its namesake territory and had achieved immortal fame in scientific spheres for erupting truly horrifying quantities of molten rock. Though cousin to the tame basaltic flows found in hotspots like Hawaii, the Siberian Traps were unfathomably productive, pouring lava out in such prodigious quantities that they weren’t measured in cubic kilograms, they were measured in cubic _kilometers_ , over a million of them during the most infamous extinction event in Earth history.

During their expulsion from the Earth’s interior, molten basalt had gorged itself on sulfur, only to be re-buried under the continuously erupting lava. It was a kind of geologic double immersion that transformed sulfur-loaded rocks into prized nickel, copper, platinum, and palladium.

Over 700,000 cubic miles of lava.

That was a lot of lava. 

Rodion assured the danger was as extinct as the ancient lava, but Tony still mentally checked Norilsk and Siberia off his _retirement destinations_ list.

To be fair to Russia, the catastrophe had been global and total: over 90% of all life on the planet, from the tiniest proto-plankton to the lumbering, sail-backed, seven-foot-tall _Dimetrodon_ , had met their horrible end not-coincidentally around the same geological time that the Siberian Traps were being formed. You couldn’t escape a catastrophe of that nature.

 _Permian Mass Extinction for Dummies_ didn’t exist, but Lord Google did. Tony found himself setting aside _Russian for Dummies: Second Edition_ to get lost in a prehistoric world.

It was a good day, Tony reflected, chafing his bare hands together, not to be an ill-fated _Dimetrodon_ , wheezing on air so poisonous it made Norilsk today look like a clean-earth initiative champion.

It was also a good day not to be a full-time, effectively life-time employee of Norilsk Nickel. 

Their band—Natasha, Steve, Rodion, and Tony made four—had surrendered their Arctic outermost layers as a courtesy upon arrival, the indoor facility kept a placid forty degrees Fahrenheit compared to the twenty-below outside. They surrendered their coats at Rodion’s suggestion. “Miny teplyye,” he justified. _Warm mines_.

Tony shed his second coat like the others, but instead of accepting a gas mask and goggles, he tapped the suit, innocuously rolling along beside him. He was proud that he didn’t say to Rodion’s questioning look, _Brought my own_ , because that was impolite. Instead, he explained, “U menya yest' kostyum,” _I have a suit_. Rodion watched with further surprise as he tipped the case on its side, released the latch, and suited up in eight seconds. 

Rodion said wonderingly, “Zheleznyy chelovek.” _Iron Man_.

There wasn’t a tone of surprise so much as awe. Their hosts had been similarly debriefed about their guests prior to the visit, so they _knew_ what was coming. That in itself had required no small amount of assurances that Tony wasn’t _exactly_ bringing a high-tech gun, it just happened to be a dual functionality. But there was a difference, Tony knew, between seeing the suit on screen and seeing it in person. He wasn’t above a little narcissism: Iron Man was fucking gorgeous in person. Recordings always made it seem flatter, like a diamond under flat light.

He was eighty percent sure that ninety percent of the delay on getting green-lit for an underground tour was the suit. Steve and Natasha could make prominent good faith gestures, no guns, no knives, no concealed bionics, no means of taking a thousand photos a minute or spiriting away a pound of palladium worth an entire Nornickel worker’s annual salary.

Concealed cameras kept him honest, as well as the prominent awareness that he knew it _would_ create a more-than-minor international incident if even an ounce of palladium vanished unaccountably. 

He had no need to steal palladium. Tony was sure Steve and Natasha had used his lucrative wealth as a reminder that he need not take it by nefarious means if he so desired to acquire Nornickel’s finest. One way or another, he’d been allowed to bring the suit. He was grateful for it as they stepped into a claustrophobic elevator.

Clint had elected to stay behind, declining the opportunity to actualize a latent dream and become a Mole Man. Tony appreciated his reserve as they began a not-quite-rickety descent, Rodion standing stoically in front of the control panel, Natasha offering no casual conversation and Steve tilting his head, looking at the ceiling. Tony could see him deciding the best approach to a manual escape, eyes flicking from one corner to the other.

Tony wanted to remind him, _super-suit?_ , but he kept his silence, aware that Natasha was also studying the floor, the control panel.

They stepped through the doors and the suit registered a temperature jump to sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, homey, familiar. For a moment Tony was tempted to take off the suit, but he didn’t miss the goggles and masks that the others wore. _T_ _his is not a safe place_.

Rodion said encompassingly, “Dobro pozhalovat' v noril'skiy nikel'.” _Welcome to Norilsk Nickel_.

It felt belated, yet not, because this, this super-terrestrial world, more earthly than any land-air-and-sea environment could ever be, _this_ was the Hadean place they’d come halfway across the world to see. The place where precious ore resided in a quantity so expansive Nornickel could be in business another hundred years and not run dry. The place where people came to live and lived to die, where not gold but _palladiy_ was king.

They walked for a long time. Rodion offered intermittent comments, explaining the workday in only modest terms—Russians weren’t people to overstate or over-critique a thing, accepting it for what it was—and pointing out things like _we have twelve hundred kilometers of tunnels down here_.

That, too, was a dizzying amount of land to get lost in.

The suit was buoyant, walking itself while Tony coasted on air, like being on the moon with a tether to the ground. He was grateful as the pedometer recorded 3.5 miles, 6.7 miles, 9.8 miles. Rodion paused a handful of times to cough into a hand. In a reassuring tone, Rodion said after each occasion, _Prevoskhodit ugol’._

“ _Superior to coal_ ,” J.A.R.V.I.S. translated. Tony felt an odd sadness at the statement.

Every time the mask came off, the human body began an earnest and ultimately losing fight against the poisoned air. Air so deadly it had scoured the earth and left only stubbly sickly trees behind.

Even Tunguska was green and thriving in the cold unyielding north, but not Norilsk.

The only green that grew in Norilsk was indoors, shielded from air too poisonous to sustain long-term life.

Tony had wandered around beyond the city limits in the suit, recording footage and taking a few pictures for posterity, always escorted by Dmitry, who nearly danced in place to stay warm, or Alexandra, who advised, “Ne dal’she,” _no further_ , in warning, after a short time. There was an entire tundra out there that he could explore in his space suit, but he knew it was pushing them to walk around for more than thirty minutes in sub-zero temperatures, a harsh wind untempered by the narrow city streets.

It was easy to see how, without any modern accommodations—and without even a _city_ , only the barest of shelters constructed in haste and desperation, the most grueling of means enabling tenuous survival—over a quarter of a million people had died building a city on ice.

Rodion said, “And here is Yelena Smirnova,” and Tony saw Steve falter in surprise before Yelena turned to greet them.

Formally, she greeted, “Hello, Rodion.”

“Hello, Yelena,” Rodion replied. Gesturing at his companions, he added, “These are the Americans. Natalia Romanova, Steven Rogers, and Anthony Stark.” He gestured at each in turn.

Nodding, Yelena said to them all, “I had heard you would be coming. I have been privileged to be selected to conduct you to the palladium operations.”

Agreeably, Rodion said, “Good. They are staying with my wife, Alexandra, and our family. If you have any trouble finding me, contact her and she will take care of everything.” Gloves off, he turned, shook hands firmly with Steve and Tony and again offered the dainty hand-clasp that Tony now understood was a sort of compromise between Russian men and women in such exchanges, a gesture extended to foreign women as a way of being culturally attentive.

It was oddly touching, a cultural sensitivity Tony had shamefully thought the Russians, by nature aloof on American terms, would not bother with. But they were polite and friendly, just not over-the-top.

Yelena was older than Rodion by at least ten years, her eyes tired under the goggles, but her manner was alert, competent, as she said, “Welcome to Norilsk Nickel. If you will follow me, I will show you the palladium.”

Rather than returning to the original elevator, a long way’s off in the tunnels, she led them forward instead. Natasha fell into step alongside her. Steve walked half a pace behind Tony.

The reason why became obvious as Steve said in such an undertone it was nearly subvocal, “ _Not Yelena_.”

An electric crackle of unease made Tony falter a step, tripping in the suit. Yelena and Natasha paused, looking back at him. He said sheepishly, “Ya spotknulsya; vse v poryadke.” _I stumbled; everything is fine_.

Yelena— _Not_ -Yelena—took him at face value, nodding and conducting them along without a word. Tony felt a cold sweat settle over him, a paranoia that could only be matched by Steve’s unease as he said in that inaudible murmur, “ _Don’t panic. Everything under control_.”

It took Tony a moment to realize that Steve was speaking German, J.A.R.V.I.S. translating it effortlessly. It was smart: a double-insulator against detection that maintained a vague if superficial sound to the host language. Not like English. English was too different, too _detectable_. 

English, Natasha had warned, was rare in Russia, only popular among the younger generations in big cities. In places like Norilsk, finding an English speaker was like finding a four-leafed clover: more common than legend might lead to believe but far from the standard. He’d been advised by the resident team leaders to keep his mouth shut and stick to question-answer format in public. Small talk was for natives. Polite silence was for everyone else.

They walked and Steve said in the same careful undertone, “ _Wrong eye color_.” It made Tony feel cold in the suit, imagining how he’d feel if someone like Daniel Lee had approached him with a smile and a familiar handclasp and black eyes instead of blue.

The cold would fuck with colored contacts, Tony knew. Besides, what were the odds boots-on-the-ground agents would ever confirm the deception?

 _This is bad_ , he thought, as they neared a pair of elevator doors.

Steve advised, “ _Can’t turn back yet. Don’t know how deep_.”

Tony had a feeling he wasn’t talking about the depth reading of 392 feet.

The palladium mines were 1,200 feet below them. 

Tony stopped abruptly, digging in his heels. Yelena paused, looking at him and asking, “Ty v poryadke?”

Tony nodded. “Ya v poryadke,” he assured. _I’m okay_. It sounded metallic. He knew that he could have J.A.R.V.I.S. speak for him, but the words were easy, familiar, in his own tongue. Yelena seemed satisfied.

She wasn’t nervous, Tony noted uneasily. He wondered if she’d known _Iron Man_ was coming.

They reached the elevators. Yelena stepped in first. Natasha followed. Tony, not shaking, stepped in, feeling claustrophobic as he took up his post in a corner. Steve took one step towards them.

There was a muted _thud_ in the distance, a sonic _boom_ that made Steve pause in the threshold, easing back onto level ground, more reflex than conscious decision, body language primed for a fight. Tony couldn’t place the sound, frowning in confusion, dull-minded with animal curiosity. It was like a crack of thunder underwater, muted but _huge_. Then the tunnel _shivered._

In nearly the same cosmic instant, the tunnel collapsed into itself and the ground dropped out from beneath Tony as the elevator cable snapped, sending the car into catastrophic freefall.

There was no time to react. The world cut to black before he realized they were falling, faster than he’d thought possible, the car rattling and whining as it screamed southward. 

Yelena cried out in alarm, a thin animal cry of horror. Natasha shouted, “Stark!” Tony hit the thrusters clumsily, involuntarily, smacking into the metal ceiling with enough force to dent it, impressed that he didn’t barrel right through it, but it was awkward, too much surface area, he needed to put pressure on a point, but he didn’t have time. His brain jumped suicidally to the old elevator trick, that if you could somehow jump at the instant you hit the bottom, maybe, _maybe_ , you could survive. It would never workin real life, no human had perfect reflexes and you’d still _fall—_

He was a living bomb shelter, knew the suit could absorb the shock of a building collapsing on it, but he wasn’t alone. There wasn’t _time_ , they had five-four-three-two—

He didn’t think, grabbing Natasha in both arms and leaping upwards, engaging the auto-hover with a twist of the heel. He had a moment to think, _I’ll be_ and then with unanticipated suddenness, he slammed into the ceiling, cracking his helmeted head on the wall with enough force to shatter stars across his vision, the roar of impact softened to ringing silence. He slurred, “Hover,” desperately, repeatedly, because he couldn’t fall or he’d crush Natasha.

Through a herculean effort, he focused every ounce of panicked, adrenaline-spiked, blurred-vision concentration on checking the grip he had on Natasha, pressed against the ceiling as the suit struggled to unpeel itself from the mini crater he’d created in the metal.

Tentatively, he loosened his grip. She let out a thin groan, said through gritted teeth, “Stark” and he didn’t know if it was a question or an answer, an order or a plea, but he responded to it, prying the metal arms off her like they weren’t his own, letting her down. He didn’t look at the unmoving figure on the floor, not purposefully, even though his wobbly vision kept hauling a mirror Yelena—not-Yelena, not-Yelena—into peripheral view.

He closed his eyes tightly, trying to crush the scorching panic, the unbridled adrenaline making his heart pound in his chest too fast to think, his whole body primed for a fight that wasn’t coming.

He opened his eyes—tried to, at least—but his world swooped upside-down. He slid under the ice instead.

His last thought was, _Holy fuck, we survived._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Russian phrases, in chronological order:
> 
>  _Ostav'te dvigateli vklyuchennymi!_ \- Leave the engines running!  
>  _Blagodaryu vas!_ \- Thank you! (Formal.)  
>  _Zdravstvuyte._ \- Hello. (Formal.)  
>  _Dobro pozhalovat' v Sibir'._ \- Welcome to Siberia.  
>  _Khorosho byt' doma._ \- Good to be home.  
>  _Davay pogovorim v mashine._ \- Let's talk in the car.  
>  _Spasibo._ \- Thank you. (Informal.)  
>  _Dlya menya bol'shaya chest' poznakomit'sya s vami._ \- I'm honored to meet you.  
>  _Sidet', sidet'._ \- Sit, sit.  
>  _Podozhdite!_ \- Wait!  
>  _Tebe ne nuzhno bylo nichego prinosit'._ \- You didn't have to bring anything.  
>  _Eto malen'kiy podarok. Malen'kiy podarok._ \- This is a small gift. Small gift. (Little present.)
> 
>  _My yavlyayemsya krupneyshim v mire proizvoditelem palladiya. My takzhe yavlyayemsya krupneyshim v mire proizvoditelem rafinirovannogo nikelya. Otsyuda i nazvaniye Noril'skiy Nikel'. V techeniye mnogikh let palladiy byl lish' pobochnym produktom proizvodstva platiny. Teper' palladiy - nasha osnovnaya ruda. Zdes', v Noril'ske, my dobyvayem 3,5 milliona untsiy palladiya v god. Eto pochti 100,000 kilogramm. Spros rastet s kazhdym godom. Predpriyatiya khotyat ispol'zovat' palladiy, potomu chto on sil'nyy i krasivyy. Etot sayt byl produktivnym v techeniye trekh pokoleniy. Mnogiye lyudi khoteli by zhit', kak my, dobyvaya palladiy._  
>   
>  =  
>   
> We are the world's largest palladium producer. We are also the world's largest producer of refined nickel. Hence the name ‘Norilsk Nickel.’ For many years palladium was only a by-product of platinum production. Now palladium—is our main ore. Here, in Norilsk, we mine 3.5 million ounces of palladium per year. That is almost 100,000 kilograms. Demand is growing every year. Businesses want to use palladium, because it is strong and beautiful. This site has been productive for three generations. Many people would like to live, like us, mining palladium.
> 
>  _палладий, palladiy._ \- Palladium, Cyrillic spelling and phonetic English spelling.  
>  _опасность!, opasnost'!_ \- Danger! Cyrillic spelling and phonetic English spelling.
> 
>  _Sibirskiye trappy._ \- Siberian Traps.  
>  _Miny teplyye._ \- Warm mines.  
>  _U menya yest' kostyum._ \- I have a suit.  
>  _Zheleznyy chelovek._ \- Iron Man.  
>  _Dobro pozhalovat' v noril'skiy nikel'._ \- Welcome to Norilsk Nickel.  
>  _Prevoskhodit ugol'._ \- Superior to coal.  
>  _Ty v poryadke?_ \- Are you okay?  
>  _Ya v poryadke._ \- I'm okay.
> 
> A/N: Such an ungodly amount of research went into this chapter that I feel tempted to cite my sources. While I can't promise that it's accurate, I did my best to keep it believable as possible.
> 
> Also, as a non-native speaker, I can't promise that every Russian phrase is correct, grammatically or otherwise, but I can offer quality assurance that I did run every phrase through three distinct translators.
> 
> And last but not least, as a geologist by trade, I *can* attest to the factual robustness of geological tidbits (e.g. Siberian Traps, 'Dimetrodon' dimensions)!
> 
> I'll see you in Norilsk, Part 2!  
> ~Captain_Pandamore


	24. NORILSK, PART 2

A mechanical voice urged, “Please descend, sir.”

Tony blinked, eyes barely open, staring at the inside of the helmet. Flashing red lights caught his bleary gaze. Closing his eyes, he heard again the same masculine mechanical voice: “Please descend, sir. You have suffered a traumatic brain injury and require medical assistance.”

With distinct mental pauses, Tony thought, _Huh. That’s weird_.

Tony didn’t know why the man wanted him to descend, mumbling, “Who’re you?”

“Please descend, sir.”

“Answer me.”

“I am J.A.R.V.I.S., your personal AI companion and I must ask you to descend, sir, before the battery runs out.”

“Battery?”

“In the suit, sir.” The voice sounded pleading.

With a groan—“Okay, J.A.R.V.I.S.”—Tony tried to gain his bearings. There was pressure gluing him to the floor—ceiling. Like a bat, he hovered over the floor. There was a woman lying on her side, neck tilted at a strange angle. Another woman was sitting against the wall, looking sick, eyes closed, but otherwise okay. He hoped. Into the darkness, he asked, “What happened?”

J.A.R.V.I.S. replied, “Seventy-one seconds ago, I detected a rapid change in altitude concurrent with an unplanned descent, sir. In layman’s terms—you fell.”

The words blurred. The last two made sense, in a _that doesn’t make any sense_ way. “I fell?”

“1,022 feet.” Wow. It barely registered. “Please descend, sir. You are wasting battery life.”

“Okay. All right.” A long pause. “J.A.R.V.I.S., where are you?”

“I am an artificial construct, sir. I live in the suit.”

“The suit.” Tony lifted a thousand-pound hand and flexed the metal fingers in front of his face. The white-blue lights were bright. Pretty. “Pretty,” he said aloud. “This mine?”

“Please descend, sir.”

With a fuzzy, “All right. I’m descending,” he marveled aloud, “I’m taking orders from a robot.”

“I am an artificial construct stylized after a computer, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. corrected.

“A robot,” Tony grunted. He remembered to tap his heel against the metal foot to disengage the thrust that was pressing him against the roof.

He yelped as he hit the ground with a thunderous _boom_ , the woman against the wall staring at him in alarm and relief. “Stark?” she asked.

 _Stark_ , he repeated. It seemed right, but also wrong, like he didn’t have a name, but that was wrong, too. Everyone had a name. Even robots did. “Where are we?” he asked.

Drawing in a slow breath, the woman said, “Fifteen hundred feet underground, give or take an inch.”

Tony nodded. It made his head throb. Grimacing, he said, “My head hurts.”

“Clocked it pretty hard on the ceiling.”

“We fell,” Tony narrated, like it would become more real if he said it aloud. “We fell a thousand feet.” He was trying to find the story, but it didn’t make sense. All he knew was that it was dark. Maybe the power was out. That made sense, if they fell. They were. . . . “In an elevator?”

“Mm-hm.” With another shallow breath, the woman acknowledged, “Thanks.”

Tony shrugged, not sure _what for?_ , gazing around the interior wonderingly. “We’re in an elevator.” That couldn’t be right. He’d been—in bed, maybe, warm and asleep, comfortable, that would make sense, because he’d woken up, must’ve been asleep if he woke up. He fumbled for the helmet. His hand felt very heavy. He said aloud, “I’m going to take this off.”

“Don’t.” He frowned. The conscious woman said, “The air’s not so good down here, Stark.”

Solicitation emerged from the rubble of his consciousness. “Are you all right?”

“I’ll be fine. We need to get to higher ground.” She moved gingerly to her feet. Tony tried to mirror her, but he was clumsy and heavy and uncoordinated. He managed to get to his knees before toppling sideways, almost crumpling on top of the other woman.

“Who is she?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” the first woman responded, standing. “Take your time. We’re okay.”

“I feel. . . .” Tony pawed around, heavy metal hand resting on the wall. He pushed himself upright. “I’m okay.”

“That suit of yours—saved our lives.”

Tony felt muffled sadness swell up inside him. “Is she okay?” he asked.

The first woman said, “I don’t know.” Taking a measured step forward, she added, “I need you to get the doors, Tony.”

Tony. That felt familiar. Tony, Tony. He was Tony. “Who are you?” he asked, knowing the words sounded impolite but registered in a corner of his brain that had clocked out for the evening. He felt tired. Maybe he hadn’t woken up, maybe he’d lied down for rest, then. . . .

 _They fell_. 

No, no, no. He would _remember_ falling. He’d been going to bed. That was all. 

He had to get to the doors. Get to the doors, Tony. Get to the doors.

Moving slowly in his spacesuit, he mumbled, “J.A.R.V.I.S.?”

“I’m here, sir.”

“How do I . . . ?” But the question got lost. He put his hands on the crumpled metal in front of him, aware of a creak, a shiver of animal fear coursing through him at the sound. It seemed to have no origin—he couldn’t place where the panic came from—but he felt his heart pound, all the same. “I can’t get the doors,” he told the woman.

“Yes, you can,” the woman replied with absolute conviction. “Use the suit, Tony. Like you always do.”

Like I always do. He was good at using the suit. He didn’t know how, but he said, “J.A.R.V.I.S.?” and again, the voice replied:

“I’m here, sir.”

“Can you . . . ?” He felt like he was holding a very slippery eel, losing the question somewhere in the dark waters of consciousness. The woman stepped up beside him in his heavy metal cage and put a hand on his heavy metal skin.

“Am I a robot?” he asked, his voice small. Nothing felt real. He couldn’t see his own skin, just red and gold metal.

“I need you to do this for me, Tony,” the woman said, her tone patient, like she was teaching him something new. “I need you to put your hands on the door and push it open.” She put her own hands on the crumpled metal seam. It didn’t budge. It was dark, lifeless.

He said, “The power’s out.”

She said, “I know, Tony. You can open them. They’ll open manually.”

That made a certain sense. It was a safety feature. One he’d installed in his own elevators. Elevators had many, many, many safety features. They never fell. It was a laughable thought, a falling elevator. Couldn’t happen anymore.

He put his hands on the metal seam and waited for the doors to open. Nothing happened.

Again with that patient tone, the woman instructed, “Get a grip on it. Here,” she advised. He followed her instructions, easy enough, connect-the-dots simple, placing his strong metal hands against the cracked door. “Pull,” she advised. He did, faster than the thought could slip away. With a scream of wrenching metal agony, the doors surrendered.

The woman on the floor did not move. Quietly, Tony asked, “Are we going home?”

The first woman limped out of the wreckage. Wreckage. Like—like an accident. But that was insane. 

That was—that was why his heart was pounding, maybe, but the two thoughts lacked a key link. 

Everything was fine. He was fine. He felt good, strong. Tired. “I would like to go home now,” he said, because this wasn’t a good place to lie down, too dark and sharp and unpleasant.

The first woman replied, “Me too,” and crouched down beside the other woman. She announced, “I don’t want to move her.”

 _Then I will_.

Tony began to crouch. Immediately, a small hand settled against the armor chest. The first woman said seriously, “Don’t. Her neck is broken, but she’s alive.”

Tony said, very softly, “Oh.” He was glad his vision wasn’t focusing. There were two ghostly women on the floor, two ghostly women standing upright with stiff movements. Tony asked, “Are you all right?”

The first woman replied, “Let’s just get upstairs. It’s not nice, down here.”

Tony nodded, wincing as his head throbbed, his head throbbing as he winced. Ow. The first woman walked ahead, down a tunnel he could see. He reached out, curling metal fingers around her loose hand. “I think we should stay together.”

“That’s the plan,” she said, letting him hold onto her hand. She started walking forward at the same glacial pace. It took every ounce of concentrated effort to take one small step after her.

“I feel very drunk,” he informed her. There was no shame in it. There should be shame. He shouldn’t be drunk in front of her, not to the degree that he could not walk.

She said, “You’re concussed,” and he thought, _That doesn’t seem right_ , even though it did.

“I would like to be unconcussed,” he said calmly, like he was ordering a drink at a bar. “Please,” he added, more polite than pleading.

She sighed. He heard the metal creak the tiniest bit as she squeezed his hand, even though his ears were ringing, trying to conceal the sound. That was unkind of them. She had a nice voice. “You have a nice voice,” he told her, because his mother always said it was good to say nice things to other people.

She said, “I can’t talk much, but stay with me, Tony.”

Tony wanted to ask _why can’t you talk_ but the darkness felt like a museum hall, hushed, thoughtful. He understood. They were in an underground museum. He paused three steps from the door and looked back. “Should we bring her?”

The first woman squeezed his hand again. “Let her rest,” she suggested. “We can’t move her or we’ll hurt her.”

“We can’t leave her,” Tony said, aware that it was bad, very bad indeed to leave someone who was hurt behind. Inspired, he said, “I can carry her.”

The first woman insisted, “Leave her, Tony. We’ll come back.”

He nodded again and grimaced at the pain. In the most uplifting tone he could muster, he told the insensate woman on the floor, “We’ll come back.” Looking to the conscious woman illuminated in yellow lamplight, he asked, “How soon?”

She said, “I don’t know.”

He turned to the insensate woman, intending to tell her. . . .

With a docile huff, he followed the tug on his hand, thinking, _There was something I was going to say_.

It didn’t matter. He should let her sleep. Sleep was good for the sick. Maybe it was good for the hurting, too. He asked, “Are you hurt?”

The first woman didn’t respond, tugging him along, keeping the momentum. That was all right, Tony decided, half-walking, half-floating along after her. He said instead, “We fell.”

“We fell,” the woman agreed, her voice almost too quiet for him to hear. But he listened as she added, “There should be another shaft around here. We’ll take the midnight train going anywhere.”

Humming, Tony said, “S’a good song. _Hum-da-da-dum-dum-dum_.”

He made up the words as they walked along, looking around, aware of the blinky light saying that he had thirty-eight percent power. He observed, “I need to charge my battery. It’s getting low.”

The woman assured, “Once we get to the surface, you can.”

He said agreeably, “Where’s the surface?”

She pointed up, then said no more for a long time, walking down the earthy corridor.

There was a counter in the corner of his view that showed numbers reeling off. They limped and glided, respectively, past the twelve-mile mark before the woman exhaled tightly and said, “Twelve hundred kilometers. Bozhe moi.”

The J.A.R.V.I.S. AI answered crisply, “Oh my God.”

Tony paused, confused. “What?”

The woman was forced to halt when he did. “That is the translation, sir. Shall I deactivate the Zeta protocol 150?”

Tony said, “I don’t know what that means,” and somehow his mouth formed the words, “Deactivate Zeta 1-5-0.”

The woman said, “We need to keep moving.”

Tony replied, “What does ‘Zeta’ mean?”

With a sigh, the woman said, “Greek alphabet, Tony.”

“Fascinating.” Alpha. Beta. Gamma. Delta. . . . Delta. . . . “Epsilon.” Slurring, he rattled off, “Zeta, Eta, Theta,” and stumbled, hitting his metal knees. “I think I need to lie down,” he told the woman, out of politeness.

The woman said with a twinge of panic and a hearty helping of sternness, “Hey, get up, on your feet.”

Tony insisted, “’m tired.” It was bedtime. Bedtime, c’mon. Soft voice. Warm arms. He missed that a great deal, but he was too tired to care. Lying down here, in the dry mud, far belowground—that would be nice, too. Maybe he’d wake up in the safe arms, hear the familiar deep breaths.

He wanted it, enough that it made the ground feel uncomfortable, the thought of lying down here untenable. With a groan of despair, he said, “Okay.” He pawed to his feet, trying not to grab the woman too tightly, aware that he was a metal man and strong enough to rip open mechanical doors. “What’s your name?”

“Natasha Romanoff,” the woman replied. “Natasha, Nat. Take your pick.”

“Natalia,” Tony slurred. He smiled as she tugged him along. It was a pretty name. “It’s a pretty name,” he said aloud.

“I didn’t choose it,” Natalia said.

In reply, he said, “It’s still pretty.”

“One foot in front of the other, Tony.”

He’d stalled, standing in the middle of earthy tomb, asking, “How’d we get this far?”

She said, “Walking, mostly.”

He shook his head, but that made it hurt a great deal. He settled for a sigh, suppressing a sudden wave of nausea. “’m gonna throw up.”

“Don’t.”

“Natalia—”

“Tony. I’m serious.” She turned and took both his metal shoulders in hand. She was small, fragile. He felt bad for holding her so tightly in metal arms, afraid of the subsurface _crack_ mingled with the deafening _boom_.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked softly.

Her expression was hard to read under goggles and mask, but she shook her head, said, “No, of course not” and added, “Take a couple deep breaths. We’re not in a rush.”

He did so. It helped, pushed the nausea from an urgent and unavoidable outcome to a more drum-beat warning. He could make it through if he didn’t spin around too much. “I heard something crack,” he said, words a little slurred. They still sounded metallic. “Was that you?”

With a sigh, like she knew it was a losing argument, Natalia said, “Broke a rib, maybe two, nothing new. Just keep walking, Tony. Talking, if you have to. For once, I’d really like it if you’d just keep talking.”

That was a nice offer. He loved to talk. “I had a sugar glider once,” he said conversationally. “I had it because. . . .” He trailed off, resuming, “It got comfortable and started jumping from the top of the staircase. Scared Dad—leaped on his face. He got rid of it.” He frowned. “I have better stories.”

And he told them. He talked about how he liked to fix cars, stalling on the name for the thing that made the car run and saying, “The car-heart.” He talked, too, about how he went to school and stayed up so late it was a losing battle to go to sleep, so he drank too much coffee and it tasted like charcoal, but he graduated with honors. He couldn’t remember what school. He even mentioned the book he was reading. “ _War of the Worlds_. It’s. . . .” He stumbled half a step but didn’t fall. “I like to read, you know. I read a lot.”

Natalia exhaled and tugged on his hand. They kept walking. Tony, who had stories for days, fell silent, plodding along after her. He caught the tail end, “—Tony?” and said:

“Do you like dogs?”

She said, “Why?”

He replied, “I want a dog. Always did. Never had the time.” Sadness welled up inside him, a painful, unacceptable realization that they weren’t merely underground, they were deep underground, in sweltering, toxic heat. Something bad had happened. He said, “I’d like to lie down.”

Natalia said, “Keep walking, Tony,” and he did.

One small step wasn’t too much. She moved as slowly as he did. He asked, “Are you all right?”

She said, “I’ve been worse.”

He frowned. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“I’m still sorry.” _Someone should be_. He could hear it in another voice. Hopeful that he could actualize it, he acknowledged, “You know, someone once. . . .” But the thought slipped away again.

They made it three miles before Tony’s trembling legs insisted on having their way. He sat down hard and did not get back up. 

Natalia slid down the wall next to him and announced, “We make a pair.”

He offered his metal hand. She intertwined her human fingers with it. “Woman and machine,” he agreed. He knew there were questions he should ask, but every time they got close, they slipped back behind the curtain. Frustrated, he said aloud, “Phone? Call, make a call.”

She said, “Mine’s broken.”

He supplied, “I can. . . .” He drew in a fortifying breath, ignoring the nausea that tried to make itself heard. “Call, call someone, J.”

J. He knew J. Like Jar-Jar Binks. He waited in silence until a voice said in a crackling tone, “ _Tony?_ ”

“Hi,” he replied, having not even the slightest idea who he was talking to. “I’m having a fun day.”

“ _I can . . . barely hear you. What’s going on?_ ”

“I’m underground,” he said. “I’m with Natalia.”

“ _Natalia?_ ” The man’s voice was concerned. “ _You mean Natasha? What’s . . . going on, Tony?_ ”

He said, “You sound very far away.”

The man replied, “ _Tony? Do you know who I am?_ ”

“Not even slightly. Are you good? You all right?”

“ _Yeah, I’m fine—geez, Tony, what the hell . . . happened?_ ”

“Listen,” Tony instructed, “‘m gonna take a nice nap and call you back in like . . . ten hours.”

“ _Hey, no, don’t hang up_.”

“Night-night. Sleep tight.” 

“ _Tony, where are you? You said . . . underground? . . . What happened, are you hurt?_ ”

“She’s hurt,” Tony said. He remembered, “She broke her neck. We left her.”

There was a sharp in-drawn breath. “ _Oh, fuck, Tony_.”

“S’okay,” Tony added, “s’okay, ‘m right here, she. . . .” He trailed off, fumbling at the helmet, if he could get it off then he could prove that she was there and he was real, but the clasps evaded him. “I’ll let you talk to her later,” he said diplomatically.

“ _Is Natasha okay?_ ” the man said in a more serious voice than he’d ever heard.

Tony yawned, then shuddered as it made his gag reflex kick in. He struggled in silent agony, chanting, _don’t throw up, don’t throw up, don’t throw up in the suit, it sucks_. He heard the man’s frantic, “ _Tony, please, please talk to me, Tony, did Natasha break her neck, is she okay?_ ” The words were barely comprehensible.

“No,” he moaned, more in discomfort than answer. “‘m gonna call you back.” He managed to dredge up from the recesses of consciousness, “End call,” and the voice cut in, raw animal panic audible: 

“ _No, no, no, Tony, don’t hang u—_ ”

The line went quiet. He exhaled in relief. “Tin man,” he mused to himself. “Tin man in a tin can.” He snickered. Then he groaned as nausea swept over him and managed, “I don’t feel good.”

J.A.R.V.I.S. informed him, “You have an incoming call from Dr. Banner, sir.”

Tony said, “Okay.” 

Immediately, the man resumed in a staticky voice, “ _Oh, thank God—Tony, listen. Where are you?_ ”

“Nahhh-reelsskk,” Tony slurred, drawing the name out. “Nahhhreeelsky, Sibirsky.” He snickered. “Cold ‘s fuck here.”

“ _Please_.” Desperate, even through the static on the line and the noise in his own head, the word was like a bucket of cold water over his head. It threw the room painfully into focus, and Bruce— _Bruce_ , what the fuck?—was saying, “ _Is Natasha okay?_ ”

Tony turned sluggishly to look at her. Her eyes were closed, her head resting against the wall. She looked pale, despite the heat. He should have been concerned, but—

Worry felt like a distant, impossible thing.

“I don’t know,” he said truthfully.

“ _What’s her condition?”_

“I don’t know,” Tony said again. “I’m not a doctor, Bruce.”

“ _No. I know. Just—tell me what you see. Is she breathing?_ ”

It was hard to tell. “I don’t know,” he repeated helplessly. “How can I tell?”

“ _Fuck, Tony. . . . I know you’re hurting . . . I know—I . . . is she alive?_ ”

That, Tony remembered— “Yes.”

An unsteady exhale. “ _Tony, where’s—? What’s—? Can you put Steve on the line? Or—you know what, I’ll call him, I’ll be right back_.”

_Steve._

He ached for warm arms wrapped around him and a comforting croon of a voice telling him _,_ _It’s okay_ , because it felt very not okay. He whimpered once, desperate for something other than the bad feeling inside him telling him _wrong, wrong, wrong_.

Something bad had happened and he couldn’t figure out _what_.

This time the line ended from Bruce’s side. Tony waited, patient as he could, half-awake, until J.A.R.V.I.S. interrupted his sleepy doze with, “Dr. Banner is calling, sir.”

“Okay.”

Bruce’s voice was wrecked. “ _Oh, God, Tony, what happened?_ ”

Tony frowned. “I . . . I don’t—”

Like he couldn’t stop himself, Bruce rambled, _“I’m coming, all right? I’m on my way, fuck, I’ll be there. Steve’s not answering, his phone’s dead_.”

He knew things were bad because Bruce never swore, rarely got worked up about anything, not even the football game he and Clint were watching, they argued, sure, but they were calm. Bruce wasn’t calm now, Bruce was _scared_ , and—

 _Steve’s not answering_.

The white noise in his head seemed louder than ever. Now he was the one trying to claw to the surface, asking, “What, what?”

“ _I can be there in—hell, Clint’s already there, I’ll call Clint and I will be there, Tony, you stay. . . . This isn’t happening_.”

“Steve?” he reminded plaintively, his voice small, his throat thick.

Bruce couldn’t hear him, insisting, “ _Quinjet can be here in six hours, all right, stay alive for six hours, Tony, you hear me? Or I swear to God I will hulk out so hard your grandkids’ll hear it_.”

It was strange for him to threaten the Hulk because Tony had an image of the Hulk, big and mean and green, standing in front of him, all but vibrating with anticipation of a good showdown, before holding up a hand, pressing his palm to Tony’s metal one.

Bruce said, “ _Hang in there. I’m calling Clint_.”

And he hung up again.

Tony whimpered again because that wasn’t the answer he was looking for. He felt nauseatingly alert, feverishly alive as he lurched to his feet. “Steve,” he repeated, trying out the word, because no, no, no, _no_. He looked down at Natalia and held out his hands, helping her up. In that metallic voice, he said, “We gotta—gotta go up. Gotta go.”

Nodding, looking drained, Natalia said, “This way.” There was only one way to go along the tunnel. Tony thought, _This is not the way_ , but he couldn’t wrack his brain hard enough for answers. Then it hit him:

“Fly!”

J.A.R.V.I.S. warned, “Sir, the charge will last two hours.”

 _Plenty of time_.

Feeling enlivened with the realization, he turned around, back to Natalia, and said again, “Fly.”

She had to understand, but he felt her hesitation as she curled her hands around his back, leaning up on tiptoe to loop her arms around his neck. He directed them to the grooved plating near the collar, a grip, _hard to hold in the ice_. She was nearly nothing on his back even as she hopped up with an audible groan, holding on tightly, nowhere near enough strength to jeopardize the suit, couldn’t break it if she tried.

He thought it would be comical, carrying her on his back, but he was too heavy and light at once, energized and certain, blind and panicked. He said in the same metallic voice, “Tell me if your grip gets loose.”

She said, “Okay, Tony.”

It was amazing how obedient his body was when his mind was halfway out the door, rising an inch above the floor, two inches, then a foot, taking advantage of the high ceiling for liftoff, _Rocket Man_. He curled forward, using his hands for balance and his feet for power. He increased the thrust and had a moment of clarity as he said, “Autopilot.” The suit stabilized; they zipped along without fear in the dark.

It was spectacular, meteoric. They covered twenty miles of winding tunnel before finding a big, heaving machine. Tony barked, “Full-stop” and they did.

The earth-mover—its literal name, its occupational value—was attended by a man who looked like he’d seen a ghost. He backed away from them. Tony curled an arm around his own back, supporting Natalia— _Natasha, Natasha, Natasha, **Natasha**_. In a metallic voice, he announced, “We come in peace.”

The man didn’t respond to it, stepping back, terror plain in his eyes. Natalia— _sha_ , Nata _sha—_ leaned against his shoulder and announced breathlessly, “My druz'ya Yelena Smirnova.”

The man said, “Da?” He stepped forward cautiously. “Kto ty? Kak vy syuda popali?”

“Menya zovut Natal'ya Romanova. Y shakhte proizoshla avariya. Nam nuzhno pogovorit' s Aleksandroy Petrovoy.”

The man looked them over, picked up a radio, and barked something. Tony felt Natasha relax against his shoulders. He didn’t let her go. Holding her. Keeping her safe. _I won’t drop you_.

 _I won’t let you fall_.

Tony’s legs trembled inside the suit, but it held steady, strong enough for both of them. He followed the small escort but balked at the elevator. Stepping back, he said in the same metallic voice, “No.”

Over his shoulder he heard, “It’s okay, Tony.”

“No,” he repeated. Then, stuttering, he said over and over, “nyet, nyet, _nyet!_ ”

He shook his head, moaned in despair, and all but howled, “ _Nyet_!” The group of men cowered back. Belatedly, he realized he had both palms up in front of him, gauntlets warm.

_Oh shit. Oh shit._

He couldn’t make himself lower trembling palms despite the voice screaming in his head, _this is bad, this is bad, this is very, very bad_. He forced his hands down to his side. Shaking his head vehemently, ignoring the way it made the dizziness intensify, he insisted weakly, “Nyet.”

One of the men dared to step in front of the others. “My ne prichinim vam vreda. Popozhaluysta, ne prichinyayte nam vreda.”

Tony shook his head, trying to clear the fuzz. Natasha—ruffling straw-blond hair, a sweet kiss to the cheek, she loved Steve, too, in her own way, like everybody loved him—said, “Da. Da.”

The men relaxed, even though Tony noticed they maintained a respectful distance, unarmed as they were.

He felt awful, worn out and confused and afraid of things he could not even name. He was shaking, covered in a cold sweat. All he _wanted_ was to be free, to be safe, to be curled up in the safest place in the world and pretend nobody else existed.

The response times were sluggish in the mines. It was, by his best estimate, a long time before a familiar face without a name appeared in the elevator. Natasha dropped from his back and Tony experienced a panic so severe it choked back the nausea, leaving him breathless, _no, no, no, I dropped you, I dropped you_. The newcomer breathed, “Natasha,” and ran to meet her, steadying hands on her elbows. “Bruce called, hell—”

For a moment, forehead-to-forehead, they resided in space. Tony saw the trembling exhaustion, the palpable _relief_ , and thought, _no, no, no_ , because someone was missing, someone was missing, Bruce was safe and Natasha was safe and—and—he faltered lamely, wrestling with his own thoughts, pawing through dark waters until he reclaimed it, Clint, Clint Barton, Hawkeye. He was safe. Thor was, too—Thor was a god. But—

_Steve._

_Where’s Steve?_

Clint said, “Tony?”

Tony tried to make a sound, a desperate noise escaping him as he turned around, oh no, oh no, oh no, they’d left, they’d left _Steve_. He looked at Clint and felt a hand clamp down on a metal one, Clint’s voice steady as a river as he replied, “Easy, there, don’t go yet, we’re gonna take the easy route, okay? Not that way, that’s the long way around. Tell you what, close your eyes and it’ll be over in a minute, okay? Think you can do one minute?”

Tony turned despairingly to face the darkness, aware of Clint’s grip on his wrist. He could break the grip, zip off, plunge back into that darkness, never to be found again—

Shuddering, he turned back to Clint and Natasha, taking a single shuffling step forward.

Inching forward. One. Small. Step.

The elevator gaped sharp-teethed at him, a maw threatening to swallow him, crush him. He shut his eyes tightly, inching forward. The space became crowded as others crowded into it. He stood in the center, refusing to touch the walls, to back himself into a corner.

Not caring what anyone thought, he sank down to the floor, curled into as small a ball as he could, and held his breath the whole ride up.

. o .

Oh, hell, it was hard to breathe.

Steve tried to squirm his way towards freedom, but he couldn’t tell which way freedom was, ahead or behind. Ahead, maybe, should be ahead, elevator shaft was ahead, he’d been one goddamn step and now, now—

 _Focus_.

If he couldn’t catch his breath, he’d die, be of no use to anybody. He had to get out, had to get to them, to Natasha, to _Tony_.

Pinned down by the rubble, he made little progress. He was lucky a block large enough to crush his skull had landed six inches in front of him, creating the nook of air he was breathing, the cloying, already suffocating air, it’d go anoxic in less than an hour.

Freedom was two feet in front of him. All he had to do was—shimmy his way forward without triggering a second avalanche, fuck, the roof had caved in. He couldn’t believe he was _alive_ , it was an accident. It was a cosmic accident that the killing stone landed inches from him and helped create a nook for him. He wasn’t supposed to be alive. When he’d heard the crack and felt that first impact, a forty-pound rock slamming into his shoulders with enough forward to break a mortal man, he’d known it was over.

But it wasn’t. He was alive. He had to get out of here, they needed him, they might—they might be alive, fuck, what if they were alive, what if they were down there dying while he was up here, buried in the ancient lavas that made precious stones.

Maybe he’d be fossilized, in this anoxic, toxic environment. He growled at the thought, more angry than afraid because fear was immobility, anger was _action_ , anger was a clawing thing that fought and fought and fought long after fear, trembling, begged to go home. He didn’t have a choice, couldn’t stay here, he had to get to Tony, Tony, Tony, oh, Tony, _why’d you come, Tony—?_

They were down there. He let out an animal cry as he tried to break free. Pinned on his belly by the rocks, he had no leverage. His precious pocket of stagnating air existed by a miracle, his shield wedged against a rock that _yearned_ to crush his chest, taking the weight until he assumed it.

He had to.

C’mon, Rogers. C’mon, Rogers, c’mon.

It was sluggish work too soon, twitching spasmodically rather than in any sort of coordinated effort. He wasn’t moving an inch, trapped not beneath pounds but _tons_ of rubble. Even Captain America had his limits.

He felt dizzy, overwhelmed with the knowledge that he _had_ to live and yet he had no _choice_ , he was going to die and yet someone had to help them, someone had to _respond_ , what if they were alive down there? They _had_ to be alive down there. They were down there. He had to—he had to _see it_. He couldn’t die until he knew they were okay. He’d fight Death Itself if that’s what it came to because he refused to give up his ground when there was a _chance_.

Whining through his teeth, he planted his fists on the ground. And though the earth yielded not an inch, he refused to give an inch, either.

. o .

It was almost impossible to stay conscious in the open air, even _with_ the suit micromanaging his personal environment. The cold was so immediate, so spectacular, so unexpected it cut right to the core of him, searing him. He shivered once even as the suit blasted what felt like cool air but must have been warmer—right? He wouldn’t make a suit designed to freeze him to death, right?—and feeling his teeth chatter. God, it was cold, it was miserably cold, indescribably cold. Even with his metal skin on, he _felt_ it.

His shivering prompted a warmer current of air. He was grateful for it even though he didn’t stop shivering, couldn’t stop now that he’d started. It was warm deep in the Earth. Being up top—howling wind, cold, spectacular, _free—_ was dangerous, he needed to be down there, something was _wrong_ and he didn’t care that he wasn’t thinking clearly enough to recite his full name, he turned tail and started walking back towards the building nearly as soon as he’d left it.

He explained to no one in a language they couldn’t understand, “I have to, I have to go, I left something.” _I left someone_.

They seemed afraid to bar the way. He knew why. He was a metal man and bone-crushingly strong, he could kill them in a dozen different ways without taking a single step. He was a dangerous animal and they were prey, obstacles. _Get out of my way or I’ll make you_.

He lowered his hands again, feeling like he was about to vibrate out of his skin with the effort.

It didn’t matter that the weapons weren’t even online: it was bad news, the way the cluster of people was avoiding him. They didn’t bother with guns; what was Iron Man to guns but invincible?

He thought, _I’m not gonna hurt you_. He forced his hands to stay docilely at his sides even though his heart was pounding. When he stepped forward, it was Clint who snagged his metal hand and hauled it with enough force that Tony staggered. Clint said firmly, “ _No_.”

Tony made a plaintive sound, half-cry, half-defiant snarl. He yanked his hand free and said in a respectably comprehensible voice, “I have to go back.”

Clint replied, “Stark, you can barely walk, sit _down_.”

“Rogers,” he slurred. That wasn’t right, wasn’t the name he was looking for. He made an annoyed sound even though sitting, sitting was good, yes, this was a good idea. “Good idea,” he acknowledged.

Clint said briskly, “Can I trust you to stay still for five minutes? You’re scaring them.”

Tony nodded placidly, wincing as his head throbbed, head throbbing as he winced. Vicious cycle. “I—I’ll be good.”

Clint patted him hard on a metal shoulder, skin sticking to the cold exterior. Tony watched in a dream as he walked away, and time went sideways.

. o . 

Improbably, he was next aware of sitting on a couch, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, nursing a cup of tea, feeling like he’d had a bad drug trip. Never been into drugs, though. He must have made a mistake somewhere. That would make sense. Something had gone sideways.

He watched the tendril of smoke wind up from the tea, head hurting, throat tender. Maybe he’d drunk something with bite. But it wasn’t a drink, he’d been drunk enough in the past to know that this wasn’t a hangover. Drugs, though, drugs fucked with your sense of reality. Alcohol did, too, but it was a predictable thing, always the same, always. . . . He must’ve gotten smashed last night if he felt this terrible, closing his eyes, holding onto the cup.

He wasn’t wearing the metal suit. He didn’t know when he’d taken it off but he must have, you couldn’t pry Iron Man apart from the outside without some heavy machinery, he must have taken it off but he couldn’t remember how. Maybe that was part of the dream, too. He took a sip of his tea. It was nice, a stiff upright drink that made him feel more human. How bad could things be if he was sitting here drinking tea? The thought was comforting, if illogical, because he couldn’t quite turn off the fire alarm in his mind saying _opasnost’, opasnost’_.

He didn’t even know what that meant, except he did: _Danger. Danger_.

He saw boxes of nickel, copper, platinum, and the prized _palladiy_.

Palladiy. Palladiy.

It was a nice word. Rolled off the tongue. He tried to say it out loud, but it felt like there was a disconnect between mind and body. The word was too slurred to be a word, more a mumble than anything. He lifted the tea to his lips and sipped.

He wondered idly where he was, what country. The room wasn’t very American: he didn’t recognize any of the written words on printed material. The colors weren’t like Rhodey’s home, either. He brushed his fingertips over the blanket edge, looking for clues. He noticed it was handmade. Huh.

He heard the door open and looked over, but the person walked past without acknowledging him. That was fine. He didn’t know what to say. _Hi, my name is. . . ._ It fell blank. 

Tony. He was Tony. 

Must’ve been a hell of a trip. 

He had the eerie memory of the floor dropping out from under him, maybe he fell down the stairs, but he didn’t remember hitting the steps, he didn’t fall down he fell _up_ , smashed into something with enough force to rattle a few mental screws loose.

Chasing them around, trying to make the pieces fall into place, he closed his eyes at a throb of agony behind them, and sipped the tea more for something to do than interest. It helped. He wanted to thank whoever had made it, but he couldn’t even remember accepting it. It was just in his hands now. He was alone.

He was not alone, he realized, as a man sat in a chair nearby, reading a book with an intent furrow to his brow. The word rolled off his tongue readily: “Dmitry?”

The man—Dmitry—lowered the book. “Da,” he said. “Ty udarilsya golovoy. Kak ty sebya chuvstvuyesh'?”

Tony stared uncomprehendingly. Dmitry watched him, but when Tony didn’t respond, he returned to his reading. Not dismissive, just false-alarm. _I’m here_ , Tony wanted to say.

He wasn’t, but it was nice, not to be alone, even if he didn’t understand a word Dmitry was saying. Aloud, he rattled off, “Da,” _yes_. There were two words he _knew_ and they were _da_ and _nyet_. He nodded to himself, grateful his processing chip hadn’t burned those words from memory.

Had he hit his head? That made sense, but it didn’t feel real, even though the back of it _ached_ , so intensely he swallowed. He wanted something, _painkillers_ , but Dmitry was silent. No one else was around to ask. It didn't matter: if they hadn’t given him any, then maybe he wasn’t allowed to have any. The thought made him feel sad and overwhelmed. Groaning, he set the cup on the floor— _not the table, bad manners—_ and hunched in on himself, hiding.

Dmitry stood and disappeared. Then there was another blanket settling over the first. “Amerikanskiy,” he said, not meanly. Tony thought, _American_.

That made sense. They weren’t in America, after all. Dmitry was a Russian name. They were in Russia.

Mother Russia. How ‘bout that.

. o .

Slow-but-steady. Impatience was death. 

Impatience was tripping a wire he couldn’t hope to see and bringing the whole house down. _B_ _e patient_. It was hard to be patient, harder with hypoxia crowding close, he was suffocating, every breath was heavy and _empty_ , but he didn’t let panic slow his movements. He wasn’t crawling so much as wriggling, Army-crawling, that was the word. If he could slip under the axe that had nearly killed him the first time, now hovering and holding up thousands of pounds of earth, he could get to the opening beyond it.

He was safe in his little pocket, but he couldn’t stay for long, he’d already run out of time, couldn’t wait it out, waiting it out was death. Avalanches rarely killed outright: they buried people alive. It was a matter of time before the narrow space became oversaturated with carbon dioxide, leading to unconsciousness and death.

He was pissed off that he _had_ to get free, that he couldn’t stop moving, couldn’t wait it out, couldn’t bank on maybe rescue or maybe death, flip a coin, see what happened. If Tony and Natasha were safe and sound at home, he could’ve _waited_. He would have . . . he would’ve been okay, come-what-may. If Tony and Natasha and the others—Clint, Bruce, Thor, Jim—if they were okay then it was okay, y’know, it would be okay. Sometimes you couldn’t win.

But that wasn’t an option. Not even a consideration, a _pause-and-think-about-it_ kind of bargain, no, he was moving because he’d be damned if he gave up on them. If he didn’t _try_ , if he didn’t take the chances, if he didn’t push himself to the utmost, he’d never forgive himself, this life or whatever might come next.

 _Wouldn’t that be somethin’_ , he mused, imagining Tony and Natasha with hands on hips and cartoony angel wings, expressions flat scowls because—

_Really, Rogers, five feet? Couldn’t crawl five feet? My dead Aunt can crawl five feet._

That was Colonel Phillips’ voice, impressed on his memory at a decibel that could only be described as “a bad-tempered hornet with a personal vendetta against God.”

 _Get your ass outta the dirt, right now, or so help me God_.

“I’m up, I’m up,” he muttered breathlessly, arms trembling but holding his weight steady. The illusion of boot camp made it almost easy, because he was always tired back then, from some stupid malady or another, weak lungs, bad heart, that kind of thing. He shouldn’t have lived past his first winter, wouldn’t have if his mother hadn’t been as nurturing. Some mothers believed strong children needed to stand on their own feet as soon as possible, but his Ma had told him to go at the pace he could go.

That was good enough, she insisted, even when it felt like he was going nowhere. He hadn’t been _weak_ , just underfed and sickly because of it. They called it malnutrition these days, but he preferred “well-rationed,” because between the Depression of his adolescence and the War of his adulthood, a full meal was a scarce thing indeed. Maybe if he’d ate well like Bucky, he’d’ve at least been strong enough to hold his own, to not tremble where he stood even though his resolve never wavered.

 _C’mon, I’m not here to die, I’m not gonna let anybody die on my watch_.

He shifted forward a quarter of an inch, his left leg on fire. He’d had to haul it out from underneath a bone-crushing piece of rock, but that was okay, because he was makin’ progress. He had tough bones, these days, real tough, he’d remembered Bucky goggling at him because _holy hell, punk, you’re not small_.

No, he was _not_ , he thought, shimmying forward, lost in the memory, of finding Bucky and saying, _Gonna get you out_ and doing just that. Coming back to the troops was strange. They lauded him as a _hero_ , when he was just a man who’d been allowed to do what he’d been born to do, to fight the good fight. To do what was right, every time, not just when it was easy. That was what life was about, even if it meant a short life, indeed.

Everybody had a short life, in the end. It was a flicker of consciousness against a backdrop of thousands of people who had already come and gone. Wasn’t about making your mark, painting your name in the sky. It was about living the good life; if called to do so, it was also about fighting the good fight.

He felt the rocks shift and had a moment of passive oblivion, of thinking, _This is it_ and then everything settled again. He was okay. He felt fine, now that the whole ‘gasping for air’ thing was background noise. He could hold his breath a long time, now, upwards of six minutes if needed, but he forced himself to breathe short, to not hold his breath even though the air was stale and empty, stale and empty, oh what a wonder it was to breathe air that was empty of life-giving oxygen, dangerously overloaded with carbon dioxide.

Wasn’t the lack of oxygen that got you: it was the build-up of carbon dioxide. He could feel it making him lightheaded, started coughing on accident and then he couldn’t stop, breathing in every loose particulate in the air. All that poison, but it wouldn’t kill him. No, not at this level. Not against the serum, serum was tough as hell. Only the tough stuff, concentrated gases, could kill him outright. It would take longer—he could sustain a lethal dosage of exposure to an ordinary man—but eventually even the miracle in a bottle wouldn’t be able to cope. There was only so much the human body could do when pitted against the elements.

Crawling, coughing, trying to stop coughing so he could focus on crawling, he decided it was now or never, now or never. He surged forward, strong as he could, hauling like a mule to be free, wheezing with the effort, breath catching. It was now or never, he couldn’t go back, couldn’t lie placidly because he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t—

He used his hands, clawing at rock that felt like cement, thank God for the gloves or he’d rub ‘em down to the bone like desperate miners of old. He felt an empty cavity and clawed in earnest, each gulping breath making his chest burn, his eyes swim. He thought, _D_ _on’t pass out, don’t pass out, whatever you do don’t pass—_

He felt his fingers grasping at nothing and let out a thin sound, not quite triumph but hope, _hope_. With a burst of effort even the serum found challenging, he _pulled,_ dragged, _hauled_ , using every ounce of his strength to escape his earthly box, his own rocky tomb.

From the outside, it would have been a disconcerting site. First bare fingers, then more powerful wrists and arms emerged. Barely a second behind them, Captain America himself appeared, hunch-shouldered in a vain effort to protect his head and neck in the event of catastrophe, crawling, _crawling_ out of the cave and please don’t collapse now don’t don’t don’t—

He felt a distant _thunk_ , followed by enormous pain in his left ankle, but there was no sound to it. He dragged himself with feverish energy out of his burrow and on top of a sharply-declined pile of rock, leading into the abyss.

Gasping, gulping, heart pounding, he lay on top of the rocks, dangerously near the edge, for a long time, black dots swarming and overtaking his vision. He never lost consciousness, just couldn’t see for a while. That made him panic like nothing else had, that he was going to fall asleep and wake up in seventy years and everyone would be dead and Tony, Tony, Tony—

Pawing, more blind than sighted, he found the edge of the abyss. Rocks, small ones, tumbled around him. He never heard them hit the bottom. That was how far down, he thought despairingly, that’s how far down they were. The bodies. Oh, the bodies. He couldn’t—couldn’t imagine it, couldn’t make the neural connection, _no human could survive a fall like that_ , not unless it was a miracle.

He saw a vivid flash of Tony, Natasha, and the woman in the elevator right after the cables _snapped_ , hovering in space before the whole car careened downwards. God, he moaned, a thousand feet in a tin can. The car would be crushed under its own weight, crumpled like an automobile in a head-on collision. Nobody, nobody could survive that. If it crushed them into flattened approximations of flesh and bone—

Swallowing hard, he reached up with a shaking bleeding hand to wipe the drool from the corner of his mouth, panting open-mouthed, uncaring that it was loud because he could breathe again, _really_ breathe again, no more empty air. Wasn’t a lot of it, but it was enough to clear his head, to allow him to take in the electric pain in his left leg, worse when he tugged it forward.

 _Get. Up_ , Colonel Phillips barked. _You wanna be in the Army, Rogers? You wanna fight? Then you better start acting like a soldier. You think soldiers lie down when they’re tired? When they’re hurt? No. Because you can’t lie down out there, or you will die, you will be trampled, you will be gunned down, and if you don’t get up you will never get up. So get up, Rogers, or go home_.

Planting his raw hands on the rock, he inched upright, dislodging more pebbles that careened down, down, down. He got his torso off the rubble, the shield sparing his back from the jagged rock pressing down on him. He shimmied that much closer to the abyss.

 _Easy. Easy_.

He had to get free without dislodging a mini-avalanche, get free and get a handhold before he took a brief and unpleasant fall face-first into the metal car lying far below.

He could feel the crushing pressure on his legs, on his hips, and if he broke his pelvis he was a goner, he’d bleed out internally before he had a chance to get anywhere, couldn’t climb up or down the elevator shaft like he needed to with broken legs. He knew his left wasn’t doin’ so hot, but he only needed one leg and two working arms. He’d be fine.

He realized there was no way to stand, no room to stand. Only an abyss. He was the cliff-edge. He slid forward, biting his lip and drawing blood. Shivering, he hauled himself out of the rubble, sinking his fingers into the earth, bashing it into submission with a few close-fingered jabs, hand cupped to keep them from shattering like glass. It worked better than he’d hoped. He thought, _This_ _is where it gets fun_ before he dragged himself over the edge, feeling a vertigo unparalleled as he leaned, upside-down, head and shoulders hanging.

His shoulders. His _shield_. 

He slid forward, panting, trying not to lose his nerve because _it’s just a little darkness, it’s just a little fall_. He hadn’t been afraid of hitting the ground he could see but there was something unearthly and haunting about dangling over an acrid-air abyss. His goggles were long gone, his mask closer to his neck than face. He ripped it off one-handed and let it fall down, down, down.

Jesus, it was a long way down.

He inched forward until he was certain he would lose his balance and plunge into one last freefall. Even Captain America couldn’t survive hitting a metal floor over a thousand feet below him. He reached back, one-handed, his entire survival hinging on the trembling arm and hand dug into the earth, holding him steady.

Grabbing the shield, he pried it off with an incredible effort, sliding it over his head so slowly he thought he’d strain a muscle in his shoulder from twisting and dangling and trying to get it in front of him. And then it was easy, it was dangling from a hand. He had to tighten bloody fingers around it to keep it from slipping down. He leaned forward, released his tentative hold, trusting the rocks to keep his legs pinned below the knee so he could use both hands, grabbing the shield and slamming it into the elevator shaft wall, his teeth ringing with the impact.

Wrenching it around, not quite full strength but enough to give it a good haul, he was gratified when it didn’t budge. With new confidence and desperation, _H_ _urry up,_ he used the shield as a ledge, pulling himself belly-down into the abyss, holding onto it with both hands. With something projecting to grab onto, he didn’t have to lean as far forward. It was almost easy to shimmy the rest of the way out of the stone, gritting his teeth as he dragged his left leg inch-by-inch along.

And now came the hardest part, he thought.

He kept one hand on the shield, trusting it absolutely as he freed his feet and started to slide forward, scraping the suit and breathing as shallowly as possible in anticipation.

It happened pretty much in an instant. Gravity took over as he twisted, sliding sideways instead of head-first, keeping that death-grip on the shield as he slipped past it.

Gravity felt like a literal monster at his heels, holding his legs and _dragging_ him down, making his arm tremble with the effort of resisting it, the urge to let go overpowering as his shoulder burned, his other hand flailing near the wall, scrabbling, finding metal instead of earth and latching onto it. He hovered, breathless, cold and in agony because he knew what he was going to find at the end of the elevator, felt like he should’ve grabbed the cable with his bare hands, shoulda done _anything_ other than _stand there—_

He tried to plant his feet on the wall, give his hands a break, but it was hard with the boots on unfamiliar architecture, a shaft that was more earth than metal. He settled on leaning up and grabbing at the shield with both hands, hanging in space. He let out a sharp huff, relieved, exhausted. He didn’t move, feeling damp fingers on the thankfully bowl-like surface of the shield, if he’d planted it star-side skyward he’d have slid off immediately. As it was, he knew he wasn’t out of the water, knew he had to get moving if he was going to get _anywhere_.

 _No time like the present, Rogers_.

Reaching down for the metal below, getting a grip on it, he yanked on the shield _hard_ , one emphatic tug. It came free with a grunt. “Ten points to Howard Stark,” he muttered. Sliding it onto his back, he felt the magnetic clip latch on, thanking Howard’s son for that addition.

( _“See, watch this.” Tony held up his arm, the leather strap wrapped around it, a silver buckle gleaming. Hefting the shield on the other arm, he demonstrated, “Latches on easy.” And it did, the shield jumping out of his hand, clipping into place. “Doesn’t slide off,” he added, shaking his arm emphatically, even prying at it with a hand. Firming his grip, he added, “Trust me, I put it through its paces, it’s—” With a grunt of effort, he hauled the shield free, careful to hold it about two feet away from the clasp, “not gonna fall off.” Easing shield and buckle closer together, millimeters at a time, he narrated, “Ever heard of recurve bow strength? It’s got a sixty-pound draw weight. Gonna take a silverback to yank it off easily.” The shield got inside a threshold, maybe eighteen inches, and zinged back into place. “And voila.”_ )

And voila, Steve thought, chest burning in a way that had little to do with anything physical, both hands dug into the earth and metal elevator shaft.

 _Just like home_ , he thought, amused and exhausted at the thought, because he’d spent plenty of time hauling himself up elevator shafts. Yet it was the descent that seemed impossibly exacting. 

Hand over hand, one handhold at a time, he climbed down, down, down.

. o .

Gripping his head in a hand, Tony ground out the one question he had: “Where’s Steve Rogers?” 

And nobody would answer him, nobody would even _try_ , they didn’t speak his language and he couldn’t remember theirs. He knew—he knew there was—there was something, some way to fix that much, but his head ached abominably and he wanted to curl up in a ball in a dark room until he felt human again, that would be ideal, he would close his eyes and sleep off the mother-of-all-hangovers and wake up and everything would be normal again.

This was a horrible dream, he decided, sitting on a bench, now, while people argued in another room. It sounded like an argument—he couldn’t make out the words, but there was plenty of tension. He had wanted to come, but the second he had even a moment of coherency, he couldn’t shut it off. _Where’s Steve? Where the hell is Steve?_

Clint walked through the door and Tony jumped him: “Where’s Steve?”

Looking harried, Clint grunted, “We’re working on it.”

That seemed wrong and bad and _not good_. “Is he okay?”

Clint ran a hand over his hair. “He’s a tough sonuvabitch. I’m sure he’s fine. How’s your head?”

Tony winced as a new throb made itself known. “Ow,” he said eloquently, covering his eyes with his hands. “When’re we going home?”

An aggrieved sigh. “Well, we’re trying not to go home tonight.”

Tony frowned, not bothering to lower his hands. The darkness helped. “What?”

Clint sat on the bench beside him. Tony leaned against him, grateful for a human body instead of cold walls and cold metal and cold, cold, cold. He was lukewarm, but it was human warmth. That on its own was enough. Still. He missed his personal space-heater. He missed the feeling that he wasn’t playing back a tape missing a huge swath of footage, like he’d stepped out of the room and missed the most important line in the movie.

Clint said in short, simple phrases, “We’re Americans on Russian soil. We’re also visitors to a closed city. Now there’s been an accident involving our party and at least one Russian who may or may not be dead. To make matters worse, the mine tunnel collapsed and the elevator is bunk. Nobody knows how to get in to begin assessing the situation without moving tons of rock. There’s—blame in the air.”

Tony’s head spun. He gripped his hair. “We’re in trouble,” he summarized, words a little slurred.

“Got it in one.” Clapping him on the shoulder, Clint added, “Not least is that our resident genius is out-of-commission and the only other person who saw what happened doesn’t know _how_ it happened.”

Tony waited, but he didn’t answer the question he wanted to know. “Where’s Steve?” he repeated as clearly as possible.

“Underground,” Clint grunted. “Trust me, we’re on it.”

The gears turned slowly. “The tunnel—collapsed.”

“Working theory is that one of the structural beams shifted. It doesn’t take much. Like a pinhole in a porthole. You don’t get a drop of water, you get the whole fucking ocean.” He sounded frustrated. Tony tensed. He patted Tony’s shoulder again. “One small dislocation means the entire tunnel is now buried under rock and we have no clue how to clear it in less than two weeks.”

Horror nestled in Tony’s mind. “Two weeks? That’s—”

Grunting, Clint said, “Yeah. I know. A long fucking time. And our visas expire. _And_.” Cutting himself off, Clint leaned against him, drawing strength. “It’s a moot point. Thankfully there were only four people on that level—I’ll give you four guesses who—when the dislocation happened. In a mining city of 93,000, that’s a blessing.”

A fuzzy reminder nudged at his consciousness. “1,200 kilos,” he slurred. “1,200.” He didn’t know where the train of thought wanted to go; it halted mid-track, leaving him frustrated and stranded.

“Bruce’ll be here inside half an hour,” Clint said. “Town doc says you’ve got a grade-3 concussion. Congrats, overachiever.”

Tony frowned in confusion. There was a blank space between the mine and the scared miners and Dmitry’s couch. “What?”

“A concussion. You hit your head.” A beat. “You know who I am?”

“Hawk,” Tony grunted, lowering his hands and grimacing against the light. “Hawkeye. Barton.”

“Uh huh. Listen, we were stateside, I’d already have your ass in a hospital, but right now we’re trying to keep everybody in one place. That said, they’re willing to give you a lift outta town. Nat would go with you.” 

Tony shook his head vehemently, because, “Fuck no.”

Clint huffed, sitting up and leaning forward. “That case, sit tight, don’t talk to anybody except me or Nat or Dmitry.”

Tony squinted at him, even though there was one-and-a-half Clints looking at him. “We in trouble?”

Clint’s mouth was a firm line. “Only if somebody dies,” he said at last, rocking to his feet and adding, “Stay put. You wander off again, I’m tying you to the chair. I’ll be back in five minutes.” And he was gone, leaving Tony alone.

Looking around the white-walled room, he tried to decide if it was a Russian government building or Nornickel headquarters, determined to ask Clint when he came back. But five minutes came and went. When Clint huffed and sat down, he asked instead, “Where’s Steve?”

. o . 

When Bruce arrived, the first words out of Tony's mouth were, “You’re sunburned.”

Crouched in front of him, Bruce squinted up at him. “That’s nice. I’m glad you’re in one piece.”

One eye closed in a futile attempt to block out some of the light, Tony stared at the floor and replied, “I don’t feel like one piece.”

“No. You’re lucky, you know. Nat told me what happened.” His voice was somber. “That much force—goner, Stark. No chance of survival. Good thing you’ve got a metal skull.” He put a hand on Tony’s knee. “Tony, I'm not a licensed medical doctor. Just field-trained. You need a professional evaluation and a CT scan.”

A huff escaped Tony, turned into a cough. God, his throat was dry. The cold, even indoors, was palpable. “Fuck no.”

Snapping his fingers, drawing Tony's attention, _eyes on me_ , Bruce said, “I don’t want to scare you, but you need to see a doctor, Tony. Not an _oh, maybe_. This is a _yes, Bruce, that is a good idea_ call.”

Shaking his head, Tony said stiffly, “Gotta stay in one place.”

“Clint loves arguing. He’s fine.” He didn’t mention Natasha.

“Natasha?” Tony prompted.

Sighing, Bruce said, “Listen, I’m not happy about any of this right now and we are going to have a much more productive conversation later, but not until I know you’re not gonna collapse.”

“’m not gonna collapse,” Tony muttered mutinously, even if that sounded pretty agreeable. Lying on the floor would be nicer than sitting on the bench, and what happened to Dmitry’s house? Dmitry’s house was nice, homey. _Home_.

Again, Bruce snapped his fingers. Tony groaned, eyes shut, because it was nicer in the dark, anyway. “Shut it. I have a migraine.”

“You have a concussion. You need to go to a hospital.”

Gritting his teeth, Tony said, “No. I don’t.”

“Tony—”

In a surprisingly firm voice, Tony asked, “Is he dead?”

Bruce inhaled shortly. He didn’t respond for a long time. Tony opened his eyes to squint at him. He looked as harried as Clint had, but he wasn’t as good at hiding the shock of it all. He looked like he’d lost his house and been diagnosed with terminal cancer in the same day. “I can’t answer that, Tony,” he said at last.

Tony nodded, slumping forward. A firm hand settled on his shoulder. “That’s not a _yes_ ,” Bruce insisted, gripping his shoulder. “Okay? I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. And I’m not gonna lie to you. But . . . he’s Steve Rogers.”

Swallowing bile, Tony closed his eyes and said, “I think I need to lie down.”

Bruce sighed and Tony heard his knees crack as he stood up. “Understatement. Christ, Tony.” He sat down next to him and said, “I’m sorry. It’s a lot. Everything’s gonna be fine. Clint’s talking to the Russians, Natasha’s downstairs, and you’re still in one piece. Everything’s great, Tony, isn’t this great? I love the Arctic.”

Mumbling, Tony said, “Downstairs?”

Bruce slid his arm around Tony’s back, trying to pull him to his feet. Tony groaned, refusing to budge, standing was _awful_ , but at least Bruce answered him: “We had a talk on the plane. Hell of a flight, you know, if there were speed limits up top they probably violated a few air traffic laws. I tried to talk her out of it, but it’s Natasha Romanoff.” It was amazing how explanatory a _name_ could be, how a reputation did rest on it. 

“Anyway,” Bruce said, giving up on moving him but leaving his arm where it was, “she’s back in the mine with Rodion and Dmitry, trying to pin down the crash site. Rodion was pretty shell-shocked, heard the avalanche, alerted the Nornickel higher-ups about the mine collapse, so they knew something was wrong inside half an hour. Of course, it still caught them off-guard, you know, when you two showed up thirty-two kilometers away from the original crash-site.”

“Yelena,” Tony slurred, straightening. “She. . . .”

“They’re working on it,” Bruce said, his grip firming, self-comfort as much as support. “Last I heard, they were on their way to the crash site. Shouldn’t take more than an hour, so—we’ll hear back pretty soon, I imagine. Assuming reception’s good, which is another question.”

“What about Steve?” Tony pressed, leaning against him.

Bruce said, “Yeah, no, yeah. They’re on that, too.” He didn’t elaborate. “It’s like Barton said, he’s a tough sonuvabitch. I’m sure he’s fine, Tony.”

. o . 

Steve was fine—if the broken leg and wheezing breaths could be excused, which they could. Necessity was the mother of—necessity, he decided lamely. He debated a graceful landing and dropped instead, too exhausted to hold his own weight up anymore. He hit the elevator on his back, the shield absorbing the worst of the impact. Gritting his teeth against the fire that ricocheted up his leg, he curled inward, breathing heavily.

He’d only slipped twice, which was amazing, but he’d torn up his gloves a good deal in the process and had elected to wholesale removed them rather than get fabric in the cuts. It was foolish, he knew, but he appreciated the way he could flex his hands without fabric cutting into the cuts.

Hell, he was tired.

He’d been tired for days. He’d stayed up all night to ingratiate himself with the Nornickel heads and the government officials who were eager to sit down and have a conversation with Captain America. They weren’t interrogations, but he was glad he’d spent three sleepless days reading up on Russian history, as far back as he could absorb under the time crunch. 

It hadn’t been easy: the week had been hectic enough, with his S.H.I.E.L.D. obligations refusing to take a holiday (doubling, given that he was going on “vacation” for a week, maybe two). The dual challenges of making sure everyone was ready and trying to convince Tony to stay behind was exhausting. 

_It’ll be boring. It’ll be cold. It’ll be long and uneventful. You won’t have anything to do_.

But Tony, being Tony, had shut down each argument and insisted that he wasn’t going to be dissuaded from the unforgiving North and buried himself in his _Russian for Dummies_ textbook, which Steve found exasperating and amusing, a sharp contrast to his own grim studies, trying to memorize as much of it as he could. Fury hadn’t _specifically_ warned him that he better know more than the basics, but it was implied. 

To the world at large “Captain America” was often regarded as the Captain _of_ America. Even a minor diplomatic _faux pas_ could initiate decades of resentment. There were plenty of politicians in DC who were ready to put a special restriction on his international travels despite the Department of Defense’s understanding with S.H.I.E.L.D. because they knew that he represented America and they were worried that he wouldn’t represent it well.

Sitting up, putting as little pressure on his left leg as humanly possible, Steve gritted his teeth, reminding himself that he had to _keep going_ , sitting around wasn’t an option, not until. . . .

He swallowed, realizing he was sitting on the box that might contain the gory remains of his family.

Breathing in through his mouth, steadying himself, he thought _can’t not check_ and took comfort in the box’s relative integrity. He’d expected it to be flattened, but instead it seemed to be intact, dented but intact. Hopefulness settled like a lump in his throat as he got his fingers around one corner and with exacting care pushed it inward, manipulating it until it gave, peeling it back with shuffling movements. 

He didn’t know how long it took, knew it couldn’t be hours even though it _felt_ like hours. He barely got a hole wide enough to shimmy through before he did just that. Using his shield, he wrenched metal back farther with an ear-splitting _screech_. He dropped onto the floor nimbly, both hands on the wall to avoid crumpling over his trembling leg. It’d be okay soon, he knew, assuming the bone didn’t heal out of place.

His ears were ringing as he looked around the car in disbelief, in anguish.

He heard fast breathing and looked down at the woman who claimed to be Yelena Smirnova. His heart pounded in his chest because Tony and Natasha weren’t just not in the elevators, the doors were wrenched open, they were _gone_. Swallowing hard, he eased down across from the woman, legs in front of him.

He’d memorized the files, memorized the photographs and accompanying information. Hazel and brown were similar enough to be mistaken in low light, but Yelena had blue eyes so light they were gray. The woman on the floor had deep, dark, almost black eyes.

He said aloud, “Ty menya slyshish'?” _Can you hear me?_

She gasped, eyes flying open. He saw her notice him and offered, “Ya ne prichinyu tebe vreda.” _I’m not gonna hurt you_. “Ya zdes', chtoby pomoch'.” _I’m here to help_.

Her neck was bent to one side unnaturally. With a gasping breath, she pleaded, “Pozhaluysta.” His throat tightened. _Please_.

Nodding, ignoring the lingering lightheadness, he narrated, “Menya zovut Stiv Rodzhers. Ty mozhesh' skazat' mne svoye imya?” _My name is Steve Rogers. Can you tell me your name?_

A nefarious agent would have clammed up, refused to answer. He wouldn’t have changed his response, but the woman gasped with such desperation he could feel her palpable fear of being left here. _Left to die_. Swallowing, he repeated, “Ya zdes', chtoby pomoch'.” _I’m not gonna hurt you._

With a despairing groan, the woman said, “Ya ne mogu poshevelit'sya.” _I can’t move_.

“Ty povredil sheyu. Vse budet khorosho.” _You hurt your neck. Everything’s going to be okay_.

Looking at him as well as she could without moving an inch, she pleaded, “Ne delay mne bol'no.” _Don’t hurt me_.

Shaking his head, he said, “Ya ne prichinyu tebe vreda.” _I’m not gonna hurt you_. As gently as he could manage with ash in his lungs and despair in his heart, he asked, “Kak tebya zovut?” _What’s your name?_

“Menya zovut Diana Smirnova. Moya sestra, Yelena . . . ona propala.” _My name is Diana Smirnova. My sister, Yelena . . . she’s gone_.

Steve closed his eyes. “Ona propala?” he repeated. It meant more than gone. Missing. Disappeared. “Chto sluchilos'?” _What happened?_

Looking at him with wide eyes, she said, “Pozhaluysta, ne delay mne bol'no. Ona moya yedinstvennaya sestra.” _Please, don’t hurt me. She’s my only sister_. He closed his eyes. Diana went on: “Ya ne znal, chto ty postradayesh'. Oni prosto skazali pokazat' vam palladiy, i vse budet khorosho.” _I didn’t know you’d get hurt. They said to show you the palladium, and everything will be all right_.

Steve opened his eyes, keeping his expression as calm as he could, even though he wanted to clench his fists because _they’re my family, too_. Instead, he said reassuringly, “Vse v poryadke. Ya zhiva seychas, verno?” _Everything is fine. I’m alive now, right?_ Then he asked, “Kto yeye zabral?” _Who took her?_

Ashen-faced, whether from shock or emotion, Diana replied, “Oni nazyvali sebya ‘Gidra.’” _T_ _hey called themselves ‘Hydra.’_

Ready to pop a tooth from how hard he was gritting his teeth, he said, “I . . . oni khoteli ubit' menya? Kapitan Amerika?” _And . . . did they want to kill me? Captain America?_

Her eyes widened in alarm, in shock. He insisted, “Ya ne prichinyu tebe vreda.” _I’m not gonna hurt you_.

“Kapitan Amerika,” she repeated wonderingly, horrified. Closing her eyes, she said, “Sdelayte eto bystro.” _Make it quick._

Shaking his head, he said in the same tone, “Plokhiye lyudi zastavili tebya eto sdelat'. Ya proshchayu tebya. Ya khochu pomoch' tvoyey sestre.” _Bad people made you do it. I forgive you. I want to help your sister_. After a pause, he added, “I ty. No mne nuzhna tvoya pomoshch'.” _And you. But I need your help_.

Diana breathed rapidly, but some of the trembling panic in her voice had subsided as she said, “Vse chto ugodno dlya Yeleny.” _Anything for Yelena_.

. o .

“Tony?” Tony squinted at Clint, stubbornly posted outside the office where Rodion had been speaking nonstop with the Russian officials for hours. “They found the Russian woman. Yelena? She’s alive.”

Tony exhaled. “That’s good,” he said, because there was a small functional corner of his brain that realized it was good news. Seriously, he asked, “What about Steve?”

Clint eased onto the bench next to him. “Haven’t found him yet.”

Closing his eyes again in silent despair, Tony said, “Tunnel collapsed.”

“Yeah. But it’s not a death sentence,” Clint said. “People survive mining accidents all the time.” Cuffing him on the shoulder, he added, “I thought Bruce hauled you off?”

“Prison break,” Tony muttered, looking at the door with muted emotion. “’m not leavin’. Not without him.”

“I get that.” Patting his knee, Clint added, “But I’m also gonna be a hypocrite and agree with the Good Doctor on this one.”

“He’s not a _doctor_ ,” Tony said disparagingly, cranky and uncaring. With every ounce of clarity he possessed, he stated, “I am _fine_. Worry about the real problem.”

“I’m following Cap’s orders,” Clint said. When Tony glared at him halfheartedly, he shrugged. “Told me to keep an eye on you. If you quit wandering off, it’d be easier.”

Tony stood, even though it was nauseating and unpleasant. He insisted forcefully, “I’m not gonna abandon him.”

“Nobody says you are,” Clint assured, standing up and letting Tony put a steadying hand on his shoulder for balance. “But I promise, as soon as anything changes, you’ll know. Until then . . . sitting here, s’no good, Stark. You seem pretty steady, but I’ve seen people fall into comas they don’t wake up from. Think he’ll be happy that you ignored a serious concussion so you could be on ground zero?” 

Sliding under Tony’s arm, he said, “Look, nobody likes hospitals, but everybody’s trying to find Cap and if I’m trying to keep my eye on you the whole time, that’s one less eye I’ve got on the search. Okay? Do this for him if not yourself.”

Sucking in a breath, Tony said, “I don’t like hospitals.”

Clint said in the same calm voice, “Yeah, like I said: they’re bottom ten ‘favorite places to be.’ Maybe bottom five. But we can’t do anything for you here, not more than make sure you don’t faceplant on the floor. Even that’s easier with other eyes. Okay? It’s gonna be okay. Nat and Bruce’ll be there. I’ll be a phone call away. Hell, we find Steve tonight, we can all crash in the waiting room. Make popcorn on the hospital kitchen microwave. Watch _Aladdin_.”

Shaking his head, Tony said, “I don’t. . . .” His feet refused to take another step, body deep in the red zone, the _please stop or else_ zone. “I don’t wanna go.”

Clint let him catch his breath, saying, “I know. But sometimes we gotta do stuff we don’t want to, so we get to keep doing stuff we want to.”

Tony grunted noncommittally. “Think I’ll die without it?” He meant his voice to be more scalding than it was. It sounded weak.

Clint said diplomatically, “I’ll sleep a hell of a lot better knowing someone smarter than me and more equipped than Bruce says you’re okay. One night. You can survive one night.”

. o . 

He could _not_ survive one night.

Being in a hospital was a nightmare, his worst nightmare, the one that he couldn’t think about without starting to shake and that was on his _best_ days.

Eyes shut, breathing heavily—shaking despite his best efforts to be _calm_ , he wasn’t going to be a baby about this, everything was _fine—_ he didn’t look up at a knock on the door, determined to ignore anyone because he wasn’t sure he could talk without it pouring out of him, _I can’t be here I can’t be here I can’t be here—_

A warm hand curled around his own. 

He thought about asking the perennial question, but he didn’t want to hear the same answer. All he wanted to know was—

“Tony?”

He pried his eyes open, staring at Steve, who looked back at him with relieved eyes. “Hi, sweetheart,” Steve added. “Hi, I’m here. I’m here now.”

Tony stared at him, unblinking, afraid the mirage would evaporate, using his free hand to reach up and curl his fingers around the warm skin of Steve’s cheek. Steve nuzzled his palm. “Hey, sweetheart,” Steve murmured. “I’m so sorry.”

Curling his fingers down, snagging the loose-fitting t-shirt Steve had on, Tony swallowed hard. Throat dry, unable to believe what he was seeing, he rasped, “Steve?”

Steve exhaled: “I’m here. I’m here now, everything’s okay. I’m sorry.” Tony tugged on his shirt and Steve leaned forward, cradling Tony’s head in a hand, tucking him under his chin, holding him there. “I’ve got you, everything’s okay.”

With a confused rasping sound, Tony asked, “How . . . ?”

Sighing, Steve said, “Not important.” Then, assuring, he added, “I’ll tell you later. Okay? Anything you want.” Leaning back, he added gently, “I just wanted to see you one more time.”

Eyes closing against his will, Tony gripped his shirt and pleaded, “Don’t go.”

Steve was silent. 

Tony blinked blearily, staring around the interior of the dimly-lit Quinjet.

In too much pain to vocalize, a despairing noise caught in his chest.

“Steve,” he rasped desperately, like he’d materialize if he _believed_ hard enough in the lie. Steve’s alive. Steve’s alive. _Steve’s alive_. Nothing changed. Pleading, he said again, “Steve?”

Steve didn’t answer. 

. o .

How could he?

Steve was fifteen hundred feet below ground, sitting in a nondescript little corner of a twelve-hundred-kilometer-long mining system, breathing toxic air without a mask and waiting for the miracle-of-miracles serum to heal his broken leg, dreaming idly of summer in the very heart of winter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. I've done a lot of angsty, whumpy, hurt/comforty things in fiction, but this one is near the top.
> 
> All I can say is trust me. <3 Trust the tags. Happy ending, no Major Character Death, and no undisclosed warnings. Everything's going to be okay.
> 
> I'll see you as soon as humanly possible in the next part! (Give it up for back-to-back updates! I only had to stay up till 3 AM last night and write all day today to make it happen, but it was worth it. And yes, this chapter is 15,000 words, like Part 1. <3) 
> 
> Thank you as always for your love, I will respond to your comments ASAP.
> 
> Russian translations in chronological order:  
>  _Bozhe moi._ \- Oh my God.  
>  _My druz'ya Yelena Smirnova._ \- We are friends of Yelena Smirnova.  
>  _Da?_ \- Yes?  
>  _Kto ty? Kak vy syuda popali?_ \- Who are you? How did you get here?  
>  _Menya zovut Natal'ya Romanova. Y shakhte proizoshla avariya. Nam nuzhno pogovorit' s Aleksandroy Petrovoy._ \- My name is Natalia Romanova. There was an accident in the mine. We need to talk to Alexandra Petrova.  
>  _Nyet!_ \- No!  
>  _My ne prichinim vam vreda. Popozhaluysta, ne prichinyayte nam vreda._ \- We will not harm you. Please do not hurt us.  
>  _Opasnost'._ \- Danger.  
>  _Palladiy._ \- Palladium.  
>  _Ty udarilsya golovoy. Kak ty sebya chuvstvuyesh'?_ \- You hit your head. How do you feel?  
>  _Amerikanskiy._ \- American.  
>  _Ty menya slyshish'?_ \- Can you hear me?  
>  _Ya ne prichinyu tebe vreda._ \- I’m not gonna hurt you.  
>  _Ya zdes', chtoby pomoch'._ \- I’m here to help.  
>  _Pozhaluysta._ \- Please.  
>  _Menya zovut Stiv Rodzhers. Ty mozhesh' skazat' mne svoye imya?_ \- My name is Steve Rogers. Can you tell me your name?  
>  _Ya ne mogu poshevelit'sya._ \- I can’t move.  
>  _Ty povredil sheyu. Vse budet khorosho._ \- You hurt your neck. Everything’s going to be okay.  
>  _Ne delay mne bol'no._ \- Don’t hurt me.  
>  _Ya ne prichinyu tebe vreda._ \- I’m not gonna hurt you.  
>  _Kak tebya zovut?_ \- What’s your name?  
>  _Menya zovut Diana Smirnova. Moya sestra, Yelena . . . ona propala._ \- My name is Diana Smirnova. My sister, Yelena . . . she’s gone.  
>  _Ona propala?_ \- She's gone? (Missing? Disappeared?)  
>  _Chto sluchilos'?_ \- What happened?  
>  _Pozhaluysta, ne delay mne bol'no. Ona moya yedinstvennaya sestra._ \- Please don’t hurt me. She’s my only sister.  
>  _Ya ne znal, chto ty postradayesh'. Oni prosto skazali pokazat' vam palladiy, i vse budet khorosho._ \- I didn’t know you’d get hurt. They said to show you the palladium, and everything will be all right.  
>  _Vse v poryadke. Ya zhiva seychas, verno?_ \- Everything is fine. I’m alive now, right?  
>  _Kto yeye zabral?_ \- Who took her?  
>  _Oni nazyvali sebya ‘Gidra.’_ \- They called themselves ‘Hydra.’  
>  _I . . . oni khoteli ubit' menya? Kapitan Amerika?_ \- And . . . did they want to kill me? Captain America?  
>  _Ya ne prichinyu tebe vreda._ \- I’m not gonna hurt you.  
>  _Sdelayte eto bystro._ \- Make it quick.  
>  _Plokhiye lyudi zastavili tebya eto sdelat'. Ya proshchayu tebya. Ya khochu pomoch' tvoyey sestre._ \- Bad people made you do it. I forgive you. I want to help your sister.  
>  _I ty. No mne nuzhna tvoya pomoshch'._ \- And you. But I need your help.  
>  _Vse chto ugodno dlya Yeleny._ \- Anything for Yelena.


	25. INTERLUDE: THE CRUCIBLE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twenty-five!!! *pops champagne cork* Holy heck, dudes!!!
> 
> AND 250,000 words!!! Whoo-hoo!!!
> 
> OK, let me say up front, these are not the fluffy installments you're looking for, but things are looking up AND I promise the fluffy installments will make it worth the legwork. Hang in there, champs. <3 It's a long way up but we're on our way.
> 
> Cheers. *clinks glasses*

“Hey, Steve.” 

Steve blinked, looking to his left and rasping out in wonder, “Bucky?”

Prim and proper in his Army uniform, Bucky frowned and asked, “Yeah, who else? Santa Claus?” Nudging Steve’s left leg with a booted foot—Steve was surprised that there was no pain—he added, “Time to get up, daylight’s a-wastin’.”

Staring at him, Steve asked through a scorched throat, “How the hell’d you get down here?”

Bucky sighed and sat down nearby, leaning back on his hands. “You could say I’ve never left,” he explained. “How’d _you_ get down here?”

Steve shook his head. It wasn’t important. The words, thick in his throat, were: “I missed you.”

“Don’t go gettin’ all soft on me,” Bucky said, but he smiled. “Can’t believe all the places I have to haul your ass out of. We’re in the middle of nowhere, you know that?”

Steve tried to sit up more against the wall, but that made him dizzy and he receded, slumping down again. “Not nowhere. Siberia.”

“Si _-ber_ -ia,” Bucky drawled, dragging it out. With a whistle, he observed, “That’s one helluva place to die.”

Sighing, Steve said, “’m not gonna die.”

“No? Then what’re you doing down here, huh?”

Rubbing his jaw, Steve replied, “My mission.”

Bucky nodded. Then he pawed around his uniform and produced a tin can. With a shrug, he added, “What? I’m starvin’.” With practiced movements, he pried the metal key off the bottom and used it to peel back the tab along the rim, popping the lid. “I was saving it, you know, for a rainy day. Guess this counts, huh?” Fishing a biscuit out, he set the can aside and cracked the biscuit in half, holding out a piece.

Steve shook his head. “You keep it, Buck.”

Bucky set the cracker on Steve’s leg and took a small bite of his own. “So,” he said, chewing, “Got to thinkin’, we should get outta town. Once we win this stupid War. You wanna get outta town?”

Steve reached for the cracker on his leg. “Sure, Buck.”

“Go somewhere warm.” Bucky took another bite and went on, “I’m sick of the snow.”

“Yeah.” Steve hesitated, then took a small bite of his cracker. Chewing politely, he added, “Me too.” Watching Bucky with sadness welling in his chest, he added, “Wish you were here.”

“I am here,” Bucky said, smiling toothily and kicking his broken leg gently. It didn’t hurt. Bucky wouldn’t hurt him; Bucky _couldn’t_ hurt him. Because Bucky wasn’t there.

Steve said, “I’m sorry.”

Bucky sighed, finishing off his biscuit before dusting his hands and saying, “Now why on God’s green Earth are you sorry? Because you couldn’t save me?”

Steve’s throat felt tight. “It shoulda been me.”

“That’s defeatist talk,” Bucky rebuked. “That’s _I gave up_ talk. We don’t give up, remember? We keep going. So, yeah, what if it was you, huh? You’d want me like this, blaming myself? No. You’d want me to keep livin’.”

Vision blurred, Steve rasped, “You coulda had a life, Buck.”

“I already did,” Bucky said, shuffling around until they were both sitting against the earthy wall. “I had a good life, Steve. Got to see parts of the world I never thought I’d get to, know some of the best people who’ve lived. Even fit in a coupla these.” 

He fished out another biscuit and cracked it in half. Steve took the offering silently this time, chewing slowly. The rich rye flavor was sharp, familiar. “What more of a life do you want for me, punk? A family? Already had one. Right here.” He slung an arm around Steve’s shoulders.

Steve leaned into him, able to imagine if not feel his warmth. He closed his eyes. Bucky felt so real in the darkness. Chewing audibly, Bucky said, “I don’t blame you, you know. If I have to blame someone, I’ll blame God.” He swallowed, then added, “What happened on the train was a cosmic accident. Sometimes the rail breaks, Steve. Not your fault, not something you can change.” He finished off the biscuit and then gave him a shake. “C’mon, sport. We’ve got a War to win.”

Steve scrunched up his nose. “‘Sport’?”

A ghostly hand clapped him on the shoulder. “I know you feel bad, but you gotta keep going. I’ll kick your ass if you give up now,” Bucky warned. “So come on. Steve Rogers ain’t a quitter. Get up. Get going.” He stood up. Steve blinked up at him. Bucky already seemed more ghost than human, but his smile was discernible. “We’ll meet again, punk. Don’t rush it. Live a little.” Pointing, he added sternly, “I expect a damn good story.”

Then Bucky walked away, fading into darkness.

. o .

Opening burning eyes, Steve felt the pain rush in. He grimaced as he shifted around, trying to get comfortable. 

The darkness of the cave was spectacular, not quite absolute. He’d been putting distance between himself and the crash site, more interested in a hidey-hole than a strategic stopping point. It showed: he had no idea where the hell he was. 

Somewhere quiet, damp, uninhabited. 

It was hot, too. He wiped his sleeve across his sweaty forehead and muttered through a dry mouth, “Welcome to Siberia.”

Looking down at his legs, he tapped the left one and found the pain spectacular but not debilitating. He muttered, “All right, Buck, I’m up.”

He heard a sniffing sound and tensed up, trying to haul himself to his feet, but he wasn’t balanced. He grabbed the wall and made it partway to his feet before his bad leg quit on him, bringing him back down with a grunt. He braced for impact as a low shape approached, loping towards him.

In the acute darkness, it was hard to even tell what he was looking at. He jolted at the first brush of fur, hearing the sniffing pause, clicking claws and then more snuffling near his right leg. Reaching out, he grasped a handful of fur, marveling at its realness. 

“You a dream, too?” he asked, stroking the furry shoulder as [the dog](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ncQoVaaEaRI/maxresdefault.jpg) sniffed at him curiously. He expected it to take a bite out of him, presuming he was roadkill, but after a few more moments of sniffing his leg and boot, it shuffled closer to his face. He used both hands to hold its head. 

“Hey, fuzzy,” he greeted, delirious and mouth so dry every word was costly.

The dog let him hold it. He felt around for a collar and didn’t find one. He knew that he was tempting fate with a feral animal—he was reasonably sure the serum could handle rabies, but he wasn’t eager to find out—but the dog was docile, sniffing around. He doubted it could see him better than he could see it, but he could make out big pointy ears.

It was a good-sized dog, he noted, wrapping an arm around its shoulders in a crude measurement. Easily as big as a Golden Retriever. Its coat was softer than he expected. Aloud, he mused, “Where’s your master, huh?”

The dog sniffed at him, then licked his face. Steve jolted in surprise, but the dog didn’t bolt like he expected. It let out a snort that felt loud in the relative quiet of the cave despite the grinding hum of machinery in the distance. 

Sitting down beside him, the dog rested most of its upper body on top of his legs, friendlier than any stray he’d encountered stateside. “Aren’t you sweet,” he mused, rubbing its head. “Bet someone’s wondering where you wandered off to.” He pet down its back, smoothing its coat and brushing out some of the dirt. 

Giving it a pat on the side, he added, “Okay, bud, go on. Go home.” He snapped his fingers and the dog stood up, but instead of taking off as he expected, it circled around and sat next to him on the opposite side. “Go home,” he repeated. Realized he was expecting a Russian-born dog to understand English, he clarified, “Idi domoy.” _Go home_.

He said it twice more but the dog didn’t move an inch, even when he gave it another push. Content to sit beside him, upper body resting on his legs, like they were pack-mates, it ignored his commands. With a sigh, he reached down to rub its head again. “Khoroshaya sobaka,” he said instead, _good dog_. He could hear its tail sweeping against the ground more than he could see it.

He couldn’t deny that it was comforting, having a big soft animal draped over his legs, breathing rapidly as it sniffed before settling and falling asleep, if his faint vision wasn’t mistaking him. He mused aloud, “Came all this way for a nice place to sleep?” He scratched its shoulder before setting his hand flat, closing his own eyes. “Don’t gnaw off my leg,” he advised nonsensically, curling one hand in its fur.

He didn’t know how long they sat there, half-aware, the warmth and weight a pleasant contrast to the stinging air and the stinging pain below the knee in his left leg. The dog was resting on his thighs, avoiding the worst areas. He stroked its fur, marveling at it. Surreal, rabbit-soft. “All right,” he announced. “Just for a minute.” 

He wasn’t sure how he fell asleep, but he awoke slumped forward, face all but buried in fur, the dog lying across his legs. He straightened, trembling with the effort. The dog jumped upright. For a moment Steve mourned that it had to go even though he knew somebody was probably looking for it, but it stood nearby, unmoving, expectant.

Steve coughed a few times in a vain attempt to clear his throat, decided it was useless and he’d have to settle for the heavy feeling in his chest, the dry earth feeling in his mouth. Feeling for his left leg, he was pleased to find the pain had dulled to a muffled roar. He planted his hands on the ground and began pushing himself upright. 

The dog turned tail and crowded close, licking at his face. He tilted his head away and pushed at it, advising, “Easy, I gotta—gotta get up so we can . . . get you home, yeah?” It made as much sense as any goal.

He felt a little dizzy and plenty unsteady as he leveraged himself to his feet, but the clear-mindedness of the task, _get the dog to its master_ , was easy. It was the right thing to do.

At least it was easier to get to his feet this time, a hand planted on the wall for support. He could make out the dog’s outline, pointed ears up, waiting for him, entreating, _Hurry up_.

He eased a hand onto its back, _I hear ya_. Putting as little weight as he could bear on his left leg, he sunk his teeth into his lip as an electric ripple of pain lanced up it. He could walk, in a pinch he could even run, but he’d wear himself to the bone if he didn’t take it easy. Besides, a worse fracture would mean a longer stop. 

He had to keep moving. He had to stay low.

That was the _why_ , the reason he’d made the choice to wander off and find an empty cave to die in. It would’ve been easier to stay with Diana, but then the Hydra agents holding Yelena hostage would know that Captain America hadn’t died in the rocks. 

He might not get a second chance to catch them so off-guard. If there was a chance to save Yelena and knock out a few Hydra agents, he had to take it.

He felt anger burn inside him at the thought that Tony and Natasha had been _collateral_ , that Diana was nothing more than a gear in the machine. He knew that the target on his back would not disappear as long as he was the wolf hunting Hydra down, one-by-one, piece-by-piece. 

They wanted him to run back to his lair. His response was, _Like hell_. The paranoia they desired to instill required fear. He wasn’t afraid of them. No: he was only concerned about his family. They’d come after his family. 

He was almost eager to kick in the door and watch a few faces fall. 

He had to play dead so they’d act like he wasn’t there, so they’d come out of their hidey-holes and reveal themselves.

But first, he had to find his family.

With a hand on the wall, he resumed his slow march towards the surface.

. o .

When Steve stumbled for the fourth time in as many hours, he let himself slide down the wall, panting open-mouthed.

He was dehydrated, he knew. He didn’t know how long he’d been down here in the mining system, but his growling stomach told him it’d been at least twelve hours since the initial cave-in. He felt a pang of mixed emotion at the thought: that it had been twelve hours since he’d known where Natasha and Tony were, that they were even _alive_. He had to believe that they’d escaped under their own power, that the indented finger-prints were none other than Iron Man’s, but there was an all-too-real possibility that Hydra had gotten to them.

A wave of anger propelled him to his feet. 

The dog padded over, brushing against his leg inquisitively, more heard than seen. The cave system was astonishingly dark and he hadn’t found a light switch. He supposed it made sense: why light a room you weren’t using? 

Patting its side, he said, “Khoroshaya sobaka,” and started walking, hand on the wall. His leg ached bitterly, but he couldn’t stop moving. He didn’t dare wait for rescue that wasn’t coming, not here, help he didn’t dare let find him. They had to believe he was dead, or Yelena would die. 

He knew that if _they_ knew he’d survived the mining accidents, their best bet would be to eliminate potential leaks and try again in a different location. He welcomed them to, but he couldn’t abide by the thought that Yelena and Nadia, indubitably compromised, would have to die for it first.

He wouldn’t give up on them. That wasn’t what _Kapitan Amerika_ stood for. Or _Stiv Rodzhers_.

If Tony or Natasha hadn’t made it out of that elevator alive . . . there was no force on the planet that could stop him from permanently disassembling Hydra. 

If they remembered him by the epithet _The Terrible_ , so be it. 

He didn’t want to be a cold-blooded killer, but if something had happened to Natasha and Tony, if _they_ had gotten their first. . . .

Heads would roll.

Clarity made the pain go away, made it easy to put one foot down, then the other, releasing the wall. The dog seemed to perk up as he moved at a walking clip. Twelve hundred kilometers—a nickel over 745 miles—was too far to walk on a broken leg, but he didn’t need to walk 745 miles to get to the surface. He needed to navigate his way through a few dozen, a few hundred, to get around the unknown inhabitants of the underground city. He had to stay under the radar, or Hydra would know. 

He didn’t know who—shaking his hand and speaking in deceptively normal tones along with the other Nornickel need-to-knows—was the orchestrator, but he knew he’d seen their face. The orchestrator almost certainly hadn’t planted the proverbial sticks of dynamite—far too revealing—but rather had been in charge of at the bare minimum two and more likely six accomplices.

It was a big job, not a two-man con, not the idle whims of a vengeful agent. They’d planned the trap. Set it up, stopped him at the door to make sure their dynamite was in place. It was, at its heart, crude work. 

He believed sincerely that Rodion wasn’t acting with them. None of the anxiety that prevailed in Diana’s demeanor.

God, he should’ve acted sooner. 

But how could he have? Even if they had given their suspicions away, turned tail and ran, they would’ve been obliterated by the explosives or the tunnel collapse itself. If they’d proceeded to the elevator with greater haste, they’d have all been on the final passage to nowhere. 

There was, he resolved, no way out. They’d been boxed in, cut off at the exits. His final directive— _don’t panic; everything is under control—_ was the only response available. 

He was meant to die in the mine collapse or the elevator. Hydra wouldn’t make assumptions; they had covered both bases. 

As soon as the first elevator had brought Rodion to the floor where an accomplice was waiting to sound off, they’d triggered the bombs.

Maybe it was a calculating error or a glitch or a delay that the elevator cables broke after the structural beam did. 

Maybe it was intentional, trying to funnel him into a lethal trap.

Or maybe they’d wanted to be certain that he would be very crushed, whether it was under thousands of pounds of earth or a steel trap. Either way, Hydra wanted him dead and they weren’t underestimating him. 

He had to give them credit; he’d barely made it out of the mine. Even he would have been hard-pressed to survive an elevator crash from a thousand-feet, where the elevator should have buckled into a pancaked approximation of itself on impact, like a car crumpling against a cement wall. 

Assuming he was human-shaped, he would’ve been incapacitated. Whoever had been there to “rescue” him and Yelena would have made certain that he didn’t make it to the surface. Probably would’ve killed Yelena and whoever happened to be with them, ready to help, only to fall prey to the trap.

God, he hated Hydra.

This was a plan that had been in the works since Nadia sent out the first yellow alert. It was a one-word warning. _Hydra. Hydra. Hydra._

Limping along and trying not to breathe too heavily, he hoped to God she was alive. He had to believe she was. Fury had shown him the subsequent logs. They were eerily normal, nothing awry. Nothing but a ‘false alarm’ regarding the alerts. 

The return to normalcy could only mean she’d been compromised and forced to send the ‘everything’s fine’ messages. That, or she’d been eliminated altogether and a Hydra agent was sitting behind the wheel. 

It wouldn’t have been impossible for them to figure out how the sound-off codes worked. It was a system designed to prevent hostile take-over, but depending on how long they’d been watching Nadia, they could have decrypted the system. It wasn’t foolproof. 

Maybe she was alive, maybe she was a Hydra agent. Like ‘Yelena Smirnova’ was actually Diana Smirnova.

He felt uneasy at the thought of leaving Diana behind, but he’d needed to put distance between himself and the crash site to avoid detection. It was the only chance they had. 

It almost worked too well, he thought, as he rounded a corner with the dog. They were at best on level ground, at worst descending. He needed to get to the surface. 

He knew he’d have to take an elevator, slip undetected through hurdles intended to keep miners honest, but those were steps he could only take after he found a working elevator. He was tempted to double back, to slip through the roof and try his luck climbing up the shaft.

But it was a foolish thought. He could descend in a pinch but climbing a rock wall unaided with a broken leg was a recipe for a terrible accident. 

Besides, it would be the first place they’d stake out. Looking for him, believing, he realized with a pang, that he’d be trapped upstairs, under two million pounds of rubble, a thousand tons of rock. Even if he miraculously made it back upstairs the hard way, what then? 

The original tunnel was obliterated. He had no idea how far up the next tunnel would be, if there was even a second tunnel. He hadn’t spent much time looking up, but he knew that there was a point, maybe not high above him, where the elevator shaft terminated. Not every mining elevator needed to go to the surface. Even if that one did, it was another hot-spot for detection, a place a Hydra agent would watch like a hawk. 

It was a bad plan. He’d have been better off staying in the elevator with Diana and taking down the accomplice before trying to intercept the sound-off that _Captain America is alive_.

“I was not here,” he told Diana in her native tongue. “When the elevator broke, I was trapped in the mine.” She couldn’t nod, not in her condition. He felt like a terrible person for leaving her, but she repeated:

“Captain America was trapped in the mine when the elevator went down.”

For added insurance, he’d spent precious seconds nearly bloodying his hands on jagged metal, pulling it back down into an approximation of a flat roof rather than the peeled-back hole he’d made to get inside. 

“Help will come,” he told Diana in her native Russian. “Rodion Kuznetsov will have heard the explosions. He will send help for you. I must leave or the people who took your sister will not let her go.” He didn’t say the obvious, far more damning conclusion: _they will kill her_. “Do not tell anyone I was here. No one.”

That was the hardest part, but he couldn’t risk an encrypted message. Not when she was in such a compromised state. There was every chance a Hydra agent would be present when they found her. 

He had to hope that he could get to the surface to dispel the dust and prove that he was _alive_ , that he’d made it. It made him feel cold despite the stifling heat of the mine, realizing that he was almost two thousand feet underground with no means to communicate with the surface that he was alive, the radio—the telephone—was broken. He couldn’t fix it, but he had to let them know _D_ _on’t look in the mine, I’m not in the mine_ , because he wanted them to find him, needed them to find him.

Stumbling for the fifth time in, he paused, hand on the wall, aching but determined. The dog brushed against him. He patted its head, taking comfort in its realness. He wasn’t down here alone, wasn’t going to die alone, at least. The cave was almost invisible, but there was no eerie blue light from the white ice. He wasn’t going to freeze to death or drown. 

He wouldn’t die cold. That was a small mercy, a thought that helped him pick up the march again.

It took ten hours to walk twenty-one miles.

. o .

Around hour twenty-three of being submerged in perfect darkness, he paused to murmur, not quite deliriously, “What do you think, Laika? Should we go up or down?” It was an absurd question, but despite his best efforts they seemed to be moving downward. 

The tunnel was narrow and seemed like the kind of foxhole that had been abandoned in favor of a larger track. Ergo: he was off the proverbial grid, adding miles to his journey that counted for nearly nothing. He was desperately thirsty, one step removed from scraping at the walls and trying to suck moisture from the earth. He had survived intense heat before, but he was miserable in the mines.

Still, the memory of blinding heat, of _Kunar_ , sent a chill through him.

It motivated him to take ten more steps. He had to live to atone for it. He had to save Nadia and Yelena for Nick and Elijah, to live to ensure that Tony and Natasha were okay. If they weren’t, he had to live to save them.

He had to live. He had to live. 

_For Bucky_.

And Clint, who wanted to hike the Rockies, and Bruce, who said he made the house feel safe, protected. He was their protector, their watch dog. If he died, they’d be that much more vulnerable. He couldn’t abide by that, couldn’t let Hydra have its way, terrorizing people like Diana and Yelena, hurting people like Nadia. 

They hadn’t killed Nick and Eli, but they were like the Ten Rings: notorious for their cruelty above all else. They had been around for centuries. The only way to stop them was to disassemble their entire organization, to go right for the throat.

It wasn’t easy to find the orchestrators. There were ten accomplices to every orchestrator, as many as a hundred depending on how far up the chain you went. Captain America wasn’t created to kill pawns on the battlefield. He was made, at the end of the day, to kill Hitler.

He’d failed that mission. 

He wouldn’t fail this one. 

He took another step forward.

. o . 

Hour thirty-six since the cave-in came and went unceremoniously as he staggered along. He felt strong despite the physical deprivations, trembling with exhaustion but undaunted by it. His only real concern—hunger had come and gone, thirst, even, felt like a headache more than a primal need—was the foul air. 

He was panting for breath. The air tasted palpably metallic. He’d been guzzling it for hours unfiltered. He wasn’t worried about himself as much as Laika. 

The dog that had yet to run off. It, like he, had made it this far. Maybe it had been down here longer than he had, survived in these conditions for days, weeks. Evidently, it wasn’t a killer condition. Wasn’t like the ash from a volcanic eruption that filled and perforated the lungs. It was its own kind of cancer, a lying-in-wait lethality that made breathing difficult but not impossible.

“How are you, Laika?” he asked, limping along after it. “Do you like Siberia? Do you like the palladium?”

Laika, who had responded to the name, paused and sniffed around his leg. He patted its shoulder. “Yes, you like the palladium, palladium is good for the heart.” He pat its shoulder a few more times before forcing himself to keep walking, afraid to sit down, afraid he wouldn’t get back up. He refused to die _now_ , after surviving the crash, the fall, the march across the barren landscape without hope of rescue. He had Laika. 

Laika loped along. He followed the dog until they reached a dead-end. 

The metal in his lungs felt like ash. 

Burning with despair at the thought of having to turn around, he could not move. Then Laika turned to face him. When he didn’t move, the dog barked, a surprisingly high-pitched sound, not yappy but not the deep bark he’d expected a dog of its size to have. “Yeah, I’m here,” he assured, stumbling forward, deciding he would have to show the dog that he couldn’t move Heaven and Earth, that the solid wall wouldn’t—

He felt the solid wall and nearly cried as his fingers closed around a metal panel. Laika’s tail brushed against him as it wagged it. He said in a raspy undertone, “Good dog, _good dog_ ,” in English and Russian, fumbling around, hearing the grinding sound of gears turning, cables moving. For a moment he couldn’t move, overwhelmed by the fact that Tony and Natasha were plummeting to their deaths— 

He scruffed a hand in Laika’s thick fur, for balance, for strength. When the cage opened, dimly lit but bright after the darkness, his free hand lifted to cover his eyes, overcome that he’d found the light, he’d _found_ it.

Limping inside the elevator, he sat heavily against the wall. Laika lolled beside him, chin on his knee. “Good dog,” he repeated, patting it warmly. “Very good dog.”

He let himself have a few moments of quiet triumph, relieved that they’d made it this far. Then he leaned forward and hit the button for the next floor up.

The service elevator was narrower and ricketier than the ones closer to the service, but it moved steadily. Steve still tightened his hand in Laika’s ruff, half-convinced they were about to fall, but the elevator creaked along contentedly. It felt like forever before the doors slid open again.

The second tunnel was wider but still deep underground. Steve didn’t bother to get up and scope it out, hitting the highest level on the panel instead.

They rose for a long time. He felt both heavy and light, like he could walk a hundred miles but didn’t need to.

When the doors slid open again, they revealed a broad tunnel. The distant sounds of machinery were palpable. 

Steve clambered to his feet, squinting eyes refusing to adjust to the well-lit interior. Laika didn’t move at his side, sniffing intently. He looked down at it wonderingly, taking in its snow-white coat, big black patches around its chest and over its right ear. Its white eyes looked up at him, breathtakingly clear. He stared at it, startled that such a dog existed. 

Then he held out his free hand for it to sniff, his other hand buried in the ruff of fur near its shoulder. Laika huffed at it, demeanor tame as he slid his other hand up its neck, back down, marveling at it now that he could see it. “Laika,” he murmured appreciatively. “Beautiful Laika.” He drew in a deep breath, savoring fresher air. He marveled that Rodion had insisted on masks and goggles, even though he knew it was an invisible threat.

With more animated movements, Laika bounced to its feet. Steve fumbled after it—her, he realized, one hand on the wall and the other settling on the broad white back. He told her, “Good girl.” 

With a soft sound, he stood, releasing his handholds to take a step forward. He had no means of measuring how deep they were, but the air tasted cleaner. That meant they were northward of the worst of the excess dust.

Limping along, he watched Laika scout, more confident now that she could see, tail erect, alert ears pricked permanently forward. He told her, “Go home,” but she circled back towards him. He sighed and repeated it in Russian, _go home_. That had been the goal, hadn’t it? Get the dog to its— _her—_ master. 

She responded to a name and he doubted collars were a universal adornment, it meant nothing if a tame dog lacked one. She had to have a master; she’d only been looking for them when she found him. Then again, with a mine city as big as Norilsk Nickel, she might not know where they were any more than he did. He decided to cut her slack as he said instead, “ _Good dog_.”

Her tail didn’t wag, but she walked alongside him, content to have a companion. He didn’t mind, even appreciated having her around, but he was trying to suppress personal attachment. She wasn’t his. “We will find your master,” he promised her in Russian. 

He paused when he heard a distinct sound in the distance, almost overshadowed by the machinery. 

Voices. Human voices. 

The sound made his heartbeat faster. Laika trotted ahead, then she paused and circled back to him. Alighting on his left side, she sat down. Heeling, he mused, rubbing her head between the ears, her eyes closing in contentment. He murmured, “Let’s go make a friend, da?”

Looking down at himself, covered in a fine dust but inconspicuous in his black uniform, the shield on his back hardly projecting beyond his shoulders and covered in a double layer, reflective sheet and dust, he reached up to smooth his hair. 

After a moment’s thought, he rolled back his sleeves, pushing attention to his unmarred if dusty skin rather than the raw skin of his hands. As an added precaution, he unzipped the top of the jacket, pulled his loose shirt over his mouth and nose, like he’d seen Rodion do before accepting a mask.

He felt a deep space of calm. He walked with more confidence than his body felt, like he’d slipped out of one coat and into another, Laika trotting along near him. The Russian miners were both men and both absorbed in their task. It wasn’t until Laika barked that they turned to look at her. Steve lowered the shirt and said without a trace of an English accent, “Zdravstvuyte.”

The men were cordial, shaking his wrist rather than his grimy hand as he did the same. After introducing himself as Igor Sokolov, he said, “ _I found the dog down in the mine_ ,” with a wave at the dog stoically seated next to him. “ _D_ _o you know who is her master?_ ”

The man who introduced himself as Pavel Ludovich replied, “Da, _I am looking at him_.”

. o . 

Boris Petrov was quiet as he walked with Steve. That was fine by Steve, who had exhausted his small talk. After a good while, Boris asked at last, “ _How did you find a dog in the mine?_ ”

Steve said, “ _She found me_.”

Nodding like it was the answer he expected, Boris said, “ _Like all women,_ da?”

A tame smile would have been appropriate stateside, but Steve allowed without change in expression, “Da. _My girlfriend would agree with you_.”

Boris huffed, not a laugh but an amused sound, and said, “ _You are a smart man, Igor_.”

Steve said, “ _She is the smart one. I listen well_.”

“ _A good method to stay happy_ ,” Boris said, tapping the control panel for another elevator.

“ _A good method_ ,” Steve agreed. 

Ingratiation was the key to invisibility. You didn’t need to crawl through the walls if you could hide in plain sight. 

With Boris at his side, they slipped through the more crowded areas virtually undetected. Laika stayed close enough to brush against his leg. Steve couldn’t tell if she was seeking protection or trying to protect him, but she didn’t threaten anyone, which was a very good thing.

At some point, he shook hands with Boris a final time before they parted ways. Then he and Laika stepped inside another elevator alone. 

As they rose, he could feel the cold sinking in. The steady temperature drop felt catastrophic as, belatedly, he realized he had no Arctic wear.

. o . 

Someone knocked on the door to the Kuznetsov’s home.

Alexandra Petrova answered, her placid expression melting into one of shock as she stepped back.

Dmitry called, “ _Who is it?_ ”

When she didn’t respond, Dmitry stepped around the corner with more than casual haste and froze. “Bozhe moi.”

Lowering his frozen t-shirt from mouth, Steve Rogers said numbly, “ _Hello, Alexandra. Hello, Dmitry_.”

Dmitry asked in open wonder, “ _How are you alive?”_

Stiff-legged, Steve limped past the threshold. Laika slipped inside briskly. Alexandra shut the door behind them, careful to keep space between them. Steve radiated cold, frozen to the bone. 

He knelt and with numb fingers, pried off his shoes. They were winter boots. His toes were the only part of him that had some feeling. That feeling was _cold_. 

He straightened and fell into the wall, shaking in the warmth even though it didn’t seem to touch him as he said, again through syrupy thickness, “ _I am sorry to be late for dinner_.”

“ _You have been dead for two days_ ,” Dmitry said, stepping forward and, forgoing traditional politeness, sliding an arm around Steve’s back. Steve sagged on his feet, leaning against the wall. Dmitry barked a curse and acknowledged, “ _You are like ice_.”

“ _It is very cold_ ,” Steve agreed, straightening and trying to look around, the gray haze in his mind making the world monochrome. “ _Where are the others?_ ”

Alexandra came on his other side as gravity pulled him down.

Dmitry grunted and together they shuffled over to the couch. Laika laid down in front of it. Dmitry didn’t even acknowledge her as Steve sat—collapsed—onto the furniture. “ _We thought you were dead_ ,” he said, sounding equal parts wondering and horrified. “ _You died in the mine_.”

“ _I did not die in the mine_ ,” Steve said, pinching his own thigh to stay conscious. “ _I am alive and well_.”

“ _Alive and well_ ,” Alexandra repeated incredulously. “ _How long were you outside?”_

Steve shook his head, sinking into the cushions. The shield on his back was ice cold and he grimaced, but he didn’t bother taking it off. When Dmitry reached for it, he dissuaded, “ _Leave it. Leave it_.” He leaned forward, curling a hand in Laika’s thick fur. “ _Everything is fine. Where are the others?_ ”

Alexandra and Dmitry exchanged a look. Steve almost couldn’t bear to see it, sick to his stomach at the thought of what they might say. “ _Are they all right?_ ” he pressed. “ _The Americans, what—?_ ”

“ _They are fine_ ,” Dmitry assured. The sincerity in his voice made Steve close his eyes in a gratitude so profound it hurt. “ _My God, you are a dead man walking. You need a doctor_.”

Waving a hand, Steve said in as stern a voice as he could manage, “ _I will be fine. Please, tell me where the others are_.”

Dmitry said instead, “Sasha, _can you—?_ ”

Steve didn’t know what he said, breathing through his mouth, throat almost frozen. At least there was no pain, he thought, one hand gripping Laika’s fur. He said numbly, “ _I need to know where the Americans are_.”

Dmitry threw a blanket over his shoulders and explained, “ _Clint Barton is with my brother-in-law, at Norilsk Nickel_.”

Almost absurdly, Steve planted his free hand on the couch, intending to stand. “ _I must speak to him_ ,” he explained, even though there was no strength in the gesture. He sagged back down and asked quietly, “ _Is he all right?_ ”

“Da,” Dmitry said. Without explanation, he snapped his fingers and patted Steve’s leg. Steve felt a warm weight settle over them as Laika hopped up onto the couch, lying across his thighs. The pain in his leg was so muted he didn’t even feel it. “ _Do not tell Mother_ ,” Dmitry advised, almost playfully. Steve buried both hands in Laika’s fur, cold on the edges but warmer than he was, her skin hot. “ _Very bad manners, but bad manners for the Americans_.”

“ _Anthony Stark_ ,” Steve pressed, “ _Natalia Romanova, what of them?_ ”

“ _Hospital_ ,” Dmitry said. Steve felt an icicle lodge in his chest. Dmitry added, “ _American hospital_.”

Urgency flooded Steve’s consciousness. He nearly lurched out of his seat but for Laika, staring at the gray-paletted Dmitry and blurting out, “ _No telephone, no telephone_.”

Dmitry frowned in confusion but agreed, “ _No telephone,_ da.”

Heart pounding in alarm—it would all be for naught if Hydra found out he was alive—he pleaded, “ _Please, it is very important_.”

“ _No telephone_ ,” Dmitry said again, reaching out and clasping his hand in assurance and saying, “ _hell, you are like ice_.”

Steve exhaled. “Da,” he agreed, squeezing Dmitry’s warm hand before releasing it limply. “ _When will Clint Barton return?_ ”

Dmitry stood. “ _I will fetch him_.”

Steve advised, “ _Dress warm_.”

Dmitry actually scoffed. “ _Says the American_.” He disappeared around the corner. Steve heard him tell Alexandra in a hushed voice, “ _I will be back soon. Will you be all right?_ ” He didn’t hear a response, but Dmitry must have been satisfied because he reappeared momentarily, throwing on a coat and gloves, adding to Steve, “ _Do not die_.” Then he left.

Steve closed his eyes, breathing shallowly. _Do not die._

Easy enough.

Alexandra said, suddenly nearby, “ _Would you like tea?_ ”

Steve exhaled. “Da,” he agreed, forcing himself to open his eyes and look at her. “ _Thank you_.”

Laika sniffed at Alexandra as she extended the mug towards Steve, who patted her head clumsily, “ _Good dog._ ” He curled numb fingers around the mug. He watched the motion to make sure he had a firm grip; he could barely feel it. “ _Thank you_ ,” he said again.

“ _How are you alive?”_ Alexandra asked, sitting in a chair nearby and watching him.

Steve held the mug to his face, letting the steam thaw him. “ _Little miracle_ ,” he decided, taking a sip. It burned the whole way down; he couldn’t suppress a grimace. “ _It’s good_ ,” he said. “ _I’m a poor house-guest_.”

Alexandra said with an air of polite dismissal, “ _You are no worse than Dmitry_.”

Steve smiled at that. Alexandra actually smiled back, even though her expression was worried. “ _Your friends, they were hurt in the elevator accident_ ,” she said. He took another fragile sip, heart pounding. “ _But they were able to find my husband, Rodion. They found the other woman, Yelena Smirnova, a few hours later_.” A pause. “ _They have been looking for you. The whole tunnel collapsed, it will take days to clear the rubble. It is good news that you are alive_.”

Steve drew in a deep breath, giving himself the strength to say, “ _No one outside the family can know that I am alive. Not yet. It is very important_.” He didn’t want to frighten her, resting the mug in his cradled hands between Laika’s shoulders, the warmth of it sinking into them.

Alexandra was quiet for a long moment. “ _My brother was not wrong. You look like a dead man walking_.”

Steve assured in the most normal voice he could muster up, “ _I will be all right. It was a long walk across the snow_.”

Alexandra’s eyebrows shot up. “ _You walked? The whole way?_ ”

With a nod, Steve lifted the mug with great effort and took another sip before saying simply, “Da.”

. o .

Clint said colorfully, “You goddamn sonuvabitch,” and hugged him so hard his ribs creaked.

Steve replied, “Hey, Clint,” before adding in Russian for their hosts’ benefit, “ _It’s good to see you, too_.” He thumped Clint on the back of the shoulder. Laika sniffed at Clint’s jacket, trapped between them but placid, unworried because Steve was unworried.

Clint held onto him. Steve reassured, “I’m okay.” Three cups of tea helped, even though he couldn’t feel his extremities.

Grunting in acknowledgment, Clint pulled back and looked him in the eye, his expression a mix of relief, disbelief, and anguish. “Thanks for not makin’ me a liar,” he said, his voice thin. 

Steve didn’t ask _how_. He just nodded once. “Not that easy to kill,” he replied, appreciating the space Dmitry and Alexandra gave them, wandering into another room. He didn’t ask where the parents were, only grateful that Clint and he were alone for now.

Clint’s gaze flitted to Laika. He asked, “This yours?”

Steve didn’t shrug, leaning back against the couch and saying, “Found her in the mine. Nobody else would take her.”

Clint held out a hand and Laika sniffed at it before setting her head down on the couch again. “She’s tame,” Clint mused. “Only you, Rogers.”

Steve rubbed Laika’s head between the ears. “Da,” he said automatically. Seriously, he asked, “Where’re Tony and Nat?”

“Anchorage.” Steve frowned. Clint inhaled deeply, taking a seat on the chair nearby, assuming Alexandra’s former perch. “Alaska,” he added explanatorily.

“Alaska,” Steve repeated dubiously. “Dmitry said—American hospital.”

Nodding, Clint said, “Bruce and I—he flew down, you know, once shit hit the fan—we crunched the numbers and it was about as reasonable to fly them to Moscow as it was to fly them to the States. Twice as far but four hours by Quinjet and it’s American soil, so medical treatment is a lot less complicated. No medical travel visa stuff. Plus, everybody speaks English, which helps, since Banner doesn’t speak Russian.”

Steve’s head was swimming. He wanted to hold up a hand, tell Clint to save the rest for the morning, because his mouth was dry, his chest was full of nails, and his eyes burned. Instead, he closed his eyes and asked, “What happened in the elevator?”

Clint told him.

The whole sorry tale took maybe ten minutes, but it felt like hours.

When Clint said, “Steve?” he replied:

“They shouldn’t’ve have been there.”

“You should be glad they were,” Clint rebuked. Steve didn’t look at him, mouth set into a firm line. “The Russian woman would’ve died without treatment. I know,” he added roughly, “trust me, I had to find out from _Bruce_. Up there for top three worst phone calls I’ve ever gotten, but they’re alive and they even saved a life. They’re not great, but they’re not dying, either.”

Breathing through his mouth—God, it was so dry, even with the tea—Steve rasped, “They coulda died, Barton.”

“I know.” There was a long pause. “But they didn’t. And neither did you.”

Steve was silent, processing. Then he said, “It. . . .” He paused. It felt dangerous to say out loud, even in English. He knew Alexandra and Dmitry were innocents and he didn’t want to put them at risk by giving them too much information. Instead, he forced himself to look at Clint and with frozen fingers, signed, _It was a trap_. _H-Y-D-R-A_. When Clint stared at him, not in incomprehension but surprise, he added, _Mine collapse. Elevator collapse. Hydra. Hydra wants me dead_.

Clint signed back, _What do you want to do?_

Steve thought about it. _Natasha and Tony need to know I’m alive_.

Clint nodded. He signed, _I’ll call_.

Aloud, Steve said firmly, “I need to lay low, get back my strength.” _I need to stay dead_ , he signed. _Hostages_.

Clint signed, _Encrypted call?_

Steve nodded. Clint flashed a thumbs-up. “I’ll make sure everything’s okay,” Steve added. _Take them down_ , he signed. _Two agents compromised. One alive. One maybe._

Clint nodded back. “I’m staying,” he said, rock-solid conviction. “That’s not up for debate.”

Steve signed, _Dangerous_.

Eloquently, Clint flipped him the bird. “The kids are all right,” he added. “Banner’s got a great bedside manner. Only has two panic attacks per hour.”

A huff of a laugh escaped Steve. “Down from three,” he added, turning his head to cough into his sleeve, deeper and longer than he wanted and still not clearing his chest.

Clint signed, _You okay?_

Steve signed back, _I’ll be fine_. With an ambivalent shrug, he rasped, “Could go for a bite. Been a long two days.”

Clint said, “Sure. Yeah.” Then, frowning, he asked, “Do you want me to . . . ?” He signed, _Call or food?_

Without hesitation, Steve signed, _Call_.

He didn’t even ask what time it was stateside if it was two AM, Saturday morning, in Norilsk, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia.

The mine had collapsed just before noon on Thursday.

He’d been dead for thirty-eight hours.

He let his eyes slide shut, which was a mistake, because with Laika’s heavy warmth and the security that Barton knew what they were up against, that he didn’t have to carry the mission alone, he passed out stone-cold.

. o . 

It was 9 AM, Friday morning in Anchorage, Alaska.

Natasha Romanoff’s phone rang.

She reached for it, careful not to overstretch hurting ribs, bruised spleen. The hotel was well-appointed and she’d made a nice little nest for herself. The time zone whiplash was still unbearable. “Romanoff,” she greeted shortly.

“ _You sitting down?_ ”

A lump suddenly formed in her throat. “Just tell me.” She’d been waiting for the call. The worst call: the _we found him_ call.

“ _He’s alive_.” Natasha closed her eyes. She barely heard Clint babble, “ _Came home about an hour ago, looks like hell but he’s alive, Nat_.”

She asked, very carefully, “Can I speak to him?” She needed to hear it.

Clint said, “ _Sure_ ,” and then, after a few moments of muffled words:

“ _Hi, Natasha_.” Steve’s voice was ragged. She felt her throat tighten. “ _Hi. I’m sorry_.”

“No, it’s. . . .” She trailed off, looking for words. “It’s good to hear your voice. Cut it close, Steve.”

“ _Just a . . . rumor_.” He sighed. “ _You okay?_ ”

“Yeah,” Natasha replied softly. “I’m okay.” Shuffling to her feet, she added, “Stay on the line for a minute, okay?”

“ _Okay_.” He sounded more tired than she’d ever heard him, but he said loyally, “ _I’m here_.”

“It’s good to hear your voice,” Natasha repeated. It wasn’t far to the adjoining door, but it was still ten steps. She knocked.

Steve said, “ _Sorry to wake you up_.”

Natasha assured, “Not that early.”

Sounding breathlessly thin, Steve added, “ _Two AM. Time is it there?_ ”

Natasha didn’t reply as Tony, ruffle-haired and looking as exhausted as she felt, opened the door with a frown. His expression paled when he saw her on the phone.

She hit speaker and said, “Say hi, Cap.”

“ _Hi, Cap_ ,” Steve echoed obediently. Tony jolted forward, grasping the phone like a lifeline. “ _Natasha?_ ”

Natasha waited, but Tony didn’t speak, staring at the phone. She prompted, “Tony’s here.”

Tony didn’t speak. Steve said softly, “ _Oh. Oh, Tony. I’m so sorry. I’m here. I’m right here_.”

Tony gripped the phone so tightly she was almost afraid it would break. At last, he said in the smallest voice she’d ever heard from him: “S’it really you?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Steve assured, rough-edged but more animated, almost desperate. “ _Yeah, it’s me. I promise_.” He waited, then prompted gently, “ _Tony?_ ”

Tony’s hand shook around the phone. He said, “You. . . . They said you were in the mine.”

“ _I was, but I got out, Tony, I’m here_.”

Tony sniffed. His face was dry. His expression was very flat. “You died.”

“ _Oh, Tony. No, I’m right here. I’m okay. It’s a long story_.”

Shaking, Tony shoved the phone into Natasha’s hand. He turned around but didn’t bother shutting the door, curling his arms around himself. 

Steve asked quietly, “ _Natasha?_ ”

“Still here.” She snagged the back of Tony’s shirt before he could walk off. “Bruce’ll be back in a few, right, Tony?”

Tony nodded. Steve pleaded, “ _Talk to me, Tony_.”

“No.” It was a short, almost barbed response. “No, you know what? Fuck you. You died. You weren’t supposed to die.” He didn’t even turn around, the tension radiating from him. “I wanted _you_ here, okay? I wanted you. I’m not—no. _No_. Fuck off.” He broke free and Natasha stepped back as he snapped the door shut.

She sat on the edge of the bed.

Steve said quietly, “ _Natasha?_ ”

She said, “He’ll be okay. It’s been—a long couple of days.”

Steve was silent for so long she almost thought the phone had been disconnected. She looked at it, but the call was on. At last, he said, “ _I’m so sorry_.”

Natasha said, “Come home and say it and it’ll be fine, Steve.”

The silence felt heavier than before. “ _I—I can’t come home. Not yet_.”

She frowned, feeling heaviness settle in her stomach. She heard something thunk on the floor from the other room, but she let it go. Tony had been . . . volatile, the past couple days, which the doctors had assured was normal, between the shock of the event, the injury itself, and Steve’s status. 

They’d all been worried sick, but Natasha knew Tony was taking it hard. No one said they were waiting for confirmation about a body, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t in the air.

Besides, Cap was usually the one telling them the rain would pass, that things would get better. It almost felt like it would never get better if he didn’t come back to life. 

She almost couldn’t believe she was talking to him as she asked quietly, “Rogers, what’re you planning?”

He told her. She felt heavier as she sat on the edge of the bed, sighing and saying, “Let Barton handle it. You know he’s good.” And he was—Clint had been an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. before the Avengers Initiative was even an idea—but she still felt uneasy saying it, knowing that she was putting the threat on a new target.

“ _Natasha_.” Steve spoke gently, like he was right there with her and not three thousand miles away. “ _You saw what happened_.”

She did. She was going to have to spend a few days repressing the memory, of the elevator dropping and the tunnel collapsing, death from all quarters. It was the Iron Man suit sheltering her, absorbing the impact, that saved her life. She still had two broken ribs and a ruptured spleen to show for it, but at least she wasn’t going to die. That was a small miracle, after everything.

Whoever had been behind it meant business. They’d knocked out half the Avengers in one fell swoop, preoccupied two more with the damage. She heard the door open then shut next door before there was a knock on her adjoining door. Getting up with a grimace, she listened as Steve insisted slowly, “ _If we don’t try, then . . . that’s on me_.”

She opened the door. Bruce saw her holding the phone, frowned, but stepped inside as she gestured. Steve went on, “ _I just need a few more days_.”

Almost like he couldn’t help himself, Bruce blurted out, “Cap?”

“ _Banner_.” Warm, exhausted. “ _Hey_.”

Blinking rapidly, Bruce gripped the doorframe for support. “You’re. . . .” Natasha gestured for him to step into the room and he did, collapsing into a chair. “Please tell me you’re on a flight home.”

Steve sighed. “ _Bruce_ ,” he said firmly. She could tell it was taking its toll, trying to keep them upright, but she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t fall if he didn’t say with robust normalcy, “ _I came for a reason. If I leave without doing it, what was it all for?_ ”

Pressing a hand to the left side of his face, looking like he had a migraine coming on, Bruce said loudly enough that the phone would pick it up as Natasha reclaimed her spot on the bed, “You gave it a shot, Steve. There’s gotta be a point where you say enough is too much.”

“ _Not there yet_.” There was a long pause. Then Clint said in a much more normal and far more robust tone:

“ _Team Dad needs a coffee break. Tea break. So, you lot are stuck with me. How bad is it?_ ”

Natasha sighed, passing Bruce the phone. “I’m gonna go check,” she announced.

Bruce added, “Proceed with caution.” Then, to Clint, he added, “Hey, Clint. Cap’s alive.”

“ _Uh huh. Pretty weird, isn’t it?_ ”

Bruce made a disbelieving sound. Natasha opened the door between the two rooms, hearing Bruce reply, “Give it to me straight,” and deliberately turning off speaker.

Taking in the hurricane of thrown objects—bed sheets ripped off and even a shattered glass—Natasha saw a tuft of hair on the other side of the far bed. Sitting on the floor, knees drawn up to his chest, Tony looked younger than she’d ever seen him, hair mussed up, eyes glassy, shoulders shaking.

Sitting down on the bed next to him, too sore to sit on the floor, she looked out the window, curtains open to reveal the world beyond, snow-covered, like everything in Anchorage, Alaska. It was surreal to be here, even though she’d spent half her life in Russia. Alaska.

“It’s beautiful,” she mused, because it was.

Tony was silent, breathing rapidly. She listened to Bruce’s muffled voice through the wall. Natasha acknowledged somberly, “It’s a lot.”

Tony didn’t respond, resting his chin on his arms, staring out the window. “Maybe you don’t trust yourself,” she added. She knew what that was like, to not know if your own _reality_ was the same black and white as everyone else’s. “But you can trust us.” Reaching down, even though it ached in her ribs, she rested a hand on Tony’s shoulder.

Slowly, he reached up and rested his hand on top of hers, cold fingers, blank eyes. She said, “I wouldn’t lie to you. Not about this.”

He nodded. He was silent for a long moment. Then he said, voice almost as tired as Steve’s, “He still on the line?”

Natasha hated to leave, afraid she’d turn around and he’d fall apart, but he seemed over the worst of it, looking at her with clear eyes.

She could hear Bruce talking and said, “Think so.”

Tony nodded again, looking out the window for a few seconds. “I wanna talk to him.”

Natasha nodded. “Okay.”

It took a minute. Bruce said, “Natasha’s back,” and handed her the phone.

“Hey, stranger,” she said.

“ _Hey, stranger_ ,” Clint drawled. “ _Sounds like you’re having almost as much fun as I am_.”

“More, probably,” Natasha admitted, waving a hand at Bruce, stay-put. Bruce sank back into his chair, reaching up to rub his face with both hands. “You’ve got one basket case, I’ve got three.”

“ _Make it up to you_.”

“Counting on it.” She stepped into Tony and Bruce’s room. He hadn’t moved from the floor. Carefully, she said, “Team Dad around?”

There was a pause. Then Steve said, “ _Hey, Natasha_.”

She said, “Hey, Steve.” Tony held out a hand. She said, “Somebody wants to talk to you.”

Steve exhaled. “ _Okay_.”

She handed Tony the phone. He was silent for a long time. She couldn’t hear noise from the other end of the line. She was half-afraid he would find a way to smash the phone and ruin their secure line. After all, they were three thousand miles away and still neck-deep in the crisis.

She was also half-afraid he’d pass out. He didn’t seem to be breathing. At last, he said, in a surprisingly normal tone, “Hi, Cap.”

She heard the quiet, “ _Hi, Tony_ ,” and decided to trust them, letting the door close behind her. She’d get her phone later.

Sitting across from Bruce, she said, “Bozhe moi.”

“Bozhe moi,” he agreed, face hidden behind his hands. “What’s the maximum number of panic attacks you can have in twenty-four hours?”

“Seven,” she decided arbitrarily.

Bruce nodded without moving his hands. “Okay. Then I’ve already hit my quota.”

. o . 

“I’m sorry.”

“ _It’s okay_.” A pause. “ _Are you okay?_ ”

“No.” Tony put the phone on the floor, putting it on speaker so he could rest his forehead against his knees. “I am very not okay.”

“ _I’m so sorry_.”

“You ever been on a car trip?” he asked suddenly. “You know when you’re driving for ten hours, then it’s six o’clock and you decide to wait before stopping for a bite, but then it’s seven o’clock and you’re two hours from home. Two hours isn’t that far, so you decide to keep going, but by the time you get home it’s been so long you aren’t even hungry and you feel kind of sick?” A pause. “That’s been the last two days. And now I’m—I’m fuckin’ hungover and I can’t even drink and I hate it.”

Steve was quiet, processing. “ _Maybe a glass of water would help?_ ”he offered, voice soft as could be.

Tony barked a sad little laugh. “A seven-hour hug might.” He swallowed hard. His lie switch wasn’t working, leaving searing honesty in its place. “I really needed you and you weren’t there.”

“ _I know_.” He didn’t. How could he? How could he _know_ the hell Tony had been through? “ _I’m sorry_.”

“I told you not to _go_ ,” he said, his voice thin, on the verge of tears and Goddammit, he was so damn sick of _crying_. “I told you not to leave, I told you you’d never see it coming, that something would happen and you _went_.”

Steve said softly, “ _You did. You told me not to go. I know_.”

Sniffing, Tony said, “God, I wanna punch you. I wanna hug you. Please come home so I can decide, I promise there’s an eighty percent chance I’ll hug you and if not, it won’t even hurt because I’m not strong enough to hurt you.”

“ _Oh, Tony_.”

Huddling deeper in his arms, Tony said, “Please.”

“ _Soon, soon. Real soon, Tony_.”

Tony swallowed. The ambiguity wasn’t lost on him. “I already lost you, Steve, I—I can’t do it twice. I can’t. Please. Please come home. Fuck, Steve. Get on a plane and come home and we can forget this ever happened. You like forgetting, I love forgetting, we’ll forget together. Okay? I’ll forgive you if you come home.”

“ _I will, I will come home_.” Hope never bloomed in Tony’s chest because he knew that tone. It was the _I have to go, Tony_ tone that he hated because it was so reassuring and he’d hate himself for the rest of his life if it was the last thing Steve promised him. “ _I will come home. I need a day. Maybe two_.”

“Why?” He hated that his voice cracked. “Steve. Please.”

“ _You’re the most important person in the world to me, Tony. I promise, this—this isn’t my choice, this is. . . . If it was up to me, I’d stay, okay? I would. I’d get on a plane and I’d hug you for twelve hours. But I have to do this. Not just for them, but for everyone that’ll get hurt if I don’t. Remember what you said, Tony, about solvin’ problems so people wouldn’t get hurt? I know the solution. Let me try_.”

Let me go.

Tony breathed slowly, grateful that he wasn’t crying.

Steve said, “ _I promise I’ll come home_.”

Tony closed his eyes, hugging his knees. “Can’t you be selfish for once in your goddamn life? Say _I did my part_ and quit? They tried to _kill_ you, Steve. And until an hour ago, everyone believed they’d succeeded. You wanna take ‘em on? You’re _one man_. You can’t save everyone. Okay? Some people are just gonna die. You are not responsible for every human life; you are responsible for _one_. You did what you could and things went bad and now you need to come home before they get it right.”

Steve was quiet. Tony heard a strange sound, rapid sniffing, then a huff. He blinked at the phone. It didn’t sound like Steve. He asked, “What was that?”

Steve said, “ _Um_.”

Tony said warily, “Rogers?”

“ _So, I found a—um_.” Another sniffing noise. “ _No, leave it. Ostav' eto. It’s complicated_.”

“Comforting,” Tony deadpanned.

Steve sighed. “ _I hear you, Tony_ ,” he said instead, redirecting the conversation. “ _I do. I want to be with you. I want to come home. To lie down, you know? But I can’t. Because it’s not why I’m here. Not here—not, not 2012, but—why I’m alive. This is why I’m alive_.”

“Be alive for me,” Tony said. “Be alive for _us_ , for this stupid little family we have. Okay? Be alive for the little things and let someone else take a shot at the bad guys, just once.”

“ _You’re the reason I keep going. You are the reason I’m alive, Tony. The reason I keep putting one foot in front of another. The reason I’ll come home. No matter what, okay? I know, I know it’s scary—I can only imagine what it’s like for you right now, what you’ve gone through these past two days. But I will come home. I need two days. One to get my bearings. One to do what I came to. And then I’ll be home. Okay? Can you . . . can you trust me, for two days?_ ”

Tony sighed. “I already do,” he admitted reluctantly. “I trust you.”

“ _I’ll come home. And I’ll hug ya for twelve hours_.”

Tony said, “I’ll time you.”

A soft laugh. It was the sweetest sound Tony had heard in a long time, even if Steve sounded exhausted. 

Tony was almost glad he couldn’t see him; he could _hear_ how ragged Steve was. Steve shouldn’t go back in, but he had to go back in as soon as possible to get home as soon as possible. There was no point telling Steve to wait a week. Steve wouldn’t.

Not when there was an ocean between them. 

Every minute on the clock was time wasting. Time not healing, time reassuring Tony, when he needed to be resting. 

Fuck, he didn’t even know _how_ Steve was alive but clearly it was an ordeal.

At last, he said aloud, “I’m counting on you, Steve.”

“ _Thank you, Tony_.” The depth of gratitude in his voice was almost unbearable. “ _I can’t wait to see you again. I thought. . . ._ ” Steve trailed off.

For the first time since Tony had heard Steve’s voice, he realized that he wasn’t the only one who hadn’t known if the person on the other end of the phone was alive.

“ _I’m really glad you’re alive_ ,” he decided at last.

“Feeling’s mutual,” Tony replied. And it was. The fact that Steve was _alive_ , Steve was _talking_ to him—he had to be because none of the illusions lasted more than a minute—it was too much to bear. But he was grateful. He said sincerely, “I love you.”

“ _I love you, too_.” Steve said, “ _I really do, sweetheart. I’ll come home, then we’ll go somewhere warm. Take some time off, like you always said, okay? We’ll relax for a bit. I’ll let Barton handle all my calls_.”

That got a soft huff of laughter out of Tony. He could almost hear the smile in Steve’s voice as he added, “ _I’ll see you soon. So soon, Tony, you could almost sleep till I got there_.” He could already hear Steve revising the figure in his head, shaving off downtime, gears turning. “ _Less than. Soon as possible, okay? And then I’ll come back_.”

“Don’t get sloppy,” Tony warned, as much an _don’t push yourself too hard_ as Steve would listen to.

“ _No, no, never. Never, Tony. I’ll be careful. Gotta be careful. I got a date to make_.”

Tony drew in a deep breath. He felt—more centered. Like the backwards spinning globe had been halted and given a nudge in the right direction. The world was spinning, the right way, and . . . Steve was alive. Steve was alive. God. “Rest up. Call when you can.”

“ _Count on it_.” A beat. “ _I love you_.”

“I love you, too.”

“ _Two days_.”

“Two days,” Tony echoed. He added reluctantly, “I’m gonna hang up now. Don’t make me regret it.”

“ _Never_.”

He said no more. And although it was quiet agony to end the call, it was his choice. He knew what that meant to both of them.

_I trust you._

_Go_.

God, Steve better prove him right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen . . . I gave them a DOG. In the near future Tony will have the Dog of his dreams. Everything will be fluff and rainbows. <3
> 
> In case you missed the in-text link, this is what "Laika" looks like (she is a Yakutian Laika dog): [Laika](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ncQoVaaEaRI/maxresdefault.jpg).
> 
> Russian translations in chronological order:  
>  _Idi domoy._ \- Go home.  
>  _Khoroshaya sobaka._ \- Good dog.  
>  _Kapitan Amerika._ \- Captain America.  
>  _Stiv Rodzhers._ \- Steve Rogers.  
>  _Da?_ \- Yes?  
>  _Zdravstvuyte._ \- Hello. (Formal.)  
>  _Bozhe moi._ \- Oh my God.  
>  _Sasha._ \- Short name for "Alexandra."  
>  _Ostav' eto._ \- Leave it.


	26. NORILSK, PART 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *leans into mic* GOOD MORNING CHAMPS. It's 3 AM here. Yeehaw!
> 
> This is the LONGEST chapter of the entire fic so far at a WHOPPING 15,599 words! Whoo!
> 
> And we're at Part 3/3 of Norilsk, so congratulations to you, you did it!! You made it to the other side of the Norilsk hell-scape! (Well, reading this means you're about to finish the Gauntlet, but then you're on the other side!)
> 
> You guys are amazing. Every time I'm blown away by your responses and I am so excited to thank you. You're wonderful. I love you. (It's 3 AM so this scamp's gonna go the heck to BED, but then I'll respond. <3)
> 
> Cheers,  
> ~Captain_Pandamore

Clint followed Steve into the small bedroom and said warningly, “This is crazy.”

Steve told him through gritted teeth, “Welcome to Russia.” With waning strength, he grabbed his travel bag, tossed it on the bed, and unzipped the front pocket. “Do me a favor,” he instructed, fishing out an innocuous-looking white tablet. “Don’t bring this up.” Before Clint could ask what he was talking about, Steve popped the pill in his mouth and crushed it between his teeth. 

The raw, one-degree-south-of-lethality adrenaline hit him like a shot to the face. He lurched back a step. Before Clint could grab him with a steadying hand, he held out his own, stopping him.

Standing on his own two feet, he assured with steel in his voice, “I’m okay. Just hits quick.” He sounded like himself, _felt_ like himself. He gripped Clint’s shoulder with bone-bruising sternness to prove it. 

Clint didn’t flinch, looking him dead in the eye like he was faking it, but Steve smiled wolfishly and asked, “Whoever said you can’t buy time?” He let Clint go, flexing his fingers, getting the blood flowing again. “Wears off in about two hours, but I’ve got more.” 

Moving briskly, not lighter than air but stronger than gravity, he wrenched the shield off his back. With military speed, he pulled on two long-sleeved undershirts and a thick white thermal. The combination was almost stiflingly warm, but he needed to get his core temperature up. He’d already lost the fight to keep his extremities safe, but he couldn’t ignore his core needs. Wrapped up, he started to feel human again. He trembled, unconsciously gearing up for war.

Clint said dryly, “I want one of those pills.” Steve barked a humorless laugh, taking a hard seat on the edge of the bed. It took a spirited struggle to get out of his frozen pants. He felt immune to the cold and pain as he worked, but Clint said in a low voice, “Jesus.”

Steve saw his left leg, black and blue from knee to ankle, but it looked intact. Satisfied, he snagged a fresh pair of pants and shimmied them on. The motion didn’t hurt so much as it ached like a bruise, less painful than _noticeable_. To Clint’s incredulous silence, he insisted, “It’ll heal.” He jerked the pants into place, prying off his cold socks and replacing them, too. His feet were blue.

Clint asked soberly, “How the hell did you walk here?”

Steve replied, “Carefully.” For good measure, he pulled on three pairs of socks. His left foot ached abominably, but he stood, testing his own weight. It held. Again, that stronger-than-gravity feeling overcame the alarms trying to reach his central nervous system. He felt solid, fight-worthy.

To complete the look, he pulled on a pair of gloves, more out of clinical necessity than a real craving for warmth. He wasn’t sure if it was meaningful: his fingers were more black than pink. He’d survived ice once, but he’d had gloves then. Strangely, he felt ambivalent about the thought of losing them. He knew he’d care a whole awful lot once the rush wore off.

He could understand Clint’s bewilderment. After ending the call, Steve had hauled himself to his feet and holed up in Dmitry’s room, getting ready for war. Laika had taken up residence in the corner. Steve told her absentmindedly, “Khoroshaya sobaka,” _good dog_.

He flexed his fingers, testing their mobility. It wasn’t great; they weren’t responding as fast as he was mechanically signaling them to _move, move, move_ , which was dangerous, suicidal. But they responded, however sluggishly. If he moved slowly, he’d be fine. No sudden movements, he thought, which was challenging with the molten electricity flowing through him, not hot but _fast_.

If he stuck them under a hot faucet, he wouldn’t bear up well under effectively boiling water. There was only so much one could bull through.

So he said lowly, “They’ll do,” talking to himself more than Clint. Clint stood nearby, ready to catch him if he fell, but Steve didn’t fall. 

Shaking out the jacket, he slung it around himself and zipped it up. As a final touch, he grabbed the shield and peeled off the opaque tape, allowing its brilliant red-white-and-blue to shine in full color. When Clint cocked his head at him, Steve explained, “I don’t want anybody to have a case of mistaken identity.” 

Then Steve grabbed a cold-weather mask from his bag, pulling it down over his head, around his neck, before tugging the fabric up over his mouth and nose. He couldn’t know without a mirror what he looked like, but covered in black cold-weather gear, he felt well-insulated and untouchable.

Clint looked him over, dressed in his own cold-weather gear. He asked, “You sure about this, Cap?”

Through the mask, a layer between him and reality, Steve warned almost playfully, “Don’t get cold feet now, Barton.” He stepped forward and Laika stood up, but he ordered, “ _Ostat'sya_ ,” and she sat back down. He wasn’t sure if it was the command, _stay_ , or the steely tone that did it, but it worked.

As a final measure, he grabbed three more white tablets from the bag, shoved them into a pocket, and zipped it off. He drew in a deep breath, then had to stifle a cough. He didn’t want to start coughing because they didn’t have _time_. He’d only bought them two hours, but he was ready and willing to push it to six. He was reluctant to take more than three back-to-back, knowing that it wasn’t a cheap alternative to rest and rehabilitation. He was already saying _fuck you_ to his future self, but his present self didn’t care. He had a job to do.

“Let’s go,” he said, voice resolutely normal, steps steady. Clint automatically held out a hand to balance him. “I don’t need your concern,” he told him, deadly serious. “I need you to focus on the mission. If you can’t do that, then don’t come.”

Clint narrowed his eyes, his entire demeanor guarded. There was no humor in his eyes. He looked like a man who’d waited too long to step in, on a train moving too fast to stop it. He was conflicted, Steve knew, in the same way that a high-ranking officer would be in front of their immediate superior. Even though Steve understand his dilemma, he couldn’t put the brakes on the task at hand. He wouldn’t waste an opportunity. If Clint couldn’t handle it—

 _Fine. Just don’t stand in my way_.

He’d never pulled the _I’m your Captain_ card, had never insisted that he was the leader, but it was still all too often implicit. It wasn’t a title he’d demanded, a role he’d insisted on, but it worked well for them. He was fast on his feet and had never led them astray. If they trusted his judgment, he would get them through it. And they always trusted him.

He trusted and respected them, too. He treated them as if there was no hierarchy until they reached a fork in the road. Then someone had to make a call. Maybe it was the whole _living legend_ thing, but regardless of paper hierarchies, they always looked at him like he had a sixth sense for it, like it made sense that he would lead because he was _Captain America_. 

He was so used to making the right call that he couldn’t fathom making the wrong one.

Looking at Clint with the resolve that had gotten him this far, he warned in a low voice, “I need you to watch your back and follow my lead. If you can’t do that, don’t get in my way. Stay here, keep an eye on things.”

The out was offered out of compassion. He’d been on missions where agents had stalled. The next best thing to _push through it_ was _stay put and keep an eye on things_. That was another reason why they had always deferred to him: he knew their limits. He could see them hitting a wall before it happened. He was careful to never let anybody get in water over their heads. He’d turn people back from the summit before he’d let anyone die on the mountain.

Clint said gruffly, “I hate sitting around,” and Steve nodded once.

The relief in his voice was subtle but there as he said: “Then let’s go.”

. o . 

The Hydra agent shook as Steve lofted him two feet off the ground. In Russian, Steve growled, “ _You look like you’ve seen a ghost_.”

Eyes wide, the man gagged in terror, kicking feebly. Calmly, Steve added, “ _But that’s impossible, because you’d have to have killed me first_.” 

With indifferent strength, he threw the man onto the warehouse floor a dozen feet away, hard enough to daze him. In seconds, the Hydra agent had planted one hand on the ground for leverage, but Steve was there before he could get up, reaffirming his grip and shoving him up against the wall, hard enough to knock the breath out of him. Steve’s voice was misleadingly calm as he added, “ _I can forgive the attempt on my life. You’re not the first to try. You won’t be the last_.” 

The man seemed beyond terror, breathing fast, as he hovered off the ground. Thinking about what he had done, Steve let some of the darkness enter his tone as he added, “ _But you hurt my family. And I can’t forgive that_.”

One punch to the sternum would’ve ended the man. He knew the impulse showed in his eyes, widely dilated, almost black. Steve could make him hurt. He could feel the man’s shallow breathing in his trembling fist. Steve had denied him the cyanide pill by ripping it out of his hand. Then he saw Diana Smirnova whimpering on the floor and he dialed back the anger. 

He wasn’t a killer. Not by choice.

Breathing heavily with the effort of not locking a hand around the man’s throat, he said instead, “ _I won’t kill you._ ” He let the man fall. The Hydra agent didn’t bother running, curling inward in an instinctive bid to protect himself. 

Steve felt no sympathy, grabbing the back of his shirt and dragging him across the floor, like a fish on a line. 

He wasn’t gonna kill the man, but he didn’t have to be _gentle_ about it, either. A little humbling never hurt ‘em.

. o . 

Sitting in the back of Dmitry’s car on the way to the hospital, Steve surreptitiously crushed the fourth adrenaline pill between his teeth.

It tasted like battery acid, sharp, acrylic, but it made the gray haze around his vision retreat. That was worth the trade-off. He didn’t care that he would run on empty in two hours, less than empty, demanding more poison to delay the inevitable crash. It made him feel sick to his stomach and Godawful all around, but he could no longer afford to not see the mission through. 

It was like the tunnel escape: there came a point after which he couldn’t sink back down and try to wait it out, where he was trapped, where his only choice was to struggle forward with every ounce of strength he possessed or die.

And if he went home without doing his job, it was all for nothing. 

Everything—Tony and Natasha’s injuries, his own crucible, the stress Bruce and Clint had endured, the distress of their Russian hosts—had been for naught if he failed. There was no time to come back, to retreat and regroup. It was now or never. He wouldn’t walk away and let Nadia and Yelena die when he could stop it. 

He’d sent Clint to the local hospital where Diana was staying under her sister’s name before he’d accepted a ride from Dmitry back to Norilsk Nickel to take down the orchestrator and his accomplices. 

Dmitry and he had met with Rodion, who hadn’t slept in two days, trying to sort out the mess they’d made. Steve had felt guilty for it even as he’d shaken the man’s hand. With evident sincerity, Rodion had declared, “ _It is good to see you again._ ”

Steve had returned the sentiment. He’d known it hadn’t carried the same weight for him, but there was strain in the air, exhaustion. They were happy to turn over the proverbial reins, happy to have someone who said, _I will take care of everything_ and follow through. 

He’d stepped into the room of Norilsk Nickel heads who had been on top of the project since the explosion happened and picked out the orchestrator instantly, his reaction beyond mere shock, outright _terror_. Steve had beelined for him and intercepted the cyanide pill before the agent could crush it in his teeth. 

The others had watched in mixed horror and alarm as he explained who the man was, _Hydra_. Steve allowed the man to slip a knife down his sleeve, _almost_ stab him in the chest, before catching his hand in plain view, the blade conspicuously pointed at his heart. There were no doubters in the room after that demonstration. If Steve had cut it closer than he liked to, he blamed it on slowed reflexes. 

_Don’t get sloppy_.

The orchestrator had been predictably tight-lipped about his accomplices, but with the full support of the Nornickel supervisors and Rodion, who had been part of the search and rescue, they’d quickly rooted out two more agents who’d been present for the rescue. It had taken three precious hours to find them in a nondescript warehouse near the edges of the property, killing time and startling violently when Captain America himself burst through the door.

One bolted before Steve could intercept him, but the other three froze, captivated by the sight of _Kapitan Amerika_ , back from the dead. 

They’d shaken at the sight of him, too. 

Steve hadn’t looked in a mirror since his own resurrection, but he assumed his visage was haunting enough, hair covered in rubble dust, half his face hidden behind a dark mask, the other half covered in frostbitten ghost-white skin, blown pupils, dark eyes. He wasn’t the pristine poster child they’d expected: he was a war machine, a nightmare in the flesh. 

_Their_ nightmare.

It felt good to toss the Hydra agent around, even if it was precious time wasted, time they didn’t have to spare. He wasn’t instilling the fear of God into them. He was wrath personified, dauntless in the face of death. Nothing could stop him. 

That was the Captain America that most people feared more than respected, that Steve Rogers kept in a bottle and never opened if he could help it. He was in control, but he couldn’t control the things beyond his control, his own ragged body splintering, collapsing, all but begging him to give up. It would be so easy, too, to collapse, to resume the search when he had the energy to take two steps unaided, medicinally or otherwise, but the easy way wasn’t available to him. He couldn’t leave his family halfway across the world when they needed him.

He couldn’t leave Norilsk until all the strings were tied.

He had to make time. The only way to do that was to cheat the game. 

The way to wrestle back control was to force the issue. He’d persuaded Fury that there might come a day when he’d _need_ a shot of adrenaline, when Captain America might falter. He could survive without painkillers, but he needed a failsafe for emergencies. It was a measure he’d only used on four occasions and never more than two doses at a stretch. 

Walking down the hallway, he felt detached, like he was controlling a dream.

The pills were dangerous and could make him sloppy, but he didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t walk without it.

They drove up to the hospital. Steve stepped out of the car unaided. It wasn’t until Dmitry told him under his breath, “ _You look more like a patient than a visitor_ ,” that Steve realized he should have tried to make himself look more human. But there wasn’t much he could do, combing his fingers through dusty hair and waiting for his skin to thaw only to freeze as soon they stepped outside.

Steve nodded, more acknowledgment than agreement. Dmitry urged him to sit in a chair, stay in the uninhabited lobby, explaining, “ _I will get your friend_ ,” but Steve shook his head, mouth flat, mask around his neck, revealing the full damage of ghostly skin. Dmitry looked uneasy, but he didn’t fight Steve. He just walked up to the receptionist’s and explained who they were. 

Steve tuned it out, letting the conversation drift by. He tuned back in when Dmitry returned, leading them down the hall. He didn’t reach for Steve, like he was afraid to touch him, but Steve could feel the silent worry radiating from him, the fear that Steve would drop dead. 

It would be not only the height of impoliteness to die on his hosts but a headache to deal with. He wanted to reassure that he was alive and well, alive and well, but it was a lie that wouldn’t materialize on his tongue.

Clint didn’t have the same compunctions; he took one look at Steve and frowned sternly. Steve didn’t say a word as he pried off his glove and offered his frostbitten hand. Clint grasped his bare wrist, well north of blackened fingertips, before repeating the gesture with Dmitry’s hand, shaking it once. He said in Russian, “ _No trouble_.”

Nodding, Steve asked, “ _How is she?_ ”

He could see the quip in Clint’s eyes, _Better than you_ , before he said, “ _Resting_.”

Steve wanted to tell him that Diana had suffered more than he had because she would not get up and walk off her injuries. He didn’t know the extent of the damage, but a broken neck. . . .

He felt the weight of it all on his shoulders, every single hurt they’d endured for him, every second of fearful endurance. He knew it was on him, all of it, he was fixing the mess, he wasn’t acting heroically, he was doing the desperate recompense of trying to ease the pain, to minimize the damage. The bombs had gone off; he hadn’t stopped them. 

That was on him, no matter what happened next. He’d failed before he’d even tried to get out of the rubble. 

He felt a mixture of searing anger and ungodly guilt at the thought, enhanced by his pounding heart, fast even for him. He felt swamped by the general misery of being three thousand miles away from where he needed to be, from needing to be in two places at once. It was unbearable. He pinched his own thigh to give himself a different focal point, refusing to dwell, unable to drown in it. Not yet. 

_Finish the mission. Finish the mission_.

Dmitry said, “ _I am truly sorry this has happened_.”

Steve looked at him and mustered every ounce of hospitality as he replied, “ _You have been nothing but helpful, Dmitry. I would not be alive without you_.”

Dmitry looked him over. “ _Do not die_ ,” he said again, more a plea than an order.

Steve assured, “ _I am not easy to kill_.” Then, to Clint, he added, “ _The Russians have the Hydra agents in custody. They have agreed to post a pair of guards with Diana and Yelena for additional security._ ” He nodded at the window on the door. “ _Hand-chosen_ ,” he added seriously. “ _I will stay until the guards arrive. Is Yelena all right?_ ”

He knew Clint caught the double entendre as he nodded once. Steve didn’t feel any weight come off his shoulders, because he’d known that within twenty-four hours of his death, “Diana” had come to visit her sister, having received word about the accident in the mine. Ironically, Steve had reflected on the long drive over, Diana—who had broken her neck—would never be able to return to the mines, barring a miracle, but Yelena, who had not, would be primed to step in. She would have to re-earn her position, but Steve was confident she could.

Life for the Smirnovas, he realized, would not return to normal but an approximation of it. That was the best outcome he could hope for. He wanted—needed—to talk to Yelena, to touch base, to do what he’d ultimately come to do. He said, “ _I would like to speak to Diana_.” And signed with a tiny gesture around his leg, _Reverse_.

Clint raised his eyebrows a hair, but he understood. He knocked on the door before opening it, preluding, “ _May I come in?_ ”

“Da,” Diana said. Clint disappeared before returning with a woman Steve recognized on sight. Something in his chest clicked into place.

He introduced politely, “ _I am Captain America_.” Demonstratively, he turned to reveal the bright shield on his back. “ _I am friends with Nicholas Fury_ ,” he added.

Yelena nodded, looking uneasy, but Clint assured, “ _He is who he says he is_.”

She said, “ _I believe him_.”

Steve nodded down the hall, inviting, “ _Please take a walk with me? A short walk. My friends will stay with your sister_.”

Yelena lead the way.

They went to the very end of the hall, looking out a small window into the dim, dusky morning. Yelena asked, “ _How did you know about Hydra?_ ”

Steve rested a hand on the wall for support, playing it off as casually as he could. His world was spinning. He needed to sit down. “ _Nadia Vasilieva sent a distress signal,_ ” he said. “ _Director Fury wanted to investigate. I came as soon as I could_.”

Yelena nodded. “ _Do you know who I am?_ ”

Steve said, “ _Yes. Her younger sister_.” Diana was older than Yelena. Something in Yelena’s expression softened in understanding. “ _She cares about you deeply_.”

Yelena said simply, “ _She is my sister_.”

“ _I have removed the threat to her life. And yours_ ,” he said. Something in Yelena’s shoulders unlocked, slouching. He saw her glance at the shield on his back. He assured, “ _They will not return to this place_.”

“ _I do not know if we will stay_ ,” Yelena admitted. “ _It is home, but. . . ._ ” She trailed off for a long, contemplative moment. “ _It will be a difficult life for her, in her condition. Perhaps it is time to relocate._ ”

“ _I will personally ensure that your family is compensated_ ,” Steve said seriously. “ _For everything you have endured_.”

Yelena looked at him with friendly light blue eyes and said, “ _You are a good man, Captain America_.” Somberly, she added, “ _You look unwell_.”

“ _Appearances can be deceiving_ ,” he replied. “ _Are you hurt?_ ”

“ _They were not cruel to me_ ,” she assured. “ _Impatient, near the end. I knew something had changed. I could not imagine. . . ._ ” She shook her head. In a voice frail with emotion, she added, “ _She is my only sister_.”

Steve said, very quietly, “ _I know. I did everything I could for her_.”

The lie was poisonous on his tongue, the memory of leaving her alone, alone to _die_. He had waited until he had heard what sounded like human voices in the distance before leaving her, but what if he’d been wrong? What if she’d waited alone in darkness and silence until she’d died? 

Yelena said softly, “ _Thank you_.”

Standing up straight, Steve managed to say in a normal tone, “ _Please do not thank me_.”

“ _What of Nadia Vasilieva?_ ” Yelena asked, looking at him with a worried expression. “ _I thought she was visiting friends in Berlin?_ ”

“ _Berlin?_ ” Steve murmured, careful to keep the grimace off his face, suddenly exhausted despite the adrenaline in his veins. He could barely traipse around Norilsk; the thought of going to. . . . “ _Germany?_ ”

Yelena nodded. “ _She was staying there for the summer. We talked on the phone a few weeks before the Hydra agents came_.”

Steve shook his head uncomprehendingly. “ _She—she sent the alert, eight weeks ago_ ,” he said. “ _She didn’t mention. . . ._ ”

Yelena frowned. She caught on more quickly than he did: “ _Captain? Are you sure she sent the alert?_ ”

He felt sick to his stomach, turning away from the window and looking down the hallway. Orchestrator. It was the perfect word for it, he thought bitterly. Someone who would orchestrate the perfect trap.

Captain America could never resist trying to save an innocent life.

He asked, a touch desperately, “ _Doesn’t she have a phone?_ ” It seemed like the impossible kind of fact-checking error that he couldn’t make. How could no one have called her directly, _asked_ if she’d sent the alerts instead of assuming their one line of communication, electronic, was foolproof?

Yelena shrugged delicately. “ _We are remote, Captain. We do not communicate externally as often as you do. Our communication with Director Fury tends to be infrequent by telephone. We do have Internet_.” Then, brightening, she added, “ _I can give you her number?_ ”

Steve nodded, mouth dry. Chest heavy. Fuck, he was so tired. “ _Please. I—I need to know she is all right_.” And he had to—he had to tell Fury that her messages had been forged. Faked.

God, he was so fucking. . . .

Gritting his teeth, resolving to dwell in self-blame _later_ , when he wasn’t one step away from either vibrating out of his skin or collapsing into an atomic pile, he said slowly, “ _I would appreciate it_.”

“ _I am sorry_ ,” Yelena said, looking at him with pity, sympathy, “ _to have caused you so much trouble_.”

“ _The threat was real_ ,” Steve said sternly because even if he’d been stupid enough to trip the mousetrap—it—it was—God, _God_ , if he’d never come they would never have gotten hurt, Diana would be fine and Nadia would return from her summer in Germany and Natasha and _**Tony**_ would never have gotten hurt and _everything would be fine—_

He swallowed and admitted huskily, “ _I think I need to sit down_.”

He didn’t realize how little control over the decision until he sank right there to the floor, not quite collapse but not in his control, either. He sat, trembling, with his legs in front of him, realizing with mounting horror that he’d been _wrong_.

He felt a panic like a tidal wave, curling inward, arms over the back of his neck. He didn’t care how it looked because they weren’t in danger, they would have been fine if he hadn’t _showed up_ , if he’d stayed where he was supposed to, oh, fuck, oh fuck.

He tried to shove it down, to stand up, to apologize. He couldn’t do this here. He couldn’t fall apart _now_ , no, no, _no_. But his refusal only made him shake harder, like the anger was mistranslating to fear, _wrong wrong wrong **wrong—**_

He felt a firm hand shaking his shoulder. He opened his mouth, trying to force the words, _I am okay_ , but all that came out was a faint whining noise, a strangled cry. He clenched his jaw and curled up and shook to pieces on the hospital floor. And Clint—had to be Clint, he’d recognize that voice anywhere—pleaded with him, talking to him, _hey, c’mon, don’t—_ and Steve was trying not to, he needed to get under control but he couldn’t. On a good day, he might not have been able to. Now, he was drowning in it.

The only thing he could control was consciousness, somehow planting himself so adamantly in the present, _**finish the mission**_ , that he overcame the roaring tide that wanted to consume him.

He gasped, “ _Nadia_ ,” like a dying word, trying to find equilibrium, but it wasn’t his body anymore. His teeth chattered as he shook to pieces, hard enough that Clint could barely get a grip on his shoulder. He held onto Steve, trying to ground him, insisting over and over, _Steve, you’re okay_.

No. No, he wasn’t okay because he’d made the wrong call. It was all he could think about: he’d been so goddamn nearsighted that he hadn’t seen the writing on the walls, hadn’t double-checked. He’d made a mistake once, trusted the wrong person. It had nearly killed him. He’d taken that lesson to heart and _memorized_ faces after it, don’t-make-the-same-mistake-twice. He’d been so goddamn careful about it all. He was certain that Fury wouldn’t have mislead him, Fury couldn’t have known either, that there had been one box that they’d forgotten to check. Steve’s entire family had suffered for it.

He’d hurt all of them because he’d insisted on it, had never thought to negotiate, had never considered that Tony was right, oh, God, Tony.

He shivered uncontrollably for a long time. It made the pain in his leg ache, the festering discomfort in his chest hard to avoid, but they were distant things to chattering teeth and cold, fuck, it was cold. He pressed his mouth and nose against the scarf around his neck, anything other than dry air, he’d rather suffocate than keeping breathing in _palladium_.

It felt like hours, gasping, shaking, distantly aware of other people and having to restrain a sudden strong impulse to _attack_ , because it wasn’t good news, people around him when he was vulnerable like this. Captain America wasn’t defenseless, Captain America couldn’t _fall apart_.

He gulped, feeling nauseous, overloaded, like every input was explosive, sound and light too much for him to process as anything other than white noise. He tried, more out of silent last-ditch-effort agony than anything to stand. He felt a familiar strong arm curl around him, helping him up. He could do it, he could walk, shaking with every step. He couldn’t see where he was going, only flinch, then shiver as another, less familiar person supported him.

His knees hit the edges of a chair and he resisted, don’t-sit-down, he wouldn’t get back up. He could feel the hesitation, the noiseless dialogue. Then someone hiked the mask up over his mouth and nose and he understood why as they stepped out into the ferocious, unforgiving cold.

A small eternity passed. Dull grey light, dull grey senses, dull grey embarrassment and dull grey dread—everything was that sinking monochrome color that made it all feel less real. Before he knew it, he was being half-guided, half-strong-armed into a car, the heater as high as it would go. He didn’t sit up, couldn’t, using one raw hand to control his fall as he sprawled across the backseat, jolting and trying to pick himself back up immediately, no, no, get up, _get up—_

He felt a firm hand on his side, had the impression of someone leaning around the passenger’s seat. Then something body-warm and heavy settled over his shoulders. He could tell Clint—had to be Clint, Clint was the only one left, Clint and Dmitry, who babbled anxiously, words he couldn’t make himself understand—Clint who grabbed the mask and moved it down, the car air almost too warm to breathe. It made sense as Clint tugged his coat up over Steve’s ears, covering his head, carefully leaving an edge that let in a slim layer of air and light.

It should have felt claustrophobic, unbearable, but he could breathe. The air wasn’t blasting at him from any direction. It was shielded. He wanted to ask where his shield was, but he knew that Clint wouldn’t have left it. Trunk, maybe, trunk made sense. Clint wouldn’t leave his shield. It wasn’t on Steve’s back, he could feel its absence and it ached inside him, everything he’d left behind, everything he’d gambled on a _lie—_

It probably wasn’t ten hours, but it felt like at ten hours before the trembling started to subside. The stifling heat of the car felt welcome. Clint and Dmitry’s voices gradually became audible, but the words remained indiscernible. Blearily, Steve thought, _I have to make sure it’s the right guards, I have to see their faces,_ but he couldn’t move. He wasn’t trapped in reality, but he was stuck in the backseat of a body that had elected to ignore him completely because he was making bad calls. He’d made the wrong call, he’d stepped on the landmine and everyone had gotten hurt.

The car didn’t move, sitting in an arbitrary snowy space, heat at full blast. Clint’s hand stayed on his side, silently assuring, _I’m here_. Steve wanted to apologize, but he couldn’t make the word get past his chattering teeth.

Nadia hadn’t been in Norilsk, she’d been in Berlin. A Hydra agent had hacked her account and rang the alarm. S.H.I.E.L.D. had responded to it as it would to any compromised agent’s alerts. But then, the clincher, they’d erased their tracks with the green alert. _E_ _verything’s fine_. 

If the hacker could break into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s system—how the _fuck_ had they hacked S.H.I.E.L.D.?—then they could have erased their tracks. 

All Nadia would have seen were her own green messages. 

The Berlin note was never sent.

Someone had to—it had to be an inside job. It _had_ to be an inside job. Only an insider could have _erased_ the messages. Nadia would have contacted them, would have said that she didn’t send the alerts. 

Unless she was working for them. But then Yelena, who had been kidnapped, would also have to be working for Hydra. Diana, too, could Diana be working for Hydra, could she have fooled him so completely in such a vulnerable position? And what about—what about Rodion, and Dmitry, Dmitry who was in the car with Clint? God, somewhere there was a leak, a _real_ mole, one that had made the little act in the North seem like an idle exercise. It was a _test run_ to see if Captain America would respond because it was _too dangerous_ for other agents and—

He moaned in despair because he hadn’t thought to call Nadia. He’d assumed that she had been compromised, possibly dead, _probably_ dead. Yelena wouldn’t know about S.H.I.E.L.D. because Yelena was Diana Smirnova and _Captain America_ was coming to Norilsk as soon as he could get on the goddamn ground. 

It was a dream come true for Hydra. It couldn’t have worked better. It was perfectly orchestrated.

He didn’t fall asleep so much as he decayed out of consciousness, the forceful impetus, the only impetus for alertness abandoning him as the hour drained away, precious time. He couldn’t respond to Clint, even as Clint shook him. He was still breathing even if it sounded wheezing. Half-out-of-his-mind, he wanted to banish the bitter emotions that had jumped him, taken the wind out of his sails right when he’d _needed_ it, a bit longer, it was always a bit longer. But he couldn’t—

It was like a car crash: he hit a wall and instantly, the world, the roaring panic, all of it disappeared.

. o . 

Natasha knew it was going to be a bad night when Clint opened the call with, “ _I’m officially having more fun than you_.”

Taking a sip of coffee—it was nine PM in Anchorage but it felt like noon on Saturday in Norilsk, fifteen hours ahead—she asked warily, “What happened?”

Clint sighed like he’d been holding his breath for two hours. He said raggedly, “ _I don’t know where to begin_.”

Natasha set her coffee aside, grateful she had the room to herself, conspicuously leaving her phone off speaker, careful to keep her voice calm and hopefully indiscernible to the occupants next door. She couldn’t tell if they were asleep—a fifteen-hour time-zone difference wasn’t easily ignored and the stress of the last few days had been off the charts—but she hoped they might be. She could swear she could hear Bruce snoring, and either Tony was up and about two minutes away from knocking on her door to escape it, or deeply asleep himself. She hoped for the latter. Clint’s tone boded poorly; her own stomach was already churning.

She wished she’d fallen asleep, but instead she’d been doing what she’d promised she wouldn’t do, which was wait by the phone. Her boys were up North. She wanted to be with them. Instead she was stuck in Anchorage, Alaska, bedridden for at least a week and the only team leader capable of keeping Bruce from hyperventilating into a paper bag and Tony from clawing at the walls. She tried to, anyway. Team Mom wasn’t a position she’d seen for herself prior to the Avengers, but, well, they needed one and “Team Dad” was taken.

“ _Cap’s not doing so hot_ ,” Clint said at last.

Natasha admitted, “I’m gonna be honest, he didn’t sound good earlier.”

“ _Night and day_ ,” Clint said soberly.

Natasha closed her eyes and leaned back against the headboard. Then she heard a knock on the door. Sighing shallowly, she muttered, “Great timing.”

Clint asked, “ _What?_ ”

“I gotta. . . .” Trailing off apologetically, she said as there was another light knock, “Text me.” She waited until he said raggedly:

“ _Sure, yeah_.”

Hanging up, she rolled to her feet, half-hoping Tony would have wandered back to his bed, giving up on a response, before sliding open the door. He looked at her with sad puppy eyes. She suppressed a sigh because _Ye_ _ah, I feel that_ and said dryly, “I didn’t realize we had coed dorms.”

Tony squinted at her, sliding the door shut behind him. “We sleep in the same Tower. _My_ Tower,” he added, unceremoniously flopping down on the extra bed. Sighing into the comforter, he told her, “I hate him. He snores like a lawnmower.”

Natasha’s phone buzzed. She wandered back over to it as casually as she could, sitting down against the headboard.

“He snores like a beaver with a chest cold,” Tony declared to the mattress. “A really big fucking beaver.”

 _Cap’s down_. Natasha’s fingers felt cold, even though the room was warm, even after Clint assured: _Nothing fatal_.Less reassuringly: _Probably_.

She wrote back, _Tell me_.

The little ellipsis appeared. She waited. Tony rhapsodized, “Like a beaver that swallowed a chainsaw.”

“Sounds horrifying,” Natasha deadpanned, grateful her tone was level. Clint was a fast typer. The longer the ellipsis dragged on, the more uneasy she felt.

At last, Clint’s text appeared: _Laundry list? Hypothermic, frostbitten, wasted as hell, he took some super pills—adrenaline (?), went after Hydra. And then he just—dropped._

Tony was saying something she couldn’t quite follow, ending with, “. . . And that’s why I _prefer_ the bed by the door.”

That was nice, because he had the bed by the door. Natasha liked the window view.

 _He’s out, Nat. I can’t wake him up. Almost gave him another super pill to see if that’d do it_.

Natasha typed back, very quickly, _Do_ _n’t_.

Clint assured, _I won’t_.

“Hey, I’ve always wondered: if you stay up till six in the morning, are you a night person or a morning person?”

Natasha said, her voice only a little off, “Night. Doesn’t count as morning until you fall asleep.”

Tony grunted thoughtfully, “Huh.”

Natasha reminded him, “You’re not supposed to be contemplating big philosophical questions, remember?”

 _Think he OD’ed on adrenaline_.

Alarmed, Natasha replied, _He what?_

“I can’t read, I can’t watch TV, I need my vices, Natasha.”

_He had a panic attack. At the hospital. We saw Diana, Yelena. Y’s OK, BTW._

“. . . I can’t even drink _coffee_.”

“Put on _Planet Earth_ , that’s not TV,” Natasha suggested. “Not the kind you’re supposed to avoid.”

She heard him pawing around for the remote that was nearer to her than him, her gaze glued on the phone and the little ellipsis that kept fading in and out as Clint typed and retyped. He was a very fast typer. He must’ve been rattled if he wasn’t blurting out the whole story in Dickensian detail.

The lump in her throat was getting hard to swallow.

 _He said they were good for every 2 hrs, but we’ve been up . . . literally all night_.

Natasha was too tired to do the math. Tony finally groaned, sitting up enough to grab the remote and announcing, “I am going on such a coffee binger when this is all over, just you wait.”

Natasha didn’t bother replying as Tony turned on the TV, staring at her phone as Clint tapped out, almost brokenly but at least _quickly_ :

_Figure 8 hrs / 2 = 4 doses._   
_IDK what max. dose /day is._   
_Don’t know what the hell “it” is._   
_He’s still shaking. He’s unconscious._

Natasha suggested tentatively, _Cold?_

Tony asked conversationally, “Who’re you textin’?”

Natasha replied calmly, “Pepper. She wants your social.”

“Oh, that’s easy, it’s 109—”

_I’ve got four blankets on him._

_Overheating?_

“—42.”

_IDK. Really out of my depth.  
:(_

The smiley face almost made her smile even though she knew Clint meant it as “help me, I need your wisdom,” but she had no words of wisdom. She didn’t even know what she was dealing with. Steve couldn’t take over-the-counter meds, the serum obliterated them in seconds. He’d have to take lethal, elephant-killer levels to have a chance at the typical effect.

She didn’t like the sound of super-serum strong adrenaline pills.

 _Tell me as much as you can and I’ll try to help_ , Natasha typed back patiently, trying to keep him on target.

Tony said, “Here, you do it. It’s giving me a headache.” The remote landed next to her.

Sighing, Natasha set her phone down for thirty seconds, logging into Netflix and putting on Planet Earth II. As the screen loaded, Tony said, “That’s the sequel.”

Natasha said, “I’m sure you can figure it out.” For good measure, she turned off the reading light between them, darkening the room. _Go to sleep_ , she wanted to tell him, except it wasn’t like she could take a phone call from Barton with him in the room. There wasn’t even a balcony—

Inspiration struck. She tucked her phone away in her pocket and climbed to her feet carefully. Tony glanced over at her as she grabbed the empty ice bucket and announced, “I’ll be back in a few.”

Waving a hand regally, Tony said, “Let me know if Pepper needs me,” and set about arranging the pillows to his liking.

Natasha almost forgot to take the bucket with her and had to force herself to be conscientious of her ribs. She shut the door, took two steps, and pried her phone out of her pocket.

_Never seen him this low._   
_I’m worried. :(_   
_He’s rough. He needs to go home._

She called him. Clint answered almost before the first ring: “ _Oh, thank God. I hate texting_.”

“Give it to me straight.”

“ _Honestly, it’s kind of a ‘see it to believe it’ thing. Death warmed over. Literally looks like a walking corpse. At least the dog seems to help_.”

Natasha didn’t ask _what dog_ , because she didn’t care, she didn’t have time: “You said he OD’ed on adrenaline?”

Clint sighed. “ _Speculation, but, yeah. That’s my working theory. I mean, something . . . it got to him, you know? You can only go so long on . . . whatever the hell super juice he bleeds, and then you can’t. I should’ve stopped him, he wasn’t in any shape to fight_.”

“Fight?” Natasha repeated incredulously, wandering down the hall, not caring that she was barefoot. It was Anchorage, Alaska. Everything had changed in the last seventy-two hours; she didn’t care anymore. “It’s been less than twelve hours, Barton—”

“ _I know, that’s why I should’ve stopped him. He was bad coming out of the mines. He_ walked _here. In the snow. As far as I can tell, he did it in a sweater and long pants, Nat. Thirty-below, nine miles. I don’t know how he’s alive_.”

Natasha shivered, clutching the empty ice bucket to her side so she didn’t drop it. “ _His fingers are black. Not the whole thing, just the nails, but—God, he looks bad. I don’t know how to treat advanced frostbite. I don’t know if I should try._ ”

Natasha found a nook near the elevators that had a chair. She sat down and set the empty ice bucket at her feet. “Lukewarm water,” she advised, her voice surprisingly calm. “Get a couple washcloths damp. Very, very lukewarm. Not cold.”

She heard Clint stand up. “ _On it_.” She gave him a few moments. Then he sighed and said, “ _Okay, now what?_ ”

She instructed, “Just put them on his hands. Don’t rub. Rewarm when they feel cold again.”

“ _Easy enough_.” Blowing out a breath, Clint said, “ _I’m not gonna lie, I’m spooked_.”

Breathing calmly, eyes closed, Natasha said dryly, “Join the club. The Quinjet crew still local?”

“ _In the area. I already told them to come by. They can’t stay on the ground long, engines start to freeze up, but they’ll be here in less than an hour. So that’s the good news_.”

“Positivity,” Natasha agreed, crossing one leg over the other, for all the world like she wasn’t trying to somehow nurse a teammate back to health halfway across the world. One step at a time. “How’s the shaking?”

“ _Bad. I mean, I guess that’s good, because it’s not advanced hypothermia, right?_ ”

 _Could be some kind of shock_ , Natasha didn’t say. But that did give her an idea: “When did he last eat? Breakfast before the tour?” 

“. . . _Oh, hell_.”

“Gotta get him up, Barton,” Natasha encouraged quietly. “He’s probably dehydrated. Hypoglycemic. Just get him up, get him some food.”

“ _I’ve tried_ ,” Clint admitted. “ _I’m one step away from the old bucket of water trick_.”

“If all else fails,” Natasha said wearily. “But it’s not a good idea. Just—use your best judgment.”

“ _Best judgment left the Quinjet the day we arrived. This place is its own kind of hell_.” She could hear him shaking Steve, cajoling, insisting, “ _C’mon, Rogers, you’re the most stubborn sonuvabitch I’ve ever met, give me a fucking break_.”

But if he gave Clint a break, Natasha didn’t hear about it. Sighing, Clint said, “ _I’m getting a bucket of water_.”

“Don’t,” Natasha said seriously. “I was kidding.”

“ _I wasn’t. He’s in a coma; I can’t wake him up. It’s been two hours_.”

There was ice coalescing in her stomach, panic and despair. “Two hours?” she all but groaned. “ _Barton_.”

“ _Been a long day_ ,” Clint grunted. “ _I just—I don’t know what to do and I’m scared shitless at this point. Where the hell is the damn Quinjet?_ ”

“Clint,” Natasha said, finding her own inner place of calm. “Calm down.”

Exhaling heavily, Clint said, “ _It’s fine, right? He was in a coma for seventy years, I’m sure he’ll be fine for five more hours_.”

It seemed surreal that less than twelve hours ago she’d been talking to Steve, who sounded weak and tired and worn to the bone but awake, alive. She could feel the self-blame in the air, from Barton, from herself. She forced it down. It wouldn’t help anyone. Not now, not ever. “Clint,” she said seriously. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“ _You know, this almost isn’t even the worst part_ ,” Clint said despairingly. “ _Yelena—the real one, not the one you met in the mines—she said Nadia was in Berlin the whole time. I got off the phone with Nadia less than an hour ago. It’s her, and—fuck, Nat. It was a set-up. It was all a set-up and we fell for it_.”

The sadness was almost choking, at the realization that all of it was. . . . “You’re sure?”

“ _Almost positive_ ,” Clint said dully. “ _Somebody got in Nadia’s account and sent the yellow flags. Nadia logged on for me and said there weren’t any new alerts, just the usual ‘all clear.’ She couldn’t find her outgoing message that she would be in Berlin for the summer, either. Somebody hacked the files, and we bit. Hook, line, and sinker_.”

Sighing, Natasha said, “We can play the blame game later, just get home.”

“ _Should’ve left six hours ago_ ,” Clint said bitterly. “ _Ten. He’s gonna be fine, I know he is, he’s always fine, but—Goddamn, Natasha_.”

“I know.” Rubbing the bridge of her nose, eyes dry, she added, “Call me when you can, okay? I gotta get back to Tony.”

Immediately, Clint advised, “ _Don’t tell him_.”

Natasha huffed. “Not a chance. Better get on that damn plane soon, Barton. They should have some emergency medical supplies, I don’t know if they’ll have an IV on board but maybe something to help get him up. Don’t give him more adrenaline.”

“ _Wasn’t planning on it. I’m gonna strangle Fury. Can’t give a kid like Cap that kind of stuff_.”

“He’s not a kid,” Natasha reminded wearily. “Call when you can, doesn’t matter what time.”

“ _Will do. Bye, Nat_.”

She hung up and breathed in deeply, wincing as it made her ribs ache. Then she stood up and wandered back down the hall, using her key card on the door. Tony, placidly watching an episode on the wonders of the desert, glanced at her as she sat back down carefully. 

“You forgot the ice,” he reminded her. She looked down at her hands like the ice bucket would materialize in them.

Breathing out, trying not to think about Clint and Steve three thousand miles away, she said carefully, “Decided we didn’t need it.”

Tony decided not to push the issue, looking back at the screen. Natasha settled into her blanket nest, closed her eyes, and dreamed.

Nothing else she could do from 3,000 miles away except be well-rested.

. o . 

Natasha’s phone was ringing.

Tony looked over at her, deeply asleep, and vaulted out of his bed instead. He snagged her phone and didn’t make the mistake of leaving the spare keycard on the table as he stumbled out into the hall, answering on the fourth ring.

“ _ETA twenty minutes_.”

He nearly dropped the phone. “ET—what?”

Clint sounded equally floored. “ _Stark? What the hell?_ ”

“ETA _where_?” Tony asked urgently, one hand on the wall for support. “Here?”

“. . . _Yeah. Shit_.” Clearing his throat, he added, “ _Where’s Natasha?_ ”

“She’s sleeping. As most people are at. . . .” He checked the phone for the time: “1:39 AM. Seriously? You’re landing in twenty minutes?”

“ _Mmm-hmm_ ,” Clint said, sounding like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “ _God bless the red white and blue, am I right?_ ”

“How _is_ the red white and blue?” Tony asked, squinting in the well-lit hallway. “You didn’t forget him, did you?”

Clint didn’t laugh, didn’t even chuckle. An alarm bell in Tony’s head started ringing. Or maybe it was the ringing in his ears kicking up a notch. “ _Nope. Nyet. Got all our cargo_.”

“Why didn’t you call sooner?” Tony asked. “I mean, I know I’m concussed, but I also know it’s not a twenty-minute flight from—” He paused, then said in a flat tone, “You son of a bitch, that was _you_ , wasn’t it?”

Clint sighed. “ _No, that was Pepper_ ,” he said, sounding irked but so normal Tony almost believed him. “ _It—yeah. Yup. We’re gonna be home in . . . sixteen minutes_.”

Tony’s heart beat very fast. He rubbed over the arc reactor. “Is Steve asleep?” he asked, dancing around the question, _Can I talk to him, why haven’t you let me talk to him, where’s Steve?_

Clint said calmly, “ _Out like a light_.”

Tony nodded sadly. Selfishly, he asked, “Could you, uh . . . ?”

Clint interjected with surprising gentleness, “ _You’ll see him soon, okay? Let him rest. We’re in the final approach, so I’m gonna hang up anyway. Be good. Do me a favor and get Nat up, she’ll kill me if we get in and she’s not up_.”

Nodding to himself, Tony said, “Sure. Yeah. Okay.” He wasn’t sure what emotion was welling in his chest, except maybe surprise, elation—terror. Something felt wrong. He couldn’t name it, and he was terrified it was a dream. “Sure. I’ll get her up. See you soon.”

“ _T-minus 16 minutes_ ,” Clint said calmly, ending the call.

Dutifully, Tony poked Natasha in the shoulder. Natasha awoke with a weary exhale of, “Tony, I’m not actually Team Mom.”

Tony told her, “They’re sixteen minutes out.”

Natasha _vaulted_ out of bed, healing ribs be damned. She didn’t ask _who_ or _what_ , barely spared a second for a very colorful Russian curse that Tony had been trying to learn, before telling him, “Get Banner.”

Nodding, thrown but understanding, yeah, sure, sure, “Sure,” he slid back the dividing door and pawed around in the dark for the light, flicking it on and saying with robust normalcy, “Rise and shine, starshine!”

Bruce let out another beaver with a chest cold snore and Tony grabbed their TV remote and pitched it at the mound of blankets. “That means, _Get up, loser, we’re going to the airport_.”

Bruce snorted, rolled over, rolled out of bed, and landed on the floor with a yelp. “Where’s the fire?” he asked blearily.

Tony rolled his eyes— _ow—_ and said, “Barton and Cap are in the air. They’re landing in less than twenty.”

“Van’s leaving,” Natasha agreed, twirling a set of keys impatiently. She hadn’t put on pajamas and Tony didn’t bother changing. Bruce scrambled to shove on a t-shirt and his glasses, forgoing contacts and asserting in a much gruffer version of his usual clear talk:

“Yeup, I’m up, we’re rolling.”

. o . 

They were, amazingly, ahead of the Quinjet at the airfield. Tony stood outside the van and remarked, “Feels almost warm, doesn’t it?”

Bruce yawned around a cold cup of coffee and agreed, “Tropical.”

Feeling like he was one step away from jumping up and down just to dispel some of the energy itching under his skin, Tony asked Natasha, leaning stoically against the hood, “So, about _Pepper. . . ._ ” 

He trailed off at the deep, distant hum of engines, eerie at first until higher brain functions kicked in and reminded him that it was just the Quinjet.

 _Quinjet_.

He had to restrain himself from running towards the sound, because it was a mile out but it sounded so close. Then, almost before he’d lost the restraint battle, the silver bird materialized from the dark sky, alighting with surprisingly delicate ease on the ground.

Bruce clapped. Natasha warned, “Tony,” but he was already running.

He nearly tripped over a solid black-and-white mass that came loping down the descending ramp, mirrored in shock by Bruce’s loud, “They brought a _dog?_ ”

He thought, _Steve, Steve, Steve_ and was firmly in camp _I’m gonna hug you_ because leave it up to Steve fucking Rogers to tell him he’d do something in two days and do it in less than _one_.

In three long strides, Tony was inside the Quinjet. Scanning the interior, he experienced an absurd moment where he wondered if Barton had forgotten Steve. And then he heard a voice he’d been dying to hear.

“ _Tony_.”

Tony turned towards Steve’s voice and staggered back violently, wondering for a horrible moment if this really _was_ a hallucination as the ghost of Steve Rogers looked at him, a hint of a smile on his lips, face ashen, entire body radiating pain, exhaustion. “Hey,” he rasped, dropping a hand with dark blue fingertips on the furry black-and-white animal that came to a halt next to his chair. He said, “Hey, Tony. It’s okay.”

Tony made a small noise, backed against the copilot’s seat. Steve slid a hand glacially towards the buckle—the dog watched Tony with clear white eyes, and he’d never seen a dog with white eyes before—and unclipped the belt. He didn’t stand up, and Tony was grateful, afraid that he might bolt out of the plane in sheer surprise.

Steve said softly, “It’s okay, Tony.”

Clint, who hadn’t quite snuck up on him but was lugging a bag over his shoulder, added tiredly, “Don’t listen to him. He’s a liar.” His tone implied it was a joke, but his eyes were dark and humorless and Tony wasn’t laughing.

Finally, with what looked like a truly monumental effort, Steve stood. The expression _on his last legs_ came to mind. Tony was glad he didn’t shrink back, didn’t cower, holding his ground. 

Then Steve took a limping step forward. Tony responded to it almost more than Steve himself, darting forward and ducking under a cold shoulder, feeling Steve exhale shallowly as Tony wrapped his arm around his back. He was shaking and frozen and he wasn’t moving any farther. Tony asked quietly, “Steve?”

Steve murmured, “’m okay. Just need a second.”

Banner was there, pausing in front of them. He said in the same wondering horror as Tony, “What happened?”

Steve breathed shallowly and took a step forward. “I’ll tell you,” he promised. “Anything you want.” Another step. He lurched with each one. Tony tightened his grip, afraid he’d fall because he couldn’t catch him, the lump in his throat unbearable.

Banner came up on his other side, supporting. Clint encouraged from the car, “S’okay.”

Tony swallowed hard. 

The dog—the _dog_ , and if his head weren’t aching with sudden fatigue, he might’ve connected the dots more with the sniffing sound on the phone and the animal in front of them.

Helpful that S.H.I.E.L.D. had an agreement to land at the runway; there weren’t terribly many of them in Anchorage, Alaska. And it was two in the morning. Saturday.

Right around the time Clint and Steve had first called, in Norilsk, to let them know they’d be coming home in two days.

It had been fifteen hours. He didn’t understand how the ghost of Steve next to him could be reconciled with the Steve on the phone, warm and friendly and familiar. He felt small for wanting _that_ Steve, for not knowing what to do with the one leaning on him, only aware that he wanted to curl up under warm sheets and sleep, Planet Earth II be damned.

Steve said in a comforting approximation of normal, “It’s okay. Just tired.” He whistled, adding, “Stay with us, Laika.” The dog ambled over and Tony looked down at it, blinking in bewilderment. It sniffed at him as Steve paused, loosening his hand from Bruce’s shoulder so he could rub blue fingertips against its fur. “Sweet girl,” he murmured. “Very good girl.”

She sniffed Tony’s pant leg. Gingerly, Tony held out his hand. Steve moved his own so she could sniff at Tony’s palm. Tony said, “Hi,” almost but not quite nonsensically, petting her fur. It was stunningly soft, Rex rabbit soft. He stroked it for a few moments, marveling. “This is a dog,” he told Steve, who sighed like he wanted to laugh but didn’t have the breath.

“Told her to go home,” he murmured. “She kept coming back.” He settled a hand on her head again, between pointed black ears. Stroking her fur, he murmured, “Sorry.”

Tony asked, “Why?”

Steve didn’t reply, saying instead, “I’ll tell you.” Tony could hear a polite refusal and didn’t push it. “I’ll tell you,” he promised. “I just. . . .” He didn’t finish. 

The van was thankfully roomy, even with Clint stuffing bags into the back and Natasha commanding the wheel. Steve limped up the steps like it was his job, just one, plodding, step, after, another.

By the time he sat down on the bench-like seat, not bothering to buckle up before shutting his eyes, one hand curled around Tony’s shirt, holding him. Tony slid into the space next to Steve, remaining at the end of his tether. The dog clambered into the van and onto floor between the driver’s seat and their row. Steve told her, “ _Khorosho_.”

Bruce hopped in the back and shut the doors. Steve told him, with evident sincerity, “It’s okay, Bruce.”

Bruce made an incredulous noise that Tony felt in his soul and recognized as the precursor to a panic attack. Bruce didn’t respond, closing his eyes to hide from the reality. 

Tony closed the gap between him and Steve, who looked at him with barely open eyes before loosening his grip so it was flat on Tony’s shoulder. Again, with surprising normalcy, he added, “S’okay, Tony. I’m here.”

Tony rested his cheek against his ice-cold chest and closed his eyes. Steve slid his hand up to cradle the side of his head and murmured, “S’okay. ‘m here.”

Clint flopped into the front passenger seat, exhaled explosively, and cranked up the heat. Tony heard a sound that seemed suspiciously like someone putting their feet up—

“Feet off the dash,” Steve said in a low voice, almost inaudible above the air.

Clint’s feet thumped on the floor. Steve hummed and Tony let the sound of it soothe him, feeling his rabbity heart rate slowing as Natasha drove.

. o . 

From behind closed eyelids, Tony heard Natasha say, “. . . Be pet-friendly.”

Clint said, “Oh, good. I didn’t wanna sleep outside tonight.” A door opened. Tony didn’t open his eyes, basking in the warm interior and the familiarly firm surface underneath his cheek.

Tony felt a cold cheek rest against the top of his head for a moment before firm arms slid under his shoulders and knees. He didn’t ask, didn’t wonder how a man who could barely take three steps could carry him. Steve just did. He slid out of the van into the cool night air, holding Tony to his chest, shallow breaths, steady steps, the strength in his arms absolutely trustworthy.

The dog followed them and Tony let himself drift, heard Steve murmur something, heard an elevator. Steve stepped inside it and Tony gripped his handful of frozen jacket as it rose, comfortingly steadily.

Bruce unlocked their room and Tony felt Steve turn, navigating the mess Tony had made of spare sheets and unpacked bags. With utmost care, he set Tony on top of the bed. With familiar movements, Steve tugged the sheets and comforter up over him. 

For a moment, Tony thought the dream would dissolve there: he would wake up and Steve would still be far away. Then he heard Steve slide off his boots and sit heavily on the edge of the bed. He shucked off his jacket. He didn’t say anything to Bruce, but he spared a, “ _Khoroshaya sobaka_ ,” for the dog, who flopped on the floor nearby with a sigh.

Steve tucked himself under the sheets. He was still wearing most of his under-layers: two, maybe three shirts, just as many pants and probably as many socks. He didn’t cuddle close like Tony expected, so Tony shifted closer instead, ducking under his cold chin. A cold arm settled over his back. Steve’s shallow breathing remained less comforting than Tony wanted, but Steve’s voice was a familiar rumble as he assured, “S’okay.” And then he snored, asleep in an instant. Tony wanted to wake him up, tell him _fix this_ because that was what Steve did, he fixed the heavy hurting thing in Tony’s chest, but Steve was heavy and quiet, unresponsive. 

He pleaded, “Steve?”

Steve snored again. Tony heard the sliding door click shut and wondered how Bruce would enjoy the pull-out couch in Natasha and Clint’s room.

In the same soft voice, Tony entreated, “Wake up, Steve.”

Steve breathed steadily, uninterrupted. Tony shuffled back to look at him. That got him a slit-eyed look, sleepy but there. “Mm?” It was less a question than a sound, but then Steve said, “Tony?”

Tony looked at him, faintly illuminated by the white-blue arc reactor light, his own head heavy as he rested it on the pillow next to him, watching him. Steve closed his eyes and murmured, “’m here.”

Tony asked, “Are you?”

With another shallow exhale, Steve looked at him with half-lidded eyes. “Mm-hm.” He rubbed his thumb against Tony’s side. “Right here, Tony.”

Tony sniffed. Steve murmured, “Oh, Tony.” He stroked his side gently. “It’s okay. It’s okay now. It’s over.” With a trembling arm, he pulled Tony closer. “It’s over, it’s never gonna happen again.” His voice was so tired. “It’s okay.” He closed his eyes and Tony could tell on the exhale that he was already asleep.

Swallowing, he shuffled up under Steve’s cold chin, close as he could be, listening to his labored breathing. Trying to rest, Tony curled his fingers fragilely in the cold fabric of Steve’s shirts. Then Tony shivered and Steve made a soft sound, followed by a clearer whisper: “Tony?” Not quite dreamily, Steve mumbled, “S’okay, Tony. I’m here. What’s wrong?” When Tony didn’t respond, Steve rubbed his back. “I’m here. ’m here now.” He rested his cheek against the top of Tony’s head. “’m here, Tony, s’okay. Never gonna happen again, okay?”

Tony clutched him, the lump in his throat unbearable. “Steve?”

“Yeah.” Steve breathed slowly, sounding relieved. “Hey, Tony. It’s me. I’m not going anywhere, ’m here. I’m here now. ’m sorry, sweetheart.” He added thinly, “I’m gonna take a nap, okay? Wake me if you need me.” A breath later, he revised, “No, you know what, I can—I’m here.” With a deep breath, almost animated, he pawed around until he found one of the pillows Tony had thrown haphazardly on the floor, stuffing it under his own head for support. He rumbled, “Talk to me, Tony.”

Tony was silent for a long time. Breathing unsteadily, Steve tripped his fingers gently up and down Tony’s spine. Sniffing, Tony admitted, “I hate you.” He felt Steve’s breathing halt. He curled his fingers in Steve’s shirt tightly, holding onto him, silently commanding, _D_ _on’t you dare go_. Steve didn’t. He just inhaled slowly. Again and again, Tony repeated softly, “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.”

He tightened his grip, trembling. Steve said nothing. Tony didn’t know if he was sorry that Steve was silent, that he _understood_ , or if he missed the lies, the comforting lies. “I hate you,” he said again, like he needed it to be true, like Steve was the embodiment of all the pain, all the trembling fear, all the unbearable and unendurable. Steve was silent. 

Tony didn’t loosen his grip, but he pushed Steve, not hard but with enough force that Steve was at the edge of the bed before Tony stopped. Steve didn’t say a word, didn’t try to defend himself. Tony wanted him to defend himself so he could rip it to shreds, to hear Steve say the words, _I did it for them_ so he could ask, _Why can’t I be enough for you?_

He knew it wasn’t fair, but he—he couldn’t help it, he _wanted_ it, he wanted to know that he was enough, that he could have something good that lasted, that he wouldn’t watch the gold tarnish, that he wouldn’t have to hear that Steve _died_.

Steve said, in a voice sobering in its clarity, “I hate me, too.” He didn’t try to get up and walk away and Tony didn’t let him go. “I hate that . . . who I am and what I want to be are two different people.” He breathed in and exhaled heavily. “I’m taking my name off the list. I’m done with it. I’m done—I’m done being S.H.I.E.L.D.’s. I’m an Avenger. And that’s all I want to be. I can’t leave you. I can’t _lose_ you, Tony.”

Tony kept his eyes closed, sniffing. Steve said, “We get to go home, okay? We get t’ go home. I don’ want you t’ think,” he slurred, breathed like he’d exhausted his word limit for the day, reached a personal threshold, before continuing, “I don’t want you to think I’m gonna come home in a casket. I won’t do that to you. You deserve more of me . . . than last words and empty promises. Okay? You deserve more. You deserve more, and. . . .” He gently, hesitantly wrapped a cool leg around both of Tony’s, making a soft sound, indiscernible. “And I don’t wanna be the guy you hate, Tony,” he finished quietly.

More to his shoulder than his face, Tony murmured, “I don’t hate you.”

Steve rubbed his back, rhythmic, familiar. It was easy to get lost in. Tony felt sleep tug at him, heard Steve murmur comfortingly, “I know. And I know you hate me because I left you. I know you hate me because I wasn’t there when you needed me, when it wasn’t—wasn’t an _option_ not to be there. . . . I know you hate me.” 

His voice was calm, almost content, like he’d needed to say the words, like Tony had needed to say the words, couldn’t lie that there wasn’t anger, a raw and unbridled and ugly anger, that didn’t care about anything other than what had happened to them, and how it was Steve’s fault, and it wasn’t Steve’s fault. He blamed Steve for everything and nothing, how he hated him for what he’d done and still—

“It’s okay,” Steve said softly, holding him firmly. 

Nobody could touch him, not with Steve there. Nobody. And that was why he _needed_ Steve there. Steve kept him safe, grounded. Whole.

And he knew it was dangerous. He knew it wasn’t fair to Steve, but he didn’t care about _fair_. He didn’t care that Steve hadn’t died for two days to spite him, that he hadn’t done it to hurt Tony. 

Tony only knew that he’d suffocate if he didn’t say the words and if Steve didn’t hear them, didn’t know that there was a darkness in Tony’s heart that blamed Steve and a softness that insisted, “I hate you. And I love you. I need you to know that. I love you so much more than I hate you, I hate how much I love you, I _need_ you, I _need_ you more than. . . .” He trailed off, shuffling back to look Steve in the eye. Steve’s gaze was hooded but watchful, paying attention because Tony _needed_ him to, awake because Tony needed him to be. It wasn’t a want, any more than oxygen was a want. Tony knew he wouldn’t feel whole if Steve wasn’t _there_.

With almost more gentleness than he thought he was capable of in that moment, he leaned forward and kissed Steve’s cheek, cool skin, warm and soft across his jaw, savoring that he was real, that he was _alive_ , the puff of his breath against Tony’s own cheek more real than the last four days. Steve didn’t say a word, blinking slowly at him. When Tony kissed his temple, Steve closed his eyes. Sliding a hand up, he squeezed back of Tony’s neck very gently, raw fingers soft against Tony’s skin. 

Steve’s pain was a self-contained thing. Tony’s was out of control, external and loud and _demanding_ , it demanded, it needed. He hated it; he wanted to strangle it. But it was so much sweeter to drown it in sweetness, kissing Steve’s closed eyelid gently, his lips, lingering in it. Tony reflected in a fuzzy, quieted corner of his mind that Steve tasted like metal and ice. 

He’d read once that a person’s name was their favorite word in any language, but it was a lie, because _Steve_ was his favorite, no statement existed that equaled _Steve’s here_ , that surpassed _Steve’s **home**_. It was better than his own name. It was the only name he _loved_ , because it brought Steve back, kept him _here_. 

His own name was for other people. It was for Steve.

Steve, who said it so softly, “Tony, Tony,” _Tony,_ he could hear it when Steve didn’t say it, when Steve kissed him, when love wasn’t a noun. His grip eased on Steve’s shirt, millimeters at a time, not letting him go but letting him be, the desperation easing as surety replaced it.

Steve was real. Steve nudged him and he eased onto his back, tangling both hands in Steve’s shirts, accepting a firm kiss until he realized he’d rucked the shirts up enough Steve had no choice but to take them off. Steve didn’t sit up much to obey, tugging them over his head. Tony tugged them the rest of the way free, casting them to the floor. Bare-chested, Tony could see the last forty-eight hours mapped onto Steve’s skin, a canvas of black and blue, a visual testament to survival.

He rested a hand over the reflected white-blue light of the arc reactor. Steve looked down at him, balanced on his knees, brow furrowed. Tony leaned up to kiss it. It didn’t take much to convince Steve to lie on his back. Tony shucked off his own shirt, aware of his own bruises as Steve’s hands, cool and blue-tipped, rested against the edges, not touching, eyes soft, thoughtful. His gaze flicked back to Tony, tired, _so_ tired, but there was affection and wonder and awe there, too, perennial awe, a silent appreciation for the thing that had saved Tony’s life against all odds, that was the reason _Tony_ was here and not buried in a metal box sixteen hundred feet underground.

He slid cool hands up Tony’s sides and Tony shivered. When Steve paused, retreated, he captured Steve’s hands and held them against his skin. Catching on, Steve slid them around his shoulders, down his back, tracing lines, whorls, galaxy shapes.

Tony caught his right hand and kissed the palm. Without hesitation, Tony set it against the white-blue light, warm, not hot, and saw Steve staring at it in honest _wonder_ , like it was precious and not a scar, a reminder of something terrible. With a flicker of a glance up at Tony, who nodded and settled his own hands down on either side of Steve’s head, leaning down to kiss him. Steve left his hand where it was, his other hand anchoring Tony’s hip, one thumb brushing over metal edge, human skin, stroking back and forth, reinforcing the lineless continuity of it. It was part of him. It was his heart. He knew Steve could curl his fingers around it and rip it out, but he wouldn’t. He never would.

Steve wouldn’t hurt him. He felt gratitude for the calm certainty of it, that there was no trembling panic. Tony didn’t bolt after a moment of clarity: he melted into the kiss, tangling his fingers in cool golden hair, settling naturally between Steve’s legs, careful to keep his weight off him. Steve slid his other hand to the arc reactor, his right hand moving off, curving his palm around Tony’s hip as Tony caught his lower lip, letting time disappear.

Steve urged him down and they laid chest-to-chest. Tony could feel each of Steve’s shivering breaths, the reluctant ebb of cold, cushioning a warm cheek against a frozen shoulder. With the covers over them, the space warmed up quickly. Tony almost purred because he’d missed this, all of this, right down to his own personal space heater. 

He wasn’t sure who fell asleep first. It drifted over him like snowfall, light and slow, not all at once but slow enough that he could enjoy the reality of having Steve right where he wanted him.

Safe. Warm. _Home_.

. o . 

They slept for almost twenty hours. 

Tony was vaguely aware of the door opening, but he didn’t bother to open his eyes to see who it was. Clicking claws confirmed that at least one member of the village had volunteered to take care of the dog. He felt only a sleepy sort of gratitude towards them, a soft emotion that dissolved into dreamless sleep. 

When he came awake next, he tumbled off Steve gracelessly, tripping over every self-inflicted obstacle between him and the en suite, and downed two dozen Dixie cups’ worth of tap water. 

He stumbled back across the room almost drunkenly. The connecting door slid back and Bruce greeted cheerfully, “Oh, hey, you’re awake.”

“Nope.”

He flopped on top of Steve, who grunted but cuddled him anyway. For Bruce's benefit, Tony added, “Just get your laptop, I don’t care.”

Tony didn’t know nor care what time it was, Norilsk or Anchorage time, so he floated, listening to the indiscernible voices next door. There were times when he would have been irked to be excluded, when he would have insisted on the best seat in the house for such family meetings, but he already had the best seat in the house, he thought with a faint smile against Steve’s bare shoulder, listening to him breathe.

He got up at one point to express curiosity for their new roommate, looking over at the dog who watched him with clear white eyes. He repeated the name, _Laika_ , and smiled. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he slid to the floor and encouraged in the softest whistle he possessed, _C’mere, c’mere_. Laika stood up and wandered over, tail swishing back and forth. She laid down across his legs, velvet-soft. He buried both hands in her fur, trembling with emotion. “Hi, Laika,” he told her, rubbing behind a pointed black ear. “Hi, chica. Hi, gorgeous girl.”

He sat on the floor with Laika resting on his lap, scratching her shoulder. “How’d my best guy find my best girl, huh?” he murmured, flattening his palm against her back. “Sweet girl. _Khorosh . . ._ _khoroshaya sobaka_ ,” he said, smiling as her tail swished along the floor. “Gonna keep me sharp, _da_? Make sure I don’t forget?” She swished her tail, content to be held. He agreed, “Yeah, you are. Good dog. Good, good dog.”

He kissed the top of her furry head. “I hope you like disco rock because you’re gonna hear it a lot.”

. o . 

Flat on his belly, Steve blinked blearily and rolled over to face Tony.

Picking his way through a bag of blueberries, Tony sat on the floor with Laika on his lap. When Steve made an inquisitive noise, Tony held out the little gray bag invitingly. A sleepy arm ventured forth, snagged a single blueberry, and popped it into his mouth. 

“Courtesy of Natasha,” Tony explained. “I told her she’d been nominated for Team Mom and Clint took it personally, so she’s outdone herself.” He shook the bag, careful to keep it away from Laika’s sniffing nose, and caught Steve’s hand, turning it over, palm up, and dumping the rest of the bag into it. When Steve frowned at him, Tony reached around, holding up three more bags. “They’re good for you. How’re you going to get strong bones if you don’t eat blueberries, huh?”

Steve hummed, scooting upright, careful not to crush or drop his handful of blueberries before shaking them into his mouth. Chewing thoughtfully, he swallowed and acknowledged, “I don’t think blueberries have anything to do with bone density.”

“That’s why you have such weak bones,” Tony said sagely, popping open another bag and handing it up to Steve wholesale. “Really, I’m doing a public service.” When Steve took it, he helped himself to his own bag, adding around a blueberry, “Weak-boned limp-noodle man.”

Steve dumped the second bag of blueberries into his mouth, finishing it off in less than a minute and observing, “I see you’ve met the dog.”

Tony looked down at Laika in mock surprise. “Is that what this is?”

Steve arched an eyebrow, shaking his head when Tony offered him his bag of blueberries.

When Tony said, “You should eat more,” Steve replied sagely:

“Man does not live by blueberries alone.”

Tony popped another blueberry into his mouth. “Maybe cowards don’t,” he agreed, watching Steve swing his legs over the side, rubbing his left thigh. “But strong-willed, strong-boned men—”

“I really missed you, you know that?” From anyone else, it would be heading him off at the pass, almost one-upping him, but Steve’s smile was so sincere, so amused, that Tony couldn’t help but smile in return, popping a blueberry in his mouth in a futile attempt to suppress it.

“I hate when you make me all sappy,” he told Steve. “The biggest threat to my cool factor isn’t millennials, it’s your big heart.”

“Millennials?” Steve repeated, standing slowly.

Tony shrugged, waving a hand. “Kids, mostly. Born in the nineties. That’s 1990s, by the way, not—” He sighed when Steve held out a hand to him but accepted it, didn’t pretend to be coy as he leaned up and planted a firm kiss on him. “Mm. Blueberries,” he teased, patting his hip and stepping back. “Take it easy, chief. You keel over, I’m leaving you to your hubris.”

“Comforting,” Steve agreed, sounding breathless, wincing on his feet. “Feels like I got hit by a truck,” he admitted.

“Well,” Tony said, putting a steadying hand on his hip as he took a step forward, “easy, I wasn’t kidding about the floor thing. I’ll call Clint, and we’ll both laugh at your bird bones.”

“You know,” Steve said breezily, “some people say we poke fun at our own insecurities in other people.”

“I’m extremely insecure about how devilishly handsome you are,” Tony deadpanned, smirking when Steve’s cheeks went pink. “It’s unfair. Also, we’re watching Planet Earth II, you interrupted me.”

“Planet Earth II?” Steve said, moving with more ease. “Don’t we need to watch Planet Earth I first?”

“You’re a fast learner,” Tony said dismissively, waving a hand as he flopped back onto the warm spot on the bed, patting the space and snickering as Laika hopped up and flopped across his chest. “I never thought I’d say this, but I’m proud to be a dog bed. I exist to ensure this dog never has to sleep on a hardwood floor.”

“Kind of her thing,” Steve agreed, tidying up. “I tried to hand her off, y’know.”

Tony covered Laika’s ears with both hands. “Don’t say that in front of our dog-daughter.”

“Dog-daughter?” Steve set a glass on top of the dresser.

Tony rubbed Laika’s shoulders and insisted, “At least it’s not our hamster-son.”

Steve rolled his eyes, stripped Bruce’s bed, and with efficient movements re-made it. Tony said dryly, “This is a hotel, Steve. They have maids.”

Steve said in a moderate drawl, “It’s not that hard to make a bed.”

Tony eyed him, the finest tremor to his movements, then sat up. Laika hopped down. With an air of nonchalance, Tony asked, “How’re you?”

Steve sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at him, wearing long pants but shirtless. “How’re you?” he parried, brow furrowed in concern. “Barton said you took quite the hit.” He rubbed the back of his head demonstratively.

Tony shrugged. “I’ll let you know when the two PM migraine kicks in,” he said blithely, Steve’s expression softening in sympathy. “It’s . . . not awesome,” he admitted, stacking pillows behind himself and reclining on his fluffy throne. “I can’t—remember. What happened.” He frowned. “That’s the weirdest part. I can _feel_ the—falling—but it doesn’t seem real.” Folding his arms across his chest, over the arc reactor, he added tamely, “I’ve heard repression is part of the whole PTSD package, so I’m _kinda_ hopin’ I forget it completely. I wouldn’t mind one less nightmare.”

Steve frowned thoughtfully. “PTSD?”

Striving for the most normal tone he possessed, Tony said, not quite dismissively, “Yeah. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? Didn’t have that?” Steve arched his eyebrows. “Turns out it kind of fucks you up when fucked up stuff happens to or around you,” Tony said with a shrug, sinking into his pillow throne. “Doesn’t have to be a falling elevator. Sometimes the falling elevator,” he tapped his arc reactor meaningfully, “was inside us all along.” 

Steve frowned. With another shrug, Tony added, “Those are both extreme examples. It can be caused by the loss of a loved one, witnessing a bad car accident, that kind of thing. Basically, any time something you’re not equipped to handle happens and your mind pulls the emergency brakes instead of the regular one and doesn’t know how to put it all back together right, that’s PTSD. There’s more to it,” he said, advising, “Google knows all.”

“But—it’ll heal?” Steve asked, looking at him with sorrow, concern.

Tony couldn’t quite pull off a devil-may-care smirk. “Honestly? I don’t know. I don’t know if we can ever . . . _unsee_ things. We can move forward. Find healthier coping mechanisms. More blueberries, less bottles,” Tony added, nodding at the bags. “It’s not always about getting rid of your response, you know, the thing that makes it bearable—it’s about managing it. You can’t undo it. So . . . I don’t know. I don’t know if it heals. I just know that sometimes I want blueberries and they kind of fix things. Not all the way. But they help me—focus. That make sense?”

Steve nodded. “Yeah.”

“I’m not an expert,” Tony said, holding up his hands, “I just know that it’s a bitch sometimes and other times it’s just—this.” He flattened a hand over the arc reactor. “Part of me. Not all of me.”

Steve cocked his head at him. Tony made grabby hands. Slinking onto the bed, sliding his arms around Tony’s back, pillowing his cheek on Tony’s belly, he said, “I wish I could undo everything that’s ever hurt you.”

Tony settled a hand in his hair, scratching the nape of his neck. “Me too, bud. And for the record—I feel the same way about you.”

Steve huffed before coughing, sitting up so he could cough into his elbow. Deep, barking coughs that went on and on and on. Tony frowned at him. Steve shook his head, assuring when he could in a dry voice, “S’fine. Just kinda dusty, y’know?”

Trailing a hand down his back, Tony hummed. “Steam might help. You know, from a shower.” 

Steve rubbed his left leg idly. “Maybe later.”

Tony followed his gaze, then said, “I have an idea.”

He started to get up, but Steve shuffled back onto the bed and murmured, “Later.” Tony laid down across from him, one hand settling on his bare hip. “Later,” Steve repeated, more to himself than Tony, smushing his face against a pillow. “My two PM migraine’s here.”

Tony checked the time: 3:44 AM. No wonder it was dark behind the curtains. “Think your compass is off,” Tony mused, reaching up to brush his hair back from his forehead. “Unless you’re using a different metric system.”

Steve hummed, eyes closed. Then he said, “You can—you can go. I’ll be okay.” With a sigh, he added, “I’ve got Laika. You don’t have to stay.”

Tony shuffled closer, tugging the covers back up over them. “It’s cute that you think I have more fun and exciting things to do at three in the morning in Anchorage, Alaska than sleep with my boyfriend.”

A smile twitched at the corners of Steve’s lips. He murmured, “When you put it that way,” before draping an arm around Tony’s hip, drawing him closer, asleep in seconds, brow still furrowed. Leaning up to kiss Steve’s forehead, Tony snuggled down and buried himself in Steve’s embrace, grateful he’d lived to enjoy it.

 _Go somewhere warm_ , he mused, letting his mind wander. He listened to Steve’s sleep-deep breathing, not quite snores but as sure a sign of respiratory distress as any Captain America was capable of. Sympathy welled in his chest. 

_Nice and warm, big guy_ , he thought, letting sleep tug him back down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Russian translations in chronological order:  
>  _Khoroshaya sobaka._ \- Good dog.  
>  _Ostat'sya._ \- Stay.  
>  _Da._ \- Yes.


	27. NICKEL-AND-DIMED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whooowie!! We made it through Norilsk. I cannot wait to give you a reward for your tenaciousness. I hope you enjoy this installment. :) Thanks as always for being wonderful!

_Obadiah Stane held the glowing blue heart in front of Tony and illuminated,_ _“You know, it’s worth almost $125,000 dollars in scrap metal alone.”_

_Without concern for reassembly, Obadiah dismantled the arc reactor crudely. Paralyzed on the floor, Tony could only watch in wide-eyed anguish as he dropped each constituent onto a scale, a thousand dollars here, eighty thousand dollars there. It added up quickly. “It won’t make me rich, but it’d be a shame if it died with you,” Obadiah said, smiling at him. “It’s good metal, after all.”_

_Tony tried to form the words—_ you’re dead, you’re not real, you can’t touch me— _but he couldn’t_ move _, couldn’t bare his teeth or fight back in any way. Obadiah smiled that shark-toothed dark-eyed smile and said, “And then there’s this. . . .” He held up the little square of palladium, shining even in the darkness, before crouching in front of Tony and demanding with nightmarish earnestness, “How much do you think this is worth, Tony?”_

 _Tony thought,_ It’s one chip _. He thought,_ I have more _._ _He thought,_ I can get more.

 _Obadiah stepped back and dropped the palladium chip onto the pile. The scale went blank. “Hmm,” Obadiah mused, unaware of Tony’s pounding heart, of the urgency thundering in his veins,_ I need it, I need it, I’ll die _. Obadiah lifted the chip off the pile and the scale tared back to $121,325.94. It seemed like an impossibly huge sum with empty pockets. “How much do you think your life is worth?” Obadiah asked. “A nickel? A dime?” He dumped the contents of the scale on the floor. The number sank to -$121,325.94. He held up the chip tauntingly. “You aren’t worth this much.”_

_He tossed the palladium on the scale. It errored out at $999,999,999,999. A trillion dollars. He stared at Obadiah, a choking sensation in his throat, heart throbbing as the shrapnel sank towards it. Obadiah said, “I’ll make you a bargain, Stark. One palladium chip,” he plucked it off the scale. It tared to -$0.10. “For a dime. Just a dime. Surely you have one of those.” He stepped closer, leering inside arm’s reach. Tony stared at his shark eyes, unable to move. His breath came quickly, but there was no air in his lungs. Only shrapnel in his veins._

_“Even for someone like you, your life is worth a damn,” Obadiah said caustically. “Unless you’re that selfish. Can’t spare a dime for an old family friend? I nearly raised you, Tony. I was there when you graduated college. I was there when you never told your father that you got so drunk you almost died. I was there every time you needed a father and your human robot wasn’t enough. Because you had to pay him to love you.” His voice darkened as he said, slowly and seriously, “I want my due, Stark.”_

_Tony_ _stared at cold shark eyes, entreating not the monster but the man who’d been at his college graduation, who’d dragged him out of a literal ditch, who’d always been there when he’d needed someone: “Please.”_

 _Obadiah sighed, sliding a knife out of his suit lapel. Tony stared at it, the shine of metal duller than the palladium, the palladium chip that he dropped tantalizingly near Tony’s frozen, outstretched fingers. Tony stared at it, because there was his dime, there was what he could give,_ take it, take it all _, he didn’t care, he didn’t_ need _it, but Obadiah said, “Don’t worry. I won’t kill you. I just want my due.”_

 _And then he plunged the knife into Tony’s chest_.

. o . 

Trembling on the edge of the bed, Tony became aware of his own gasping breaths and the arc reactor clutched beneath his cold fingers. 

He thought irrationally, _Obie’s on his way_. He gripped the reactor even more tightly, determined not to lose it again. He wasn’t weak. Obie had caught him off-guard; that was why he had succeeded. Tony would not to be that vulnerable a second time.

Something warm and soft settled on his knee.

Looking down at the furry black-and-white head resting there, he settled one cold hand on it, cold clear eyes looking up at him benignly. He breathed through his mouth if only to grant the illusion that there was enough air in the room, trying to regain his bearings. He looked up, looked around the room.

He wasn’t in his old lab. He was in a hotel room, a hotel room in _Alaska_ , because as every self-preservation instinct had predicted prior to setting foot in the unforgiving North, Norilsk hadn’t taken a bite out of them, it had tried to kill them. With brutal efficiency, it nearly succeeded. And all for. . . .

 _A pound of palladium_.

Breathing as calmly as he could, Tony slid onto the floor, back to the bed. Without so much as a breath of command, Laika settled down next to him, resting her head on his leg unpresumptuously. He patted it anyway: _Good dog. Good, good dog_. 

It felt almost nonsensical as he sat there in his pajamas patting her head, but she twitched an ear and closed her eyes. He brushed his fingers over soft white fur like Steve had, smoothing it back with a thumb, over and over. The rhythmic quality was soothing, like rubbing a sore limb or taking a few deep breaths. He noticed a hint of graininess to her coat: she needed a bath—she was dusty, like Steve.

Tony gave a single full-body jolt because oh God where was—and then he heard a slow, rattling breath behind him followed by a soft exhale. Tony breathed again.

“Good girl,” he told Laika, settling his hand on her shoulder and patting it. “Very good girl. Nobody gets past you, huh?” he told her, more instructive than inquisitive. “Nobody.” After a short pause, he clarified, “You can let some people in. You can sense goodness, right? That’s what dogs do. You can let the good people in. That’s fine.”

He pet down Laika’s back, listening to her nearly silent breaths and Steve’s uncharacteristically loud ones. Each one sounded like an uphill struggle, a deep unsteady inhale followed by an exhausted exhale. Steve sounded sick; he sounded _tired_. Captain America wasn’t supposed to get tired—the mythical serum was supposed to eliminate all need for rest—but Steve Rogers was still human underneath the armor. The serum could only demand so much.

Swallowing, Tony gripped a handful of Laika’s fur near the shoulder and informed her with cosmic certainty, “Obie’s dead.” Again: “Obie’s dead. Obadiah Stane is gone.”

It was sharp, the knowledge that they were dead: Jarvis, his parents, Obadiah, any relative closer than second cousin. He didn’t have a blood family or even the illusion of one. He’d avoided the notion like the plague after his parents’ death. After Obie’s, he’d been doubly convinced that families were more trouble than they were worth.

He’d been on his own for most of his life. He knew he was to blame: he didn’t want to be in commitments that left a sour taste in his mouth. He would rather be friendless than have strangers try to put their name in his will, people who were waiting for him to die so they could love some part of him. 

He didn’t want to be used and thrown out when his usefulness expired. 

If anything, he’d turned that approach on its head: he’d taken advantage of people, using them when he needed them, casting them aside when he didn’t.

To outsiders, he’d gotten good at explaining why he _preferred_ to be alone, why his solitude was self-sustaining. He liked having his own space. He liked having his own neuroses and no one to judge him for them. He was a difficult person to understand and it was easier to not have to explain it. He had dark sense of humor. 

He also had a dry and not quite transparent wit, a rare but irrepressible laugh. He had a half dozen fake smiles—a smirk here, a shark-toothed grin there, a desultory close-mouthed smile everywhere. He was a touch obsessive about making sure things went according to plan. He was careful with who he revealed his hand to and he kept his private life private. He had a business-card personality people loved— _genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist—_ and it never needed to be elaborated on.

To the world, Tony Stark was a self-sufficient man, a genius who was half-machine, who had saved himself, who had created Iron Man, whose story was one of triumph and individualism.

It wasn’t true, not in the fine print, but it kept them off his doorstep.

He was fine with being larger-than-life because it made him untouchable. He could talk circles around people. He’d always been famously intractable: he’d told the Secretary of Defense to go fuck himself on more than one occasion and ignored important invitations for the sake of getting wasted on his own time. He was allergic to being handed things and having his hand held. He needed to figure it out on his own. If that meant reinventing the wheel, so be it. At least he could do it on the fly in a cave in Afghanistan.

But being lonely was its own vice.

Until he’d stared at Obie’s obituary, he hadn’t appreciated how _ubiquitous_ Obie’s presence was in his life, how he’d given him the company in everything but name for years because Obie had always been his father’s righthand, Obie had always been trustworthy and looking after their best interests. Obie had _ingratiated_ himself so completely that even the genius Howard Stark couldn’t see what kind of monster he was, couldn’t understand that he’d been waiting for the moment to strike.

Tony drank to his father’s death. He didn’t drink to Obie’s. Mostly, he was afraid to celebrate death with alcohol, because he might never stop again.

His mother was different. He’d always been respectful towards her and her death. He brought her her favorite flowers when he could bear to, blue larkspurs, so simple but so _vibrant_ , eye-catching, classically beautiful. When he was lonely, he would sit at her grave and talk to her.

He never talked to his father’s grave. 

It was always right there, side-by-side with his mother’s, but he never spoke to it, tried not to even look at it. He could remember sour days in the rain staring at his father’s headstone and waiting to feel something, vindicated or forgiven or—( _loved_ ). Tony’s silence was his own challenge, his own ultimatum. After all this time, he was still waiting for his father to break the silence first, as if Howard could love him after all these years of unflinching silence. But the words never came. And so, Tony drank to his father’s death while leaning against his mother’s grave, toasting the man who had made him the neurotic train wreck that he was, too smart for his own good and never satisfied, never ever satisfied. 

Like Tony, Howard was to blame for his lot in life. Tony was his only child, poised to inherit the Stark throne. From an early age, he hadn’t been what his father wanted. He was too forthright, too headstrong. He’d never asked his mother why they only had child, but he had his suspicions. Maybe Howard didn’t want to take the chance that he’d get a second son like the first, a fuck-up _like him_ , genetically primed for catastrophe and driven there by irrepressible genius. _First- and last-born_ , Tony mused.

He knew there were days when his father had been a breath away from disowning him. But if he’d disowned his first and only, then Howard Stark would have died childless. That, _that_ would have been unacceptable to him. He’d always kept his anger in check because of it.

Still, Tony had never missed the tension in the air. There were times when his father came within an inch of lifting a hand to wipe the fiercely defiant look off Tony’s face. It would have been too risky, too _messy_ , to lash out physically, visual proof of a kind of shocking wrongness that even Howard’s cynical peers would have looked down on. His father’s fury was intense, but it was tempered by a cold, calculating understanding that there were things you couldn’t walk back from. 

At times Howard was curt, at others civil, but mostly, he’d been cold and stuck in his own head, unaware that his son had ever wanted to be loved by him. 

The idea had been so simple, so _unfathomable_. For a brilliant man, it was his one breathtaking blind spot. Tony wasn’t sure if he had cried the day they died. He didn’t think so.

His face was dry now.

Releasing Laika’s fur, he brushed her back one last time before, not quite pathetically but with an aching sort of longing in his chest, he snuck back into bed. He laid on his back, staring at the ceiling and listening to Steve breathe. Steve was folded on his side, facing away from him. Tony knew it wasn’t personal and closed his own eyes, at ease.

He knew it wasn’t pathetic to _want_ human contact, to crave physical touch, to hate being so aloof no one wanted to talk to him, let alone _listen_ to him, but old habits died hard. 

He’d been on his own for a long time. He’d even believed, at one particularly dire point in his life, that he’d found a self-sustaining model, the occasional lay, the occasional gratuitous party, enough to burn off some steam and help him get through another long month of self-destruction, with Pepper and Rhodey pulling him back from whatever edge he’d stumbled off to before he could tip over it. He’d even gotten his drinking under control, no longer his vice of choice but a thing he enjoyed from time to time.

It was therefore only a little pathetic that he’d leaned into Steve early on, ostensibly to see if he’d get up and walk away, to push him away. Instead of rejecting him or demanding more, Steve had welcomed him to take what he needed. 

No: _share_ what they both needed. Steve wasn’t anywhere as cold or emotionless as he’d worked hard to be in front of S.H.I.E.L.D. He was deeply loving. It hurt Tony’s heart to think _love is a verb_ because that, _that_ was how Steve measured love. Not in empty promises. In the real, the tangible, the immediate. It didn’t have to be touch, but it had to be _shown_. It had to be offered and without even thinking, seeking his own comfort, Tony had offered it.

 _I don’t wanna be lonely anymore_.

That was the reason he had pestered Cap long after the dust had settled on the streets of New York City. Long after Tony had a reason to wonder what he was up to. He couldn’t stop himself from making the journey to S.H.I.E.L.D. to find Cap at that conference table, uniformed and never quite warm but never cruel, either. He was patient, invitational. Present, even when Tony was trying to get a rise out of him.

Once, Tony had talked at length to him about an unsolved mathematical theorem known as the Hodge conjecture. Cap had watched him not with the faintest understanding, but a quiet kind of intensity. Cap had offered no interjections and made no suggestions. He had only granted an attentiveness that had made Tony want to explain it all, _everything_ trapped in his head. The last twenty years. All the rampant energy that fizzled inside him. Everything that made him want to stay up for days just so he could try to solve another problem.

At no point had Cap interrupted to say, _S_ _tark, you’re wasting your time_. He’d waited until Tony had stopped at the end of his thirty-eight-minute spiel before articulating calmly, “Sounds like you’re making a lot of progress.”

The honest assessment was oddly validating, a perspective Tony hadn’t expected to hear. Tony had wanted to make him understand, if only so he could appreciate just how much the Hodge conjecture had ruled his life (mathematical problems were so much easier to wrestle with than nightmares), but Cap had already understood everything that Tony had wanted to tell him. Cap hadn’t tried to keep up with Tony’s runaway intellect, his lonely chaotic existence. He had just said, “I hear you” and meant it.

After that, Tony had been afraid of just how tempted he was to _talk_ to Cap, to Steve Rogers. As a consequence, he had reverted to safer conversational topics of the dry remark variety, jibes and verbal thrusts, anything to get Rogers to tell him to leave, to _go home_ , but Cap never did. 

Cap parried and sidestepped and allowed Tony to throw as much frustration as he wanted at him, but he never came back at him. Sure, every so often Rogers would snap back when even his endless patience ran out, but he never once told Tony to go to hell or get lost. Cap would glare at him or ignore him, but he never lashed out; he never revealed his true colors because they were already in plain view.

Looking at the back of Steve’s head illuminated in the dull white-blue reactor light, Tony thought, _They don’t deserve you_.

They never had. S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t keep people; it _used_ people. It got the most out of its agents and when it lost them, it replaced them. It never claimed to be a family; it was an _army_.

It made sense that Steve had gravitated towards them. He hadn’t wanted a family. He’d made that clear to Tony in a moment of uncharacteristic, almost accidental candidness: he didn’t want to replace what he’d lost. He had only wanted something to help him forget he’d ever had something.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had become Cap’s vice.

Shuffling up to Steve’s back, Tony wrapped an arm around his chest. His physicality was comforting, even though he was still a lot colder than Tony expected. It was likely the overtaxed serum focusing on the important fires before putting out minor blazes. Cold extremities weren’t fatal, but a cold core temperature was. The serum focused on where it was needed, damn the torpedoes.

As Steve shivered, Tony pressed his legs up behind his, slotting his knees behind Steve’s, trying to offer as much warmth as he could. Endothermy could work magic. Because heat always moved from warm objects to cool objects, the mere act of offering his own body heat was helpful. To melt ice, one didn’t take away the cold; one introduced _heat_. That was science.

 _Science_ was cuddling for warmth.

Pressing a smile against the back of Steve’s bare shoulder, Tony felt the tremors ease. Even though Steve’s breathing was still ragged and his skin was still cooler than usual, it felt like a victory.

He’d take any victory he could get.

. o .

“I remember Jarvis—the real man, not my regrettable-decisions-in-robot-form—he liked to garden. He was very proper, a real Englishman, be out there in a suit-and-tie, kneeling in the dirt. Picking out weeds, watering the chrysanthemums. I always thought—what’s the point? They weren’t edible. It was just an extra chore for himself. But my parents found it charming enough. Mom, especially, thought it was nice having a garden.” 

Leaning against the side of the tub, Tony monologued, “I guess that _is_ the point: it’s a pointless chore. There are a hundred billion flowers on this planet, but Jarvis wanted to take care of a few dozen for the hell of it. They were actually beautiful. I felt bad when his leg gave out on him—probably from all that gardening, now that I think about it. But he still had the garden, so I helped him with it. Towards the end, you know, everything was a joint venture. Making breakfast, keeping the place tidy, that kind of thing. It was like being a kid, kind of an overdue childhood. That make sense?”

Steve affirmed, “Mm-hm.” Lounging in the hotel-sized bath, he kept his eyes closed and his arms folded across his chest. The cramped quarters arrangement was almost funny for a six-foot-two super-soldier, but Steve made it work well. He kept his feet and calves up against the wall, chin down on his chest, a cowpoke with some time on his hands. 

His adeptness at navigating small spaces scarcely surprised Tony. Most things had been smaller in the ‘40s. Steve had been Captain America long enough that Tony suspected that Steve had had to figure it out. Frankly, Steve pulled off decadent bathtub leisure surprisingly well. Hand him a piece of hay and a straw hat and he’d be indistinguishable from a cowboy. 

To Tony’s silence, Steve drawled, “We had victory gardens, y’know. Gardening’s a good chore. Not like shoeing horses.”

Tony asked, “How do you shoe a horse?”

And Steve drawled, “Carefully.”

Slouching deeper against the side of the tub, Tony said, “You’re real cute. You think you’re funny just because you learned a few Dad jokes.”

“Dad jokes?” Steve repeated. “I don’t see what my Pa has to do with a horse.”

Shaking his head, Tony said, “You don’t even know what a Dad joke is. I have to _explain_ what a—no, you know what? I’m making Clint explain it.” Sighing, he folded his arms across his chest and added, “You reinvented Dad jokes. You are the Australia of convergent linguistic evolution.” Steve hummed skeptically and Tony went on, “It’d be almost impressive if it wasn’t confirmation that Dad jokes can and _will_ evolve anywhere under the right conditions. Bet they have Dad jokes in other universes. Bet you just proved it, Dad jokes are a universal constant. You should win a Nobel Prize.”

“Already got my fill of prizes,” Steve said. Tony glanced over at him and Steve caught his gaze and shrugged, closing his eyes. “Just because I crashed a ship into the ocean doesn’t mean I deserve an _award_ for it, y’know? I never wanted to be a—an _icon_. I don’t like winning awards. Awards are for. . . .” He trailed off. “I don’t know. I guess they’re for people who _like_ awards. They should get awards. That’s fine. I’m fine with people gettin’ recognition. I just don’t want it. It kinda—kind of, I dunno, sours the thing? You do it for free and someone gives you a penny and it’s not free anymore, you know?”

“I love that you just priced the Nobel Prize at one-cent,” Tony said affectionately.

Steve offered, “How about five cents? Gotta be worth at least a nickel, you can buy a cup of soup and a coffee with a nickel.” A beat. “You could. You know, before the War, everything was cheaper.” Amused, he mused, “I dunno if it was the War or human nature, but—I can’t understand how it all got to be so expensive. It’s like if a loaf of bread suddenly cost you a refrigerator, you know? It doesn’t make sense t’ me. A cup a’ coffee these days runs you, what, five dollars? That’s twenty nickels to a dollar, a hundred nickels for a cup of coffee.” Blowing out a breath, Steve said amusedly, “Guess _progress_ is just a fancy word for _pricey_.”

“Amen,” Tony said, relishing Steve’s huff of amusement. It didn’t last: Steve coughed into his arm, preoccupied for nearly a minute. When the fit subsided, Tony said lightly, “Also, you lied to me.”

Steve said hoarsely, “Yeah? How’d I lie?” Clearing his throat, he added, “Sorry.” 

“I’m very offended by your lack of manners,” Tony deadpanned. Coming back on track, he added, “You said you didn’t like math, Mr. Nickel Man.”

A smile twitched at the corners of Steve’s mouth. “That’s Mr. Hundred Nickel Man to you,” he said, closing his eyes. “Maybe you’re rubbing off on me. You’re a whiz at math.”

“I do have an uncommonly prolific assortment of science fair ribbons,” Tony admitted modestly. When Steve looked at him, blue eyes not quite hazy but not as _sharp_ as he was used to, Tony added, “I like awards. Fuels my raging ego. Who needs cocaine when you can win first place at the science fair four years in a row?”

Humming, Steve asked, “That’s still kickin’ around?”

Tony arched both eyebrows. “Captain America did cocaine?”

Brow furrowing, Steve said rebukingly, “What? No. I meant. . . .” In his patented Dad of America voice, he pointed out, “You know I _grew up_ in the Prohibition era? And yeah, that went bunk, but I figured maybe—I dunno. Maybe it’s a cyclical thing? Isn’t there a whole— _hugs not drugs_ schtick these days?”

Tony did not coo, but he still grinned in such a shamelessly amused manner that Steve justified in a grumble, “ _I_ didn’t invent it.”

Reaching up to pat his arm, Tony said, “We still have cocaine. Times may change, but one thing is certain: we’re all still rat bastards at heart, craving the happy white dust.”

Steve said, “Colorful,” and Tony snickered.

Breezily, Tony added, “You know, I don’t like drugs. Alcohol enhances who you are, drugs alter it.” Steve watched him and Tony elaborated, “You don’t want a party with drugs. Drugs bring out the bad in people.” A beat. “I mean, alcohol brings out the bad in people, too, but. . . .” Chafing a hand against his forearm, he said, not quite defensively, “Fourteen-year-olds drink and they’re fine. Not the worst vice out there.”

There was a long pause. At last, Steve said, “It’s okay, Tony.”

Something loosened in Tony’s chest and he nodded, aching to toss out a casual response, _Yeah, no, I know_ , but the words wouldn’t come. He didn’t want to be flippant, didn’t want to be _insincere_. Steve made honesty seem—not quite _easy_ but _safe_.

After a spell of silence, Tony said quietly, “I swear I’m not a bad person.”

Steve agreed solemnly, “No. Never.” Sitting up, he rested an arm on the side of the tub and looked at Tony, who gazed at the ceiling because, really, plain white ceilings were incredibly artistic and interesting and worth contemplating and totally not an excuse not to look at Steve and his incredibly earnest, dangerously earnest blue eyes. “Some people, you know, they think having a vice means you’re bad,” Steve added. 

“Like having an addiction or a sticking point is something we called on ourselves,” Steve went on. “So, they get down on people who’re already down, kick ’em when they’re already in the dirt. I think that’s wrong. It’s, it’s _human_ to fill a need however you can. Kind of think regrets are—things we say about who we were when we were in a worse place. Not fair to that guy, you know?” He paused, then added somberly, “Everybody gets down sometimes, Tony. Doesn’t mean we’re worth putting down further. I don’t see you as a bad guy. A guy who’s been through a lot, sure. Hell of a lot, y’know?” Softly, he added, “Hey.” Tony realized he was shaking. “Hey, s’okay.” He brushed a gentle hand against Tony’s shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay.”

Blinking rapidly, Tony informed the ceiling, “Concussions, they, um, they.” He drew in another deep breath and explained thinly, “They kind of, um, mess with your head. I swear I’m not crying, I just have dust in my eyes.” He reached up to scrub his face with a hand. Steve squeezed his shoulder gently. “I just have a lot of dust in my eyes and I appreciate you understanding that.”

“Oh, Tony.” 

Sniffing, Tony drew his legs up to his chest, instinctively trying to protect himself as he shook. “I’m fine, everything’s fine, the doctors said—God- _fuck_.” He scrubbed at his face, adding as firmly as he could manage, “Apparently concussions can make you more emotional for a few days and that’s, honestly, I think, that’s wonderful, you know, I _love_ being an emotional wreck.” With an under-the-breath snarl, he pressed his forehead against his knees and said sternly, “I am not going to fucking cry.”

He heard water sloshing as Steve got up. Tony sniffed and trembled. When Steve sat down beside him, a towel draped modestly around his waist, Tony listed against him. Steve said, “C’mere, tough guy,” and Tony let Steve haul him into his lap. Strong arms curled around him, warm and surprisingly soft. 

Tony monkeyed onto him, legs around Steve’s middle, arms wrapped around Steve’s back, uncaring that his own shirt was getting damp as he rested his chin on Steve’s shoulder. He squeezed Steve as hard as he could, trembling with it, trying to ward off emotion with _assurance_. “Oh, sweetheart.” Steve rested his cheek against Tony’s, assuring, “S’okay, you know? I’m here. I don’t mind. You do you, Tony, and I’ll be here.”

Tony didn’t quite claw at his back like a drowning man, but he shifted his grip, just the pads of his fingers against the backs of Steve’s shoulders, searching for a handhold like he had the Iron Man suit and they were a thousand feet off the ground. “I gotcha,” Steve assured him, very close and very warm. Tony exhaled harshly, intertwining his own fingers and hugging Steve that way, chest-to-chest. “’m here.” Softly, Steve added, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone.”

“Just don’t go back and we’ll call it even,” Tony rushed on a breath, speaking too quickly, slow down, calm down.

 _Don’t freak out, shut it down_.

There was an oddly vivid line about him from an article that had stuck with him since he was _fourteen:_

 _Tony Stark is a man aging twice as quickly in everything but appearance_.

Pressing his closed mouth to Steve’s shoulder, he tried to keep a lid on his emotions, on all the words he wanted to say and did not dare. He thought fast, he talked fast, and the faster he talked the more words crowded for existence, demanding admission, vindication. All the stuff he wasn’t supposed to say were on the tip of his tongue. They threatened to emerge in the middle of a scathing denunciation on American politics, in the midst of a lengthy monologue about _anything_. His demons were pernicious and persistent and wanted to get written down forever, so he kept things short and sweet. Couldn’t over-share a witty one-liner. No one wanted to watch him have a—a fucking _meltdown_ on national TV. He had to take a bow before he started staying stuff, _real_ stuff, dangerous stuff like _D_ _o any of you know what it’s like to drown?_

That wasn’t funny, wasn’t even an _attempt_ at humor.

Clinging to Steve, Tony shivered not because he was cold but because he was _scared_. He had wanted to ask that room full of reporters the unreportable questions, _S_ _how of hands, how many of you have been tortured?_ and watch them sit back, off-guard. _None_ _? Guess that’s not a good ice-breaker._ He was good at throwing them off, at doing the least invitational thing possible. He would stuff a cheeseburger into his mouth and sit on the floor at a press conference. 

He could almost hear Obadiah beg insolent, _insouciant_ Tony Stark to act according to the script, to act as if he cared, as if he was _aware_ that he was the dancing monkey. _I was tortured for three months, what do you want me to say? I’d rate it 0 stars? There’s a certain charcoal smell that takes me instantly back to that fucking cave? I think I was supposed to cry but I was too scared?_

Terrible sound bites. Nothing quotable.

Breathe. _Breathe_.

Drawing in a shaking breath, Tony focused on Steve’s physicality, tucking his cheek against a bare shoulder and breathing slowly. _It_ _’s okay now, it’s over now_. Steve ran a hand up and down his back. Tony swallowed, letting out a gasp of an exhale. “S’okay,” Steve hushed. “You’re all right.”

Eventually, the tremors ceased. Tony felt equal parts exhausted and painfully alert. Pleasantly close to his ear, Steve suggested, “Why don’t we get up, sweetheart, get you warm, okay?” Tony thought, _I’m not cold_ , but his shirt was damp and the room was lukewarm. He shivered that was an answer, shuffling out of his hold. 

Reaching up to rub his face with his hands, he said, “I’m sorry.” Lowering his hands, he looked at Steve with sad puppy eyes and repeated, “I’m sorry.” 

In a voice that brooked no argument, Steve replied, “Not something you gotta apologize for, Tony.”

Nodding, Tony got to his feet. As a show of how _not_ train wreck-y he was, he leaned over to the tub of water— _it’s just water, it’s just water_ _—_ and drained the tub. Steve leveraged himself to his feet, keeping most of his weight off his left leg. Without thinking, Tony slipped up under his left arm. Steve sighed affectionately. “Looks worse than it is,” he said good-naturedly, even though his leg was still varying shades of black and blue from knee to ankle. “Actually, looks a lot better than. . . .” He trailed off, not bothering with an unreassuring reassurance.

Tony warned, “I swear to God, Rogers,” but there was more amusement than annoyance.

Steve just said, “It’ll heal,” and it wasn’t dismissive as much as assuring, tone warm, a promise.

“Holding you to that, buddy,” was all Tony said.

. o .

Even limping, Steve took care of things, tidying up, double-layering his clothes while Tony cranked up the thermostat, missing his pain-in-the-ass-mechanical-sidekick, missing _home_.

Quietly, Tony mused, “I never planned to visit Alaska.”

Steve said, “Yeah?” He sat on the bed, adding conversationally, “You know, when I went under—there was no Alaska.” He kept his voice light, the darkness tucked away, unspoken. “I guess that ain’t fair to it. It’s always been there. Just wasn’t one of the Stars yet.” He rubbed his leg slowly and said, “We can . . . we can go home, Tony.” Looking at Tony, dazed, he added, “We can go home.”

Sitting on the bed across from him, Tony said, “Mm-hm. Can. And will.”

Steve nodded, working his jaw like he would say more. After a long moment, he capitulated, “I’ll—I’ll tell ya later. Okay? Tell you what happened, everything, I promise.”

Tony said, not without gratitude, “I can live in blissful ignorance for a few more hours.”

Steve’s eyes went dark, not with anger but sadness. He closed them, then admitted carefully, “When I was down there—all I could think about was you. You and Natasha.” Looking at Tony with soft blue eyes, he nodded at the dividing door. “I thought, _They couldn’t have—_ _nobody could’ve_.” He paused, swallowed. Then, in a stronger voice, he said, “We don’t have to talk about it. Let’s go get a bite. I’m sure you’re hungry.”

It was an odd way of saying, _I’m hungry_ , but Tony still nodded. “Wanna free-solo it or bring the kids?” he prompted.

Steve smiled, closing his eyes for another long moment. “They’re adults,” he said at last, still sitting on the edge of the bed. “They can handle themselves for a bit.”

“ _That’s_ the spirit.” Launching himself to his feet, Tony snagged Steve’s winter boots from the corner. Unceremoniously, he dropped them on the floor next to Steve before following without prompting, kneeling. Looking up at Steve, he added dryly, “You should know I charge at least three hugs per shoe.”

Steve’s ears went red, but he still said quietly, “Drive a hard bargain.”

Unlacing the right boot, Tony permitted, “Usually there’s a friends and family discount, but times are tough.” His clever fingers made quick work of the laces, though it astonished him how cold they still were, as if they had been frostbitten. With genteel reverence, he picked up Steve’s right foot and slid on the boot with less trouble than he’d anticipated. He laced it up with quick, confident tugs. “Should’ve brought an extra pair of shoes,” he mused.

Steve asked, “Why?”

Tony shrugged, unknotting the left boot. “Wouldn’t be as cold.” But they would: anything exposed to the Arctic air would freeze, worn or not. 

He hesitated to even touch Steve’s left leg, despite the pants covering it, hiding the devastation he knew lurked under the fabric. Steve assured, “It’s okay.”

Tony nodded. With utmost care he lifted Steve’s left foot. Easing the boot over it, he waited in tense silence for Steve to cry out, but he never did. Didn’t even tremble. Tony laced it up slowly, careful not to pull the laces tight, fingertips numb with the contact. “Christ, I can’t believe we went to Siberia,” he muttered, finishing it and setting Steve’s foot down carefully.

Steve said softly, “I’m sorry.”

Tony echoed, “It’s okay.” He was surprised how much he meant it. Standing, he added, “There. Good as new.”

Steve smiled. “You’re sweet, you know that?”

With a nonchalant shrug, Tony said, “A rumor. Don’t believe everything you hear.”

Steve eased to his feet, then captured Tony in his arms, bringing him in close. Content to be held, Tony gripped the two shirts he was wearing, listening to him breathe. Steve kissed his temple, imparting warmth and safety and solidarity, and said with raw sincerity, “I needed you to live, Tony.” A kiss to the cheek. Tony closed his eyes, savoring it. 

“Not a big enough word out there for how honestly _glad_ I am that you’re alive,” Steve rumbled, kissing his cheek again before cupping his head in his hands. Tony’s head was still tender, but Steve was careful. The contact didn’t hurt. Humming in approval, he slid his own hands down to Steve’s waist, holding onto him for balance. Warmth and affection and devastating love bloomed in his chest, because he couldn’t imagine a future where Steve _didn’t_ come home.

He shuddered and tugged Steve closer, needing him to be alive, to be _real_ under his hands. Steve traced his way back to Tony’s lips. Tony let time slide away, hands anchored on Steve’s hips. Steve held him like he was precious, kissed him like he was worth coming home to. Tony didn’t cry, but he hid from the gentle adoration, burying his face against Steve’s shoulder, hiding from the world. Ever adaptive, Steve rocked them on their feet effortlessly, swaying to a rhythm only he could hear.

If they stood there for an entire year, it would have been the best year of Tony’s life.

It was already the best year of his life. It was the year that Steve had walked into it. He was _happy_ , he was honestly happy, because he _got this_. He had someone who loved him and he loved in return.

It was soft and earnest and theirs. He wouldn’t have traded it for all the gold in the world. Not gold, not palladium, not time itself.

Just ten more minutes here and now was worth a thousand lonely years.

Tony didn’t time it. Steve just held him, and it was pure joy to be back in his arms.

. o .

Pleasantly full, Tony tripped over his own feet when he crossed the threshold back to the hotel and saw Pepper Potts standing in the lobby.

Simultaneously touched and astounded to find her there, he blurted out, “Pepper?”

She turned to him, said, “Oh my _God_ ,” and barely waited for him to take three steps past the sliding doors before she hugged him so hard he squeaked.

“Pepper—darling—my ribs.”

She eased off but kept a tight hold on him. He managed humbly, “Is this about me not booking you a room? Because there are—”

She said exasperatedly, “ _Tony_ ,” and he replied:

“Right, shutting up.”

Nearby, he heard a familiar half-fond, half-exasperated voice say, “It’s 1:30 in the morning. I hate time zones. We’ve been on a plane for twelve hours.” Tony heard him clasp hands with Steve, adding, “Can’t lie, though: it’s damn good to see you, Steve.”

“You too, Jim.”

Tony managed to pry Pepper off himself so he could remark incredulously, “You’re in Anchorage.”

Letting out the world’s most exasperated sigh, Pepper said, “ _Tony_ ,” and he brushed his hands down her arms once soothingly.

“Am I in trouble? Because I would like to request a five-day advance notice if I’m about to get a dressing-down—”

Rhodey snagged his shirt, barked “ _Get_ ,” and tugged him close for a hug. Shivering, Rhodey added rebukingly, “You’re cold.”

“It’s Anchorage,” Tony told his shirt. “Who told you?”

“Romanoff.” Sighing, Rhodey released him and added, “Goddammit, Tony.”

Tony pouted. “Listen,” he began. “I was not informed my emergency contacts had been informed of any completely improbable rumors regarding my health.”

“Wasn’t them. I called. Got anxious,” Rhodey grunted. “You said a week.”

“I said nine days at the most,” Tony pointed out. He shrank under Rhodey’s flat glare. “Okay, I said a week.”

“What do you mean by _improbable rumors_?” Pepper added dangerously.

Stealthily, Tony slipped behind Steve. “I am clearly in astonishingly good health now, so why don’t we call it water under the bridge—”

Steve sighed. Pepper nearly growled, “ ** _Tony_** ,” and Tony caved meekly:

“Mild concussion.”

Rhodey said, “Tony, what the goddamn—?” before Pepper interjected: 

“ _Mild?_ ”

Reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose, Tony implored, “It’s fine. Really. You don’t need to be worried, I just clocked my head.”

“On _what?_ ” Pepper demanded.

Tony didn’t respond. Steve stepped in calmly: “Let’s go somewhere more private.” He looked at Pepper and Rhodey in turn, then asked, “Where’re you roomin’?”

Rhodey said, “212, 213,” and Steve nodded.

Calmly, in his _this is your Captain speaking_ voice, he added, “All right. We’ll talk in 213. Get some rest, Jim. I’ll tell you everything in the morning.”

Clasping Steve’s shoulder and giving it a good shake, Rhodey said, “Deal.” He caught Tony in a firm one-armed hug before bidding Pepper tiredly, “They’re all yours. I’m going to _bed_.”

Tony said quietly, “Night, Rhodey.”

“Night, Tony.” Bag slung over one shoulder, Rhodey marched off to the elevators, key card in hand.

Turning to Pepper, Steve said earnestly, “Let me help,” and Pepper sighed gratefully as he took her bag and slung it over a shoulder. “Sorry I couldn’t pick you up at the airport.”

“It’s fine, honey,” Pepper said, still looking at Tony with sad eyes. “God, you two.”

Tony said, not quite in a small voice, “It’s good to see you?”

Pepper slid an arm around his waist as they followed Steve to the elevators. “I was so worried, Tony.”

Steve clicked the ‘up’ button and Tony leaned against Pepper, basking in her warmth even though she was shivering. He had almost forgotten that ten below zero was an astonishingly cold temperature in most parts of the world. It felt mild in Anchorage. Brisk, but not bone-gnawing.

“As you can see,” Tony began calmly, stepping into the elevator after Steve, slipping out of Pepper’s hold, “everything is fine.” Surreptitiously, he grabbed the corner of Steve’s outermost shirt and held it as the doors slid shut. The ride was so smooth it was almost impossible to compare to the rickety, dark, ancient track deep in the Earth.

Still, he exhaled deeply the second solid ground was beneath his feet again. He didn’t bother letting go of Steve’s shirt as he followed him down the hall. Pepper didn’t comment, which Tony appreciated. He only let go once Pepper unlocked the door to her room.

Steve set her bag down on the floor. Pepper exhaled and pulled Tony in for another, gentler hug that he didn’t resist. Steve offered, “I can let you two—” but Pepper headed him off at the pass with a firm: 

“Sit.”

Not quite meekly but without a hint of disobedience, Steve sat down on the couch. Releasing Tony, Pepper looked at Tony and said, “If you lie to me, I will know.”

Nodding, not questioning her intuition, Tony joined Steve on the little couch. And then, deciding it was silly not to take advantage of a good opportunity, he toed off his own boots, slid around until his legs were hooked over the arm of the couch, and rested head and shoulders against Steve’s thigh. “So,” Tony began nonchalantly, “does the defense or prosecution go first?” Steve let him grab his right arm and hug it, closing his eyes and adding, “Really, Pepper, everything is fine.” He paused, then amended, “it’s gonna be okay. Honestly, I think we deserve an award for surviving Norilsk, I was thinking about—”

Steve said softly, “Shh.” It wasn’t a rebuke so much as a command. Tony shut up obediently.

Pepper sat on the edge of the bed—Tony could hear it and the soft sigh that followed—and then Steve said in a soft tone that carried surprisingly well, “I’ll tell you everything I know.” There was a pause. Tony almost saw Pepper nod. He realized all at once that it was as much for his benefit as for Pepper’s. Sobered, he gripped Steve’s arm more firmly. Steve let him, speaking plainly. “There was an accident in the mines. Tony,” he squeezed Tony, including him rather than speaking over him, “got hurt. Natasha, too. Bruce flew them stateside, got things taken care of. Natasha broke a couple of ribs. She’s doing better.” With only a touch of reluctance, he added, “Tony got a grade-3 concussion. I’m told that’s fairly serious.”

Pepper agreed, her voice low and matching Steve’s: “It is.”

Tony felt only a detached impulse to argue, but he found it was easier to lie there and listen to Steve as Steve went on soothingly: “The worst is behind us. Grade-3 is scary, but it’s not. . . .” A pause. “We were lucky, you know. Nobody died.” Another long pause. “I, um. I don’t usually tell—civilians, about this stuff,” he preluded. “Usually it’s the mission. There’s a certain understanding about who’s in the know. Not supposed to compromise S.H.I.E.L.D.” With surprising firmness, Steve said, “I don’t need you to forgive me. I just want you to know the truth. And the truth is. . . .

“I made a very bad call.”

Tony squeezed his arm, chest aching. Steve brushed his thumb against Tony’s shoulder and said in the same clear tone, “S.H.I.E.L.D. has two ground agents stationed in Norilsk. They work for a big mining company, Norilsk Nickel. Nornickel supplies S.H.I.E.L.D. with precious metals, namely platinum and palladium.” A pause. “Nine weeks ago, one of our agents sent out three yellow alerts. Works like a traffic light: green means all clear, yellow means touch base, red means immediate extraction. Reds are only used if the mission is unsalvageable. Yellow is the go-to _send help_.

“S.H.I.E.L.D. was planning to touch base prior to the alerts,” Steve continued, pausing to draw in a shallow breath. “It was supposed to be a diplomatic visit, a chance to check things out in person, make sure they were running smoothly, reassure the Russians we hadn’t forgotten about them. But the agent sent out three yellow alerts in two days. That kind of thing couldn’t be accidental.” Steve cleared his throat. His voice still sounded ragged as he added, “The check-in codes change every so many hours, makes an account hard to hack.” With an edge of desperation, he added, “Three yellows—that’s _get help_. Can’t ignore that. Can’t assume that it had been resolved. Needed to check it out.”

Steve fell silent for so long Tony didn’t think he would resume. At last, Steve said, “So, we did. And it was supposed to be Natasha and me. Boots on the ground, figure out what happened. Correct it, if necessary.” There was so much in those two words— _correct it—_ that Steve never said. Tony felt cold as he imagined it, aware that his own breathing was as shallow as Steve’s as Steve continued, “It was just gonna be us. I should’ve—I should’ve pushed a lot harder against the, the idea of.” He paused, then said simply, “Doesn’t matter. I let them come. I figured, worse comes to worst, Natasha and me could take care of it. Barton could keep an eye on Tony on the ground. Banner was up in the Arctic in case . . . in case something really bad happened.”

Tony squeezed his arm again. Steve didn’t acknowledge it as he said numbly, “If—‘f I’d seen the danger, if I’d _known_ what was coming, I wouldn’t have let them on—or off—that plane. It’s not worth saving two people if two people die in the process.” He swallowed. “Maybe it is, I dunno, but that’s not—not how we do it. Nothing bad was supposed to happen.” He was pleading with her. Tony couldn’t see Pepper’s expression but he could imagine the quiet anguish, mirrored by Steve’s voice as he admitted, “We went into the mines to see, you know, and I—I don’t, I don’t know why I let them come. It should’ve been me, only me. No reason to bring Natasha and Tony into it. But I did. I let them come and things went sideways.”

There was a weighted pause. Pepper’s voice was measured as she asked, “What happened?”

Hoarsely, Steve explained, “The elevator, it, uh—somebody cut the cables. They brought down the tunnel, too, whole thing kinda came down. Tony and Natasha were in the elevator. I was in the mine.” Steve rasped, “I couldn’t get to them. Tony was wearin’ the suit, small miracles.” He brushed his thumb against Tony’s chest, lost in his own words. “Could’ve been a lot worse. They got roughed up, so Banner flew ’em out.

“I stayed. Barton did, too. We had to sort things out, figure out what happened, who was responsible, that sort of thing. I had to—finish the mission.” He spoke the words like his last, _F_ _inish the mission_. Tony squeezed his arm again. Steve stroked his shoulder with his thumb absentmindedly. “So we did. We found the ones responsible, brought ’em in. I met up with one of the two agents who’d been held hostage. Released her soon as they thought I was dead. They didn’t care if anybody else got hurt. They only wanted to hurt me.”

Tony could feel the anguish in Steve’s voice as he repeated, “They only wanted me. If I’d’ve been alone—but I wasn’t. A lot of people got hurt because of it. I asked the agent what happened to her collaborator. And she said. . . .” He paused and rerouted simply, “Turns out, the other agent was fine. Not in Norilsk at all: she was in Berlin. Hadn’t sent the yellow alerts. Hadn’t even known they existed. She’d been on leave. Someone had hacked her account and issued the alerts. Tricky business. They—they had to, to erase their tracks, couldn’t leave ’em there. She never even knew she’d been compromised. But we thought we knew. And we . . . we went.”

He paused. Tony didn’t realize how tense he was until Steve shifted like he couldn’t sit still. Tony exhaled expansively.

“ _I_ went,” Steve amended. “I bit. I took the bait. And. . . .” He didn’t finish the statement, instead saying quietly, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s my fault. I let them come, let them get in a place where they could get _hurt_. Then I, I didn’t—I stayed, I stayed when I should’ve come home, I—” He exhaled. “It’s not okay, but everyone is. . . .” He curled his fingers in Tony’s shirt. “Everyone’s alive. Counts for something.” 

Steve stifled a harsh cough against his arm. It carried on for a while. Tony winced, squeezing his other arm gently. Steve finally gasped in the same not-reassuring-at-all tone: “’m okay, just—got some dust, lost my mask down in the mines.”

 _Fuck_.

Tony had had his suspicions, but hearing it aloud, that Steve had been wandering down in the mines without a mask stopped him in his proverbial tracks. Nickel dust wasn’t merely dangerous; it was _breathtakingly_ toxic. Palladium’s toxicity as an airborne particle was unknown and copper could be sinister, but _nickel_ , that was the real monster. It was also the metal that gave Nornickel its name. As far as heavy metal poisoning was concerned, nickel was fairly nefarious: it struck in stages, initial mild symptoms succeeded by more life-threatening developments. If untreated, it could be lethal in days.

Steve was lucky to be alive.

The knot in Tony’s throat wouldn’t go down because _fuck_ , Steve was lucky to be alive.

Steve murmured, “Thank you,” and accepted a glass of water from Pepper. He sipped it and insisted, “Sorry isn’t a big enough word. For everything I’ve done to. . . . For the hurt I’ve caused you and Jim and. . . .” He squeezed Tony’s shoulder, finished off the drink. “For everyone. For him.” Quietly, he set down the glass and added, “’m done. Done with S.H.I.E.L.D., with missions, with putting people in danger, all of it, just so I can—so I can make bad calls.”

Moving slowly so he wouldn’t make himself dizzy, Tony sat up. He could feel the physical weight of Steve’s apology as Steve repeated helplessly, “I’m so sorry. I got a lot of people hurt.” His face was ashen; Tony felt like he couldn’t breathe just _looking_ at Steve. Steve met his incredulous gaze, frowned, and asked, “Tony?” Brow furrowed, he insisted, “What’s wrong?”

Tony tried to make an intelligible noise, but it came out as a wordless rasp. He cleared his throat and managed in a faint voice, “Holy fuck, Steve.”

Steve looked away like he couldn’t bear to see the—the what, _anger?_ Tony wasn’t sure what he expected, hung up on the fact that Steve had been dying of nickel poisoning. He should’ve dropped dead hours ago, but he hadn’t. If anything, he was on the up-swing, super-soldier serum working its magic. He shouldn’t be alive, but he _was_.

Steve held out an arm to Tony. Tony slid under it resting his cheek against Steve’s chest, warm and solid and _alive_.

Exhaling harshly, Tony repeated, “You lost your _mask_.” It made sense, but the consequences didn’t. Steve shouldn’t be sick. He should be _dead_. Laika, too—but Laika was all right.

Laika was all right.

Some of the pounding fear in Tony’s chest diminished. Laika would have succumbed to a lethal exposure even sooner than Steve; she didn’t have super-soldier blood. She was the barometer for their poisonous adventure, and she was all right.

That was good, Tony thought. He still clung to Steve’s shirt for a few moments, white-knuckled and shaking finely. He suddenly needed, _needed_ details. He was terrified to ask, _What the hell happened to you?_ because it seemed like a dangerous oversight. 

Logic dictated that Laika hadn’t breathed in a lethal amount of dust, but she also wasn’t in the collapsed tunnel. God only knew how much tunnel dust Steve had breathed in while trapped under tons of rubble, and holy fuck, holy _fuck—_

“Hey,” Steve insisted, wrapping his arms around Tony. “Hey, s’okay. You’re okay. Breathe. Breathe, Tony.”

Tony wanted to laugh—maybe cry. Most of all, he wanted to stop the throbbing pain in his head, his _2 PM migraine_ helpfully striking at the belated hour of 10 PM. Because _fuck_ , Steve had made it home, but he could’ve . . . he could’ve _died_.

“Tony,” Steve said pleadingly. He tried to get up and Tony pinned him down.

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” he ground out, burying his face against Steve’s chest. He hid from the bright light of the room and the searing truth alike. Steve hadn’t walked out of Norilsk unscathed. It was such an obvious truth it felt impossible to overlook, but it was true. _T_ _ired_ wasn’t the half of it.

( _Do_ _n’t_ _listen to him, he’s a liar_.)

Tony wanted to shake Steve and hold onto him until his world stabilized. He opted for the latter because it made him feel less like he would fall apart. He couldn’t imagine how Bruce was still functioning. Bruce had been having a meltdown for the past three days. He had even _known_ how bad it was from the start, had known that even if Steve survived the mines, he still had to _survive the mines_.

It was like drowning, Tony reflected. Sometimes it wasn’t the initial drowning that killed you. It was the second drowning.

He ground out, “You could have _died,_ Steve.”

Steve said quietly, “I didn’t.”

And it was exasperating and true, completely inarguably true. He could have died. He could have died in agony, the second the tunnel collapsed or hours later, drowning in nickel or frozen to death, Tony realized with a shudder, blue-tipped fingers vivid in his mind’s eye. One way or another, Steve shouldn’t be alive. He shouldn’t have made it, but. . . .

Tony exhaled, exhausted, because he _had_.

He’d made it.

They both had.

Resting on his chest, aware of Steve leaning back against the arm of the couch, still cradling him, Tony listened to the quiet rumble of Steve’s voice in his chest as he assured, “S’okay, Tony. S’okay.”

It could only have been minutes but felt like hours later before Tony’s breathing steadied, the head-spinning panic slowly retreating to a low dull monotone. Steve was _alive_. Hell, they’d slept through the first twenty-four hours, when the life-threatening symptoms would have proven hard to ignore. Sure, the cough was horrible, but Tony had assumed it was the cold.

He wished he’d been firing on all cylinders. If Steve _had_ died, he would never have forgiven himself.

But the others hadn’t leaped into motion, either. Maybe it was fatal to trust Steve or to trust the hope, however irrational, that he would always pull through, but he had. His heart beat strongly under Tony’s ear. His breaths came steadily, not quite clear but still reassuringly emphatic. He was alive. He’d survived the mines.

Bone-weary, Tony instructed, “Talk. Later.”

Steve said, “Mm-hm.” Agreeable, pleasant, _normal_. “I’ll—tomorrow?” he offered Pepper, the wince in his voice audible. “I—I’m sorr—”

“Steve.” Tony heard Steve’s jaw click quietly as he shut it. “It’s okay.”

Steve said seriously, “It will be.” The firmness was _good_ , a promise in its own right. It would be okay. It would be because Steve said it would. Steve was many things but not a liar.

Their room wasn’t far, but it felt far. Tony barely waited to get inside the door before pushing Steve against the wall. 

Steve froze, but Tony just sighed, holding fistfuls of his shirt and begging, “Please don’t die.”

Steve said softly, “I won’t.”

Nodding, Tony grunted, “All I have done for three days is sleep and I am still so fucking _tired_.”

Tentatively, Steve slid his arms around Tony. Tony curled up under his chin. Steve was silent for a long time, just breathing. It was comforting, quieting. Tony heard clicking claws approach and then felt Laika nose at his knee, her black-and-white head just visible in the darkness. He patted her one-handed. “I’m sorry,” Tony echoed, because he couldn’t bear the anguish trapped in his chest. “I’m fine. I’m sorry.”

Steve said, “Don’t be. I understand.” He did. Somehow, he did. Steve didn’t lie to him. 

Tony nodded and lifted his head, wincing. His throbbing head didn’t appreciate moving away from the solid wall of Steve’s shoulder. 

“It’s okay,” Steve insisted, voice hushed. “Been a—a long coupla days, y’know?” There was a hint of a smile in his voice as he elaborated, “Twice as long. Time zones.”

Tony gave a humorless little huff. “I fucking hate time zones.” He dared to move away, staggering over to the nearest bed and flopping down on it, uncaring if it was his or Bruce’s. He was already most of the way to asleep when Steve joined him, still wearing more t-shirts than strictly necessary. Wrapping warm limbs around Tony, Steve said, “I love you.”

Tony pulled Steve’s arm back over his chest, held onto it, and mumbled, “Love you too.”

Steve’s breathing was softer, clearer than even hours before. He was getting better. It was amazing and impossible and a goddamn _relief_ all at once. Tony held onto the arm draped over his chest, pressed gently over the arc reactor, reveling in his presence, in his _realness_. Steve was real. Steve was _here_.

Face smushed against a pillow, Tony asked, “Think Rhodey’ll cry if we fly back tomorrow?” 

With a warm exhale of breath, Steve replied, “He’d forgive us.”

“I did buy him a nice dinner,” Tony murmured, stroking his thumb across Steve’s bare arm. “Poor Pepper.”

“Go to sleep, Tony,” Steve said, kissing his nape, and God, wasn’t that just the best idea?


	28. ALMOST HOME

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I did write 8 hours of this chapter with a migraine. You're welcome. <3
> 
> May the softness commence. *pops champagne cork*

The cabin positively radiated golden light from the fireplace. 

Warmth snuck into Tony’s woolen socks and sank into the woolen blanket draped across his legs. A cup of decaf coffee steamed on the table next to him. Although it was decaf, the point was moot: the soporific effect of the fire would scarcely have been dampened even with a double-shot of espresso. They had a window open, a screen up to keep any nightly visitors outdoors but their rolling chirruping songs indoors, soft and unthreatening.

It reminded him of waves on the shore, but more . . . earthy. Rhythmic, not oceanic. There was something comforting in the distinction. It felt like the safest place to be, surrounded by nature. He’d never gone camping as a kid—it hadn’t exactly appealed to a ten-year-old genius hellbent on discovering a new element—but he found himself grateful that _this_ was his inaugural camping experience. This was how all camping experiences should be: decadent, quiet, and removed.

He was dozing when Steve finally rejoined him, Laika at his side. Coat shiny from her bath, she loped over, sitting down in front of the couch and looking up at Tony expectantly. Tony looked down at her for a long moment, feigning contemplation. Then, with regal dignity, he tucked his feet underneath himself enough to allow her, still-damp but nearly glowing with her dust-free coat, to hop up next to him. Steve muttered, “And now we have dogs on couches,” but the fondness was plain in his voice. 

Tony watched him amble over to the fireplace, favoring his left leg. He was wearing a different shirt than the one he’d been wearing prior to giving Laika a bath. With ginger movements, Steve crouched down in front of the hearth and set about adding another log to the fire.

It was astonishing to Tony how instantly _homey_ the luxuriously-appointed cabin felt, mere seconds after stepping through the doors, a feeling that was enhanced by its remoteness in the sleepy wintry outreaches of Whistler, British Columbia. The Akasha estate was a gem in the wilderness, an oasis in the soft, whistling mountains. It felt like the warmest place for miles in any direction. In a very real way, it was.

With a quiet sort of wonder, Tony glanced down at Laika, curled up near his feet, her head resting on his calves like it was the perfect place to be. She blinked clear white eyes back at him, her entire disposition quiet but not frightened, as if she had nothing to say. 

That made sense, Tony reflected. She was a dog. He liked her all the more, a thoughtful, patient, listening sort of dog. Leaning forward, Tony brushed the fur between her black and white ears and murmured, “Sweet girl.” Her right ear twitched, but she didn’t lift her head, watching him, like she was keeping an eye on him, too. He told her, “Khoroshaya sobaka,” _good dog_. Good, good dog. Her tail swept a few strokes, pleased, before settling, her entire demeanor at ease.

The wood crackled pleasantly as Steve dropped another log onto the pile carefully. With the same ginger slowness, he eased to his feet. A man on a mission, he took two steps towards the adjacent room. Tony warned dryly, “If you start sweeping the floors, I’m tying you to the bed.”

Steve sighed, assuring softly, “I’m not gonna sweep the floors.” He paused, then smiled self-deprecatingly. “Feels like I should be, you know, checking on everybody.” He wandered over and rubbed Laika’s head affectionately, adding softly, “I don’t want . . . anybody to sleep bad tonight, s’all.”

Tony told him, “You know, just because they eat Froot Loops doesn’t mean they’re kids.”

“No. I know.” Steve settled onto the floor next to him, leaning back against the couch, legs outstretched. “Old habits. Old habits that die hard.” Looking back at Tony, he asked seriously, “How’re you? You want another cup—” He glanced at the still partially full mug of coffee, then added with a smile, “Could top it off, at least.”

Tony sighed fondly, reaching out to spike his hair, carding his fingers through it. “Literally nothing would make me happier,” he murmured, as Steve closed his eyes and leaned into the touch, “than you staying put and doing absolutely nothing.”

Steve exhaled deeply, not a protest, just an acknowledgment. “Not used to sittin’ still for long,” he admitted. “Back home. . . .” He inhaled shallowly, trailing off as Tony continued to brush his fingers through his hair, long, slow strokes, nape up to the top of his head, spiking it. “I can’t help it,” he said at last, voice twangy, tired. “Can’t help it, y’know. Wish I could . . . be there, make sure they get in, get settled okay.”

Tony was silent, aching with sympathy and warmth—so, so warm, from the fire, from Laika at his feet and the heartbreakingly earnest way Steve rested his cheek against the couch, making it easy for Tony to card his fingers through his hair. “You think they’re okay?” Steve asked, quietly enough Tony almost didn’t hear it.

Almost. “Barton probably fell asleep on the plane,” Tony speculated. “Banner, too. Nobody likes a red-eye. Pepper said she’d stay at the Tower until we got back to make sure nothing burned down. Rhodey’ll be there all weekend. You trust Jim.”

“I do. Good man.” Steve’s eyes were closed, his frame exhausted—relaxed, but exhausted. “What about—do you think, Natasha, think she’ll be okay? With the, uh—the elevator,” he said lamely, like he’d wanted a different word.

Tony breathed in deeply through his nose and let it out through his mouth. “She won’t be alone,” he said at last. “If it’s too much, Bruce, Clint, they’re smart. Jim, too. I’m sure he’d let her stay at his apartment. That’s just two flights of stairs.” Another long brush, the softness of Steve’s hair mesmerizing. “Let someone else handle the logistics.”

In an apologetic murmur, Steve said, “You know I can’t do that.”

“No?” Tony scratched the base of his scalp lightly, drawing an almost inaudible hum from him. “Why not?”

He could almost hear the stubborn arguments— _someone’s gotta look after ‘em, Tony, make sure they’re home safe_ , and Steve was the kind of person who _would_ not only gladly but emphatically pick up a friend at the airport at two in the morning _—_ but none of them were verbalized as Steve sighed and said at last, “Just hard to believe it’s . . . it’s really over, you know?” He blinked up at Tony, eyes—not dazed, just not as _there_ , like he was somewhere in his own head. Then he exhaled and closed his eyes again, cushioning his head on the couch at an angle that wasn’t painful but couldn’t be comfortable in the long run.

Still, he was so relaxed Tony let him have his moment, pushing his fingers gently through Steve’s hair. Contentment welled up inside him, like he’d be fine letting the Hodge conjecture go unsolved, the Mark X unbuilt, if he could stay here. There was no rush, no rush, no change in crackling wood indoors or in chirping crickets outside. It was only when Steve’s breathing deepened, courting sleep, that Tony said softly, “C’mon, tiger. Let’s go to bed.”

Steve sighed, but he shuffled to his feet without complaint. Unprompted, Laika hopped down, allowing Tony to stand up. The fire had simmered down to a shadow of its former self. Tony didn’t bother turning out the lamps, leaving the space as it was and tucking himself under Steve’s left arm. Steve didn’t need his support, any more than Tony needed Steve to check in every twenty minutes with some variation of _How’s your head?_ , but he squeezed Tony’s shoulders and it made Tony feel good, _helpful_. He could be helpful. He could.

As a show of helpfulness, he grabbed the covers, tugged ‘em down. And then because he could, he climbed in and sprawled contentedly, embracing the warmth and softness. Finally. _Someone_ who knew how to furnish a bed. (Granted, the hotel in _Anchorage, Alaska_ couldn’t be spited for not having five-star accommodations, but he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed a nice soft bed. And the cold had been so biting, so incomprehensibly deep up in the far North that he was certain his very atoms had flinched even more violently than usual from the surface of any piece of furniture, making the bed nothing more than a prop, something to use and then discard.)

The bed was even better than the couch, with far more pillows to arrange and more blankets to snuggle under. He knew it was more ornate than Steve was used to—preferred? Despite knowing the guy for six months, he had yet to solve that particular Rubik’s cube, if _I don’t need much_ translated to _I don’t want much—_ and had a moment’s thought, _make it how you like it_ , before Steve followed him down, lying on his side and fighting sleep to say, “You okay, Tony?”

Tony looked at him, with his bright blue eyes and a hand tucked under his cheek, docile but ever-vigilant, before he said simply, “I’m with you.”

Maybe it would have sounded like a diversion, a dismissal, but Steve heard it for what it was, nodding and sighing as Tony curled up under his chin, draping an arm around his back, gently caging him in. “I’ll make it up to ya,” he murmured. “Make it better, Tony.”

Tony kissed the underside of his jaw. “Go to sleep.”

“Make it—make it _safe_ ,” he promised, quiet for a few breaths. “Y’know I never wanted to leave you, right?”

Tony slid an arm around his waist and squeezed. “You didn’t,” he said truthfully. He didn’t finish with the obvious, _We left you_. They hadn’t, any more than Steve had left them: Steve had been trapped in a place they couldn’t reach, and before anyone could contemplate the logistical nightmare of trying to retrieve what would surely be his. . . . 

God, Tony thought, shuffling closer still, Steve’s arms curling behind Tony’s head, protecting him. Protecting his thoughts, too, he mused, as sleep tugged on the corner of his sleeve and invited him to stay in a nice dark place for a while.

He drifted off to the sound of Steve’s soft, even breaths, almost clear, a miracle in human form. It wasn’t the serum, either: the serum was part of it, but Steve was the one who made the magic happen, who made sure everyone was safe and well and _happy_ , who got home so the serum could do the rest.

Tony followed the silent beckoning sleep downward and dreamed of warm arms curled around him, safe for the first time in a long time.

. o .

Without the specter of . . . of—Tony didn’t want to name it, so he didn’t, choosing to lounge silently in the warmth and quiet. Hunger had pulled him back to full wakefulness, but it was a soft kind of wakefulness, a peace that the frozen world outside couldn’t touch. With Steve’s arms wrapped around him, there was no way to shimmy out without waking him, so he lingered, listening to Steve breathe, marveling that he was _alive_. Not a ghost, not a happy illusion, and not another headstone. 

And even if at some point in time they’d all been sure, so painfully sure, that even Steve, indomitable Steve, unstoppable Steve, was—was—that he _wasn’t_ coming home, the news that he was _alive—_ he was _there—_ sent a rush of hope like oxygen into Tony’s lungs. 

It almost didn’t matter that Steve had been ragged, that he’d made it home but only just. He’d made it home. They rounded up in their line of work: even one percent alive was victory. Steve was up, Steve was moving, Steve was talking to them and assuring them and carrying Tony to bed. Steve was _okay_. It was pure oxygen, oxygen Tony hadn’t known he’d been craving after two days in suffocating silence.

Tony felt grounded listening to Steve breathe, soft inhales, soft exhales, not as quiet as usual but quieter than they’d been even . . . God only knew how many hours ago. Tony could tell from the light around the still-closed curtains that it was mid-afternoon. Made sense: they’d gone to bed late and with the time zones and flights and red-eyes and near-death-experiences, it all seemed sideways. He wasn’t sure what time it was in New York— _home—_ because home was right here. He wouldn’t have been surprised if it was two in the afternoon or two in the morning. Both outcomes seemed equally probable.

Stroking the small of Steve’s back, more self-comforting than anything, he thought, _Thank you for coming home_. The gratitude was so strong he had to close his eyes or cry. He didn’t want to cry, didn’t want to celebrate being _alive_ with tears.

 _Thank you for coming home_.

It was maybe half an hour before, gently but purposefully, he called, “Steve?” He tugged on Steve’s shirt—just one, now, a warm thermal complemented by the toasty cabin, thermostat kicked up nice and high—and slid his hand under it, Steve’s skin warm, reassuringly warm underneath his fingertips. With gentle pressure, he scratched the same place he’d been rubbing his hand over movements before, entreating quietly, “C’mon, Steve.”

Steve inhaled deeply, not quite startling but husking out, “I’m up.” He adjusted his grip, loosening his hold. Tony kept his cheek smushed against Steve’s collarbone, eyes closed as Steve repeated, “I’m up.”

 _Yeah, you are, big guy_.

Steve slid his hands down Tony’s back, making him shiver lightly. He said in the same sleep-heavy tone, “Tony?”

“Hi.” He could feel some of the new tension in Steve’s shoulders ease, his breath leaving on a deep exhale as Tony added, “Take your time.”

Humming, Steve slid a hand back up, cupping the back of Tony’s head lightly. It still ached dully but not as profoundly as it had. “Hi,” Steve echoed quietly. “Sorry, I didn’t. . . .” He paused, then admitted, “Didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.” Letting out a soft lion-yawn, he startled to shuffle back, adding, “Okay, I’m up. I’m up.”

Tony let him retreat, but he didn’t let go immediately, holding onto his shirt, _don’t go_ , before finally easing off. Steve stood up and sauntered off, saying something under his breath that sounded like _Whistler. Right_.

Whistler. Right.

If Tony drew a line from Anchorage, Alaska to Norilsk, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia (much like _Boise, United States of America_ sounded improper, _Norilsk, Russia_ was improper, too), the curvature of the Earth caused the line of least resistance to arc upward over a breathtaking expanse of permafrost, with only a brief voyage across the Pacific, for a total odyssey of 2,974 miles. 

By comparison, the path from Anchorage to Whistler was a comparatively abbreviated sojourn of 2,000 miles straight down the Pacific coastline. The path was stunning cartographic proof of the almost comical armistice between Canada and the United States, dancing around each other for territorial stakes. Both countries had politely declined to comment on how a state nestled completely inside another country could belong properly to the mother country adjacent. It just did. 

It reminded Tony of the classic _Because I said so_ line parents gave children: if Uncle Sam said it was America, it was America. So far, the Canadians hadn’t asked for it back. Maybe they just had their fill of Arctic territory, Tony mused.

One way or another, they were deep in moose and maple syrup country now, even though a brisk two hour drive south would take them back to the homeland. Tony appreciated that, that the United States of America was practically visible over the horizon, albeit only by feel—the real view was mountains for days. 

Everything felt alive, green and yet not _too_ green, an indefinable territory between temperate and arctic that felt comfortably warm but not _too_ warm. 

He felt a bit like an astronaut returning from Mars: stepping from desolate frostbitten Mars onto lush tropical Earth would’ve left him reeling. The descent in stages from arctic to equatorial latitudes was far less daunting. He found himself not envying the rest of the cold-weather crew, descending to home base, _base camp_ , in one fell swoop. God, the thought of the city, with _fifty times_ as many people as Norilsk, was enough to make him shudder. He hoped Bruce had a paper bag to hyperventilate into, or it’d be a long drive back from the airport to the Tower.

Tugging a spare pillow over his head, emphatically declining to imagine life in New York City, Tony could hear clicking claws, betraying Steve’s presence somewhere in an adjacent room. Steve’s own footsteps were silent from this distance, but Laika cantered along, inspiring the occasional mutter of _Khoroshaya_.

Tony thought, _Time to get up_ , but politely declined, preferring to soak in the warmth of their blanket nest. It was both sad and foolish for Steve to have _listened_ to him, why greet the day when you could do nothing instead?

But it wasn’t more than twenty minutes before Tony became curious enough to free himself from his blanket cocoon.

He grimaced in the comparatively cool air. Everything really was relative. It would have been more amazing, the resilience and yet frailty of the human body, if even the modest temperature change from _hot_ to _warm_ didn’t make the muscles around the arc reactor ache. Most days he could almost forget it was there, but rarely did he completely forget. Reaching up to rub warm metal, feeling like an old man and scowling at the thought, he followed the sound of clicking claws.

. o .

“ _The word ‘Pleistocene’ was coined by the Scottish geologist Sir Charles Lyell in 1839. It comes from the Greek words_ pleīstos _, meaning ‘most,’ and_ kainós _, meaning ‘new.’ The Pleistocene epoch spanned from 2.58 million years ago to 11,700 years ago and is commonly referred to as the ‘Ice Age.’”_ A pause, then: “Now how on God’s green Earth do they know all that?”

Sitting on a rock and eating a rather scrumptious ham sandwich—nothing like hunger and simple joys, Tony reflected jovially—Tony advised, “Rocks.”

Steve held his page in the book with one hand and grabbed a nondescript gray rock from the path with the other. Lofting it, he said, “This?” Teasingly he held it close to his ear, like it was a conch shell. He allowed, “Must not be the right time of day.” Casting it back on the ground, he whistled and Laika came trotting over from her point farther down the hill. Sitting with his back to a rock across from Tony and allowing Laika to lay across him, he held up the book again and narrated, “ _The word 'Pleistocene' was used because 'Pliocene,' the preceding epoch—_ which one’s an epoch again?”

Taking another hearty bite of his sandwich, Tony swallowed before saying, “Some kind of time period.”

Shaking his head, Steve kept his place in the book and flipped back to the end, elaborating, “No, a period is. . . .” He turned the book around, showing a diagram of a cross-section of a Grand Canyon-like swath of rock layers. “This one,” he said, pointing to the middle column labeled _Period_. To the left, the title _Era_ delineated three broad categories; to the right, _Epoch_ delineated more than a dozen subdivisions. “Era is big,” Steve said, “period is small, epoch is smallest.”

Leaning forward, Tony squinted and declared, “Found the dinosaurs.”

Steve looked down at the upside-down page curiously. “Where?”

Tony told him, “Triassic Period.”

Steve was silent, scanning the page, before he settled a finger on the word triumphantly. “Dinosaurs.”

“They came around in the Late Triassic. Died out at the end of the Cretaceous,” Tony explained. When Steve looked at him, eyebrows arched, Tony shrugged. “I’m not saying everyone had a dinosaur phase, but everyone had a dinosaur phase.” He took another bite of his sandwich while Steve turned the book to himself, skimming the words thoughtfully. “You ever seen one?”

Steve gave him an extremely dubious look. Tony elaborated, “The skeleton, not the real deal. Far as we know there is no place that time forgot.”

Shaking his head in sudden understanding, Steve said, “Nah. Who had the time?” It wasn’t quite dismissive, just the same nonchalance that he’d use to say, _Never seen a blue whale, either_.

Still: “Really?”

Steve looked at him quizzically, then flipped back to his page in the book and reiterated: “ _The word ‘Pleistocene’ was used because ‘Pliocene,’ the preceding epoch, had already been defined as the ‘more-new’ epoch. When the Holocene was later differentiated as the most recent 11,700 years of Earth’s history, it became the ‘entire-new’ or ‘whole-new’ epoch_.” Amused, Steve asked, “What’re they gonna do if they find more rocks?”

Breezily, Tony offered, “I vote ‘Least-old-new.’”

Steve laughed, short but sweet, and added, “‘Most-least-old-new.’”

With an irrepressible smirk, Tony added, “This is why I don’t trust geologists.”

“I think I might’ve held the door if a fella came up to me and said the rocks told him how old they were,” Steve said breezily. “ _The Pleistocene epoch was famous for its ice ages. Although the Pleistocene is popularized by the most recent Ice Age—during which time ancient humans resided with megafauna like saber-toothed cats and woolly mammoths—this epoch experienced at least twenty distinct cycles of freezing and thawing_.”

Steve was silent for a long moment, hand slowing but not stopping altogether as he stroked Laika’s back. Calmly, he resumed, “ _During these Ice Ages, ice sheets the size of continents advanced worldwide from both poles_.” Another slightly longer pause. “ _The advance and recession of the Laurentide Ice Sheet shaped Canada’s landscape, including its thirty-one thousand lakes—_ thirty-one thousand,” he repeated wonderingly, looking at Tony. “Can you believe that?”

“I pity the poor man who had to count them all,” Tony said, tucking his empty plastic wrap in a pocket.

“Or woman,” Steve offered.

Tony tipped an invisible hat towards him. Reading on, Steve said, “ _Four of these—Superior, Huron, Erie, and Ontario—_ _are known as the Great Lakes_. Why?”

Tony shrugged, then stood up and stretched. “Least-Small Lake was taken.” Walking along the short gravel trail, he added, “I’m officially lukewarm. And that’s in Arctic gear.” 

Steve said dryly, “We are sitting on a glacier.” Then, skim-reading with a speed that showed just how drawling his speech was, he added, “Okay, we’re sitting on the _remnants_ of a glacier.”

“They’ve got the real deal here,” Tony said. Steve frowned. “Don’t worry, they don’t move far. Or fast. Tens of thousands of years, remember?”

“Hm.” Steve snapped the book shut and patted Laika, who stood up. “All right,” he added, joining Tony and tucking the little book back into his jacket pocket. “Fascinating stuff.”

Walking along the short path back to the cabin, Tony said, “It’s been a long-time goal of mine to know how many lakes Canada had.”

“Coulda asked Google,” Steve reminded him, capturing him with an arm around the waist.

“I’m a sucker for a live reading,” Tony said, leaning up to kiss his cold cheek once. “Although they’ve got cheesy horror novels on the shelf that probably make for more interesting reads.”

Steve shrugged. “Hard to upstage ‘whole-new’ era.”

“Epoch,” Tony corrected.

Steve rolled his eyes, but he gave Tony’s waist a fond squeeze before letting him go, walking along with Laika loping off out front. “Real smart guy, you know that?”

It was easy to keep pace with him as he picked his way with less of his usual unintentionally brisk walk across the grassy path. “I can’t wait for you to find a moose. I expect a selfie.”

Steve huffed incredulously, coughed into his shoulder, and added lightly, “That’s like finding a bear in New York, Tony. They aren’t everywhere.”

Tony opened his mouth, certain the mischief was visible in his eyes because Steve cut him off with an exasperated: “Tony, you _know_ which bear I meant.”

. o .

For the first time since Norilsk, Tony donned the Iron Man armor.

Suit-up time was down to eight seconds, quick and easy. Tony marveled at the suit as it settled over him like a second skin, not clunky and heavy like he’d expected but well-balanced, familiar. It wasn’t like riding a bike: it was like putting on his favorite jacket and going out for a night on the town. He felt immediately, profoundly _right_ standing in the suit. The scariest part—the mask closing down—was alleviated by the pleasant red and blue holographic projections, describing things like temperature and altitude and even Steve’s presence three rooms down. “Miss me, buddy?” Tony asked J.A.R.V.I.S., who responded in his usual warm tone: 

“As always, sir. Welcome back.”

“Run full diagnostic with the armor, Alpha, Beta, Gamma,” he instructed, flexing his right hand idly, testing its movement. “Anything fishy, call it out.”

“Of course, sir.”

There was no sound, no tinkering or toiling noises like he half-expected, but he ran his armored hand down the opposite arm, his own indestructible exoskeleton. Some might have found it disconcerting, being locked away in a steel trap, but it was his trap. It was his uniform. It was part of him.

 _I am Iron Man_.

At last, J.A.R.V.I.S. replied, “Scans complete. Structural integrity has been compromised and suit capabilities are at 79%. Low-altitude flight won’t strain the integrity, but moderate-altitude and high-altitude are inadvisable.”

Tony opened and closed his left palm, looking at the dull pad that would light up if the repulsors were on. “Lay it on me,” he ordered.

J.A.R.V.I.S. dutifully laid out the Greek word-code number format of parts that needed repairs or replacement, adding off-handedly, “Atlas 3 was compromised.”

It sent a chill down his spine. He reached back with a gauntleted hand, touching his fingertips to the center of his neck. He could _feel_ the slight compression; he knew that he was unspeakably lucky.

If Atlas 4 or 5 had also failed, he would have snapped his neck.

Breathing shallowly, he cut J.A.R.V.I.S. off, “That’s good.”

“Are you all right, sir? I am detecting an elevated heart rate.”

 _Breathe. Breathe_.

“I’m good,” he said. It wasn’t even a lie. “I’m good. I just. . . .” He trailed off, then took a step towards the deck, moving deliberately. The suit felt weightless, carrying itself, but he heard the reassuringly firm steps as he walked. By the time he was on the deck, taking a seat on the edge of the steps, he felt calm again. “Good thing we doubled the bridge strength,” he said.

It had seemed extremely unnecessary at the time, as if he was trying to make the suit not merely bulletproof—the Mark I was nearly bulletproof; every suit since _had_ been—but also rhino-proof, meteorite-proof. Impossible, unlikely, deadly situations. The entire back half of the armor had been thickened up since the Mark VI, not least because of the whole _help I am in the spinning wheel of propeller death_ fiasco on the helicarrier. Even with reinforcements, the Mark IX had felt the impact from the crash.

He’d cushioned their fall by jumping up instead of crashing down, but he’d still hit the ceiling with enough force to compromise the shoulder thrusters, crunching them—and Tony could feel that, too, with metal fingers, reaching back gingerly, grooves where there shouldn’t be grooves. It felt more real than the crash itself. That the suit had taken damage when he’d built it to withstand falling from such a height was eerie, unnerving.

 _If you fell from the sky_ , he thought, lowering his hands to the deck instead, _you’d never survive_.

Breathing in slowly, he asked, “How’s the—how’s the charge?”

“Charge is at eleven percent,” J.A.R.V.I.S. said. “Ground time, nine hours, thirteen minutes available. Air time, twenty-three minutes. I would advise,” he said dryly, “remaining on the ground until the suit is fully charged, sir.”

“Square deal,” Tony said, wishing that he’d brought another set of batteries. The cold had burned through them, making them work _hard_ to keep up with the external freezing temperatures. He was smart to have never tried the suit in Arctic water—not that the temptation was _overwhelming_ , but an experimental little demon had wondered what would happen if he slunk into that poison lake in the suit, to go where no human _could_. The suit had seemed so indestructible on the surface.

It _was_ indestructible. It had survived a test run from hell with flying colors. Once he made minor bridge-adjustments, he could take it up as high as he wanted. Anuxa had crushed the Mark VIII, irreparably and spectacularly, but the relatively even force of the falling elevator had only dented Iron Man.

Hell, if the Atlas 3 bridge _hadn’t_ failed—and he’d have to make it stronger, it was the weak link in the chain—he would have emerged _unscathed_.

It made his head throb to think about. Because he hadn’t won—he hadn’t walked away unharmed—but he hadn’t lost, either. He broke even. _That’s a win_.

Getting up, he walked back inside and suited down, marveling at the little box he’d made for himself that had survived a thousand foot drop in a falling elevator with nothing but bruises and a broken vertebra.

Fuck, that could’ve been _his_ broken vertebra.

“Good job, buddy,” he told the box containing the Mark IX. “Go team.”

Wandering off to find Steve, he thought, _Gotta make it stronger_.

He almost feared what challenges he’d tempt by making Mark X even less vincible than its predecessors.

. o .

Tony’s favorite time of day was quickly becoming the middle of the night.

It worked well because it felt like two in the afternoon when it was, in fact, two in the morning. The feeling was enhanced by the luxury of sitting in a hot tub, steamy air wafting around him as he listened to the soft sounds of the night, the hush of winter in the far distance, the sound of insects closer by. Canada wasn't always cold, but even Canadians knew how to stay warm. He had to admire how efficient it all was. These were a people who had evolved to live, not in the impossible killing cold of Norilsk, but in the enlivening cold of the lower Arctic.

He’d certainly like New York winters more if they were like _this_ , less traffic and city noise, more stars and quiet winds.

Still, it was a brief layover, even for them, just a few days to breathe without New York breathing down their necks. Tony didn’t know where to go, but he’d almost on the fly decided that it was a nice time of year to visit Canada, to incredulous looks from both Pepper and Steve, reassuring the former that she was welcome to go home. (Implying with a look that he would like, very much in fact, if she _did_ go home.) 

He’d kind of missed having Steve to himself and having space to just _be_ instead of adapting on the fly depending on who he bumped into.

Steve turned the page of the cheesy horror novel he was reading and Tony, not meanly but out of curiosity, nudged his right foot.

Steve startled, sending the book into space and nearly leaping after it before looking at Tony and flattening his expression, slinking back into the hot tub with a moody look. Tony said, “Good part?”

Rolling his eyes, Steve said, “Now I gotta go get it.” He looked mournfully over at the book, which had settled in the snowy turf ten feet away.

With an inspired series of whistles, _c’mere, c’mere_ , Tony had to put a hand on Laika’s chest to keep her from sticking her nose in the hot tub out of curiosity, pointing out to the tundra and advising, “Go get.”

Steve said exasperatedly, “She’s a dog.”

Tony said, “Okay. Fetch!” He clapped his hands lightly, snickering helplessly as Laika sniffed at his ear, batting her away gently. “No, _no_ , fetch,” he told her, still pointing at the book.

Laika bounded off the deck and disappeared into the wilderness, racing up the nearest hill joyfully. Steve sighed deeply. Not in fear or even exasperation. Only a certain muffled fondness as he said with a Brooklyn drawl, “Great, now I gotta go get her. Goddammit, Tony—”

Tony didn’t _tackle_ him, but he absolutely cut him off by wrapping his arms around Steve’s waist and hauling him back in, making him yelp. He could _just_ make out claws digging through snow in the distance as Laika raced around in the dark like a kid turned loose at Disneyland. Still holding all two hundred plus pounds of warm-skinned super-soldier pinned against the side of the hot tub, Tony told him dryly, “She’s a dog. Dogs love to be let off-leash.”

Steve grunted. “Gonna do that in New York? Huh?”

“New _Yawhk_ ,” Tony agreed. Steve narrowed his eyes before sighing in defeat as Laika let out a happy series of barks, now a quarter of a mile away. “There she goes,” Tony said fondly. “You know, I gotta say, I do appreciate that you _can_ outrun her because otherwise I’d be a lot more worried about her galloping off into the sunset.”

“Not gettin’ outta the tub in _this_ weather,” Steve said, still a touch moodily but more in sulking than arguing mode as he sat against the side of the hot tub and gathered Tony into his arms as penance. “She’s a wolf, she’ll be fine.”

Tony, who’d been hoping for this very outcome, hid the preen in his voice admirably well as he replied, “Is she really—”

Steve sighed. “No.”

“I mean, it’d be badass, but also she might kill us in our sleep.”

Still barking, slightly fainter, Laika loped off. “Yeah, she’s real dangerous,” Steve drawled. “I mean, listen to her. That’s the sound of terror in the night right there.”

“That’s the sound of a five-mile-run,” Tony replied lightly. Whistling around two fingers, he called, “Laika!!”

There was a distant sound of paws on snow, although it was hard to tell if she was running back to them or off in the opposite direction to explore. He said serenely, “See, she’s smart.”

Still holding Tony firmly with one arm, Steve rubbed his ear in mock pain. “Geez, you got a whistle on you.”

Tony grinned lasciviously. Steve sighed, “Tony, I swear to God—”

Tony grabbed his head in hands and kissed him firmly, which did, in fact, shut him up remarkably well. He didn’t even know where Laika bounded off to, instead taking advantage of Steve’s distraction to slide his fingers more firmly in his hair. Steve didn’t fight him, letting his own hands drift Tony’s waist, steadying him, kissing him like he would get one last chance, like it was all over tomorrow. Tony thought, _No_ and deepened the kiss.

Sense memories were strong, but it wasn’t an ocean separating them from the rest of the world, it was an oasis, a place to hide from it. It was so comforting, so goddamn _precious_ he wanted to cry, because God, they’d won but _barely_ , one little bridge and that was it, that was how Tony Stark died. One inopportune rock, and Steve never came home.

He buried his face between Steve’s neck and shoulder, shaking. Steve slid his hand slowly up and down his back, one arm anchored around his hips. _I’ve got you_ , he didn’t say, didn’t need to, tilting his head to press a kiss to Tony’s temple. He breathed evenly, holding Tony close. Tony felt some of the shivering subside, the hurt in his head ease.

Except he was starting to feel dizzy. In a sad voice, he admitted, “I think my fifteen minutes are up.”

Steve kissed his cheek, then said, “Okay. You okay for two seconds? Maybe three.”

Tony nodded against his shoulder and did not pout as Steve lifted him up and set him on the ledge, easy with the water. “No, wait, I changed my mind.”

“Two seconds,” Steve said, standing up and getting out of the tub, an impressive quantity of water pouring off him between the four loping strides to the door, opening it, grabbing a towel, and returning. Tony barely had time to yelp in surprise as Steve _picked him up_. Then, like the world’s fastest bellhop, he wrapped the towel around his shoulders. “Gotta love Canada,” he muttered, his voice surprisingly normal with how hard he was shivering, but Tony had a feeling it was the serum keeping the heat for as long as it could, reinforced as Steve guided _his_ shivering self back inside.

Steve guided him onto the nearest couch and bundled enough blankets around him that a chinchilla would have looked tragically underdressed. Tony finally said, “Rogers,” and he stopped piling ‘em on. “I am literally more sheep than human.”

Steve smiled, a towel draped over a shoulder carelessly. There was still a worried little furrow between his brows as he added, “You’re flushed. You okay?”

Tony arched his eyebrows very pointedly, then winced as it made his head throb. Yeah. Hot tub on a concussion. _Not_ his best move, but was he supposed to ignore it? It had sounded nice, warm water instead of cold air. It _was_ nice. Except for the wooziness.

Slinking under the blanket, hiding in them, he told Steve, “I’m fine.”

Steve unburied him enough to tell him to his face, “Don’t do that, you can’t breathe.”

“It’s _bright_ ,” he gritted out, sighing and tugging a single blanket over his face. “God, I have a fucking hangover.”

Steve made an apologetic little noise, but he didn’t start up the expected litany of questions. Instead, he padded off, returning in what felt like record time but might’ve been thirty minutes later, for all Tony was aware, wearing pants but no shirt, offering him a glass of water and a pair of white pills. Tony took them without even asking, trusting Steve’s literacy, and hid underneath the blanket even though he could almost feel Steve wanting to reach for it. 

Steve padded off, padded _outside_. Tony sighed in his nest, listening to Steve clap and call, “Laika! Laika!” He had a much softer whistle, not faint but nowhere near as earsplitting as Tony’s, and after about a minute—or maybe ten; Tony didn’t keep track—the door opened again and Steve and Laika hurried through it.

Tony finally looked up and saw Steve dusting off the little paperback, setting it on a dresser in a clear _deal with that later_ way, looking at Tony and exhaling. He smiled, said, “S’cold,” and chafed his bare arms with his palms. “Be back in a jiffy.”

Tony wasn’t sure if he was back in a jiffy, awaking to being gently shaken, assuring, a little sharply, “I’m up.”

He heard Steve exhale, settling on the floor. Inexplicably, he tapped it. A moment later, Tony heard clicking claws before Laika settled down next to Steve. 

Almost more to himself, Steve murmured, “I’m sorry, Tony.”

Still hiding in his huddle, Tony grunted, “Why?” He forced himself to unclench his jaw, knowing it’d only exacerbate the headache, but then the throbbing in his skull made him want to clench his jaw, and the cycle repeated itself. “It’s not your fault.”

Steve was silent and Tony elected to stay in his huddle until the throbbing behind his eyes had softened to a dull roar and finally to near nonexistence before lowering the blanket. Steve had his chin on his chest and his eyes shut, arms folded like a guard who’d fallen asleep on the job. Tony asked quietly, “Steve?” and he squinted one eye at him, sitting up carefully. Laika stood up, padding over to the door hopefully. Steve sighed and pushed himself to his feet, wincing.

“Not as much of a floor guy as I used to be,” he mused. He opened the door with only a mild sigh as she raced around it nearly before she could fit through the gap. “That’s one happy dog,” he added, amused, as he shut the door and looked back at Tony. “Hey,” he said warmly, “how’s your head?”

“Present,” Tony decided, squinting an eye shut against another spike of pain. “And accounted for.”

Sitting on the couch near Tony’s feet, Steve nodded apologetically. “Yeah. Shouldn’t’ve let you in. Not with your head. My—”

“Rogers.”

Blowing out a breath, Steve insisted, “Tony, you have a _concussion_.” Looking forlorn, he added, “I—I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Must’ve been a good book.”

Steve frowned. “Hm?”

“The book. Must’ve been good.” With more effort than he wanted to expend, Tony lifted his hands out from under the blankets and mimed holding an open book in them. “Literary device? That ring a bell?”

With a huff, Steve said, “Right. Yeah. Nah. Couldn’t get into it.” He rubbed Tony’s foot. “Gotta make sure you’re okay. Can’t be gettin’ distracted.” Rolling his shoulders, he admitted, “Still, it was kinda nice. Had a knot, you know, right,” he balled up a fist and pressed it to the back of his right shoulder. Tony sat up. Steve said warningly, “Tony.”

“Rogers,” Tony retorted lightly, freeing himself from three of the four blankets Steve had piled on him, letting them settle on the floor instead. “I won’t lie, I’ve never had a concussion before,” he said breezily, feeling more like himself, now that the demon banging pots and pans in his head had subsided. “But I did survive two days— _three_ days—without you.”

Steve clenched his jaw. “Sounds like an excuse.”

Tony sighed, gestured, “C’mere.” When Steve frowned at him, he insisted, “This is me being selfish. Indulge me.” He was one step away from snapping his fingers playfully when Steve sighed and scooted closer. He looked ready to grab the blankets off the floor and replace them, making sure that Tony was _okay_. It was exasperating and sweet and very Steve. Tony knee-walked over to him, sitting behind him and tugging on the edges of his shirt pointedly.

Steve removed it warily, clearly ready to turn around and insist that Tony lie down, _geez, you’re gonna hurt yourself_ , but Tony didn’t give him time to reconsider, flattening his palms against Steve’s shoulder blades and using his thumbs to press in smooth circles instead. 

Steve’s back was astonishingly soft to the touch, skin that had never known—may never know again—scars. Tony had hugged him, cuddled him, even spooned him, but somehow in the middle of it all he’d failed to appreciate how nice it was to rub his hands all over him. He was glad he’d insisted on the shirt-off, too, even if he wasn't sure he _had_ the strength to give a true massage, settling for earnest and smooth but not forceful, not trying to fix anything just yet.

 _Maybe later_ , he mused. It was a nice thought, a really nice thought, actually, because he was a fusser, a tinkerer, a _fixer_. It felt good, the way Steve’s skin seemed even warmer under his hands, his breathing slow and even. Tony quipped lightly, “You have magnificent shoulders,” and heard a soft, faintly exasperated sigh. “I know, _not mine_ , but they are. Trust me, you, Steve Rogers, are a Dorito at heart.” 

He drew a triangle from the edges of both shoulders to the small of his back before returning to his shoulders. He rubbed, pulled, rubbed, pulled, losing himself in the rhythm of it. It was nice. It was really nice; it felt good to use his hands again, to work on something that didn’t require any mental effort beyond squeeze and pull, squeeze and pull.

He blamed it on Pepper—a much-needed neck rub had inspired him to _learn_ a thing or two—but it wasn’t about getting it right, not about making sure that Bridge 456 wouldn’t collapse in the heat of battle. 

Any time he noticed a rough spot, he carefully skirted around it, _I’m not gonna hurt you_. He just marveled, honestly and in near perfect silence, not at the physicality of it as much as the _identity_ of it. Steve’s tense muscles, Steve’s warm skin, Steve’s sweeping shoulder blade, Steve, Steve, Steve. It was artful, the patterns. He heard Steve sigh a couple times, but it wasn’t the exasperated _Tony, you should be resting_ he’d been afraid to hear.

This was selfish, he thought fondly, selfish because it was better confirmation than any phone call or even personal assurance from the man himself that he was still alive. It was the real and immediate and so _warm_ , it amazed him how warm Steve ran, probably a hundred plus degrees Fahrenheit, the serum always moving quickly. He fretted for a moment about the idea of it, _a man aging twice as quickly_ , before shelving it away. The serum was a miracle; it would heal Steve as fast as it demanded and demanded and demanded.

It was nice to just _give_ , to offer something for free and without expectation. There was something effortlessly rewarding about it, a personal satisfaction that yes, those were muscles relaxing under his hands. The suits were so impersonal at times, just metal and moxie until he turned the lights on for the first time, but Steve was real-time satisfaction, none of the painstakingly slow effort exerted to make sure the faceplate would make a perfect seal when it shut and come off the second he asked it too.

He’d never asked which one of them—Rogers, Thor, or Hulk—had ripped the faceplate off his suit after he crash-landed, but he’d been impressed, because it _hadn’t_ come off easily. Someone had literally ripped the _metal_ off its frame, like destroying an atom from the core out. He felt a mixture of pride that his suit had held up and saddened that the test had cost it its life.

Absentmindedly, he traced the path of the armor’s shoulder plates on Steve’s skin, mapping the bulkiest part of the armor. The hardest part was making sure it wasn’t _too_ heavy, that he added weight to the feet and hands to counterbalance it, that he reduced weight whenever possible. If it was too heavy, it would create backward drag when he flew, like having a hundred pound backpack on while scaling a sheer cliff. 

He measured twice and cut once, running simulations, testing each component, tested the whole thing before a real test drive. He made sure it was perfect. And he was—he was honestly _proud_ of them, proud of the way the plates fit together, the surge of electric satisfaction the first time he put on a gauntlet and it _glowed_.

He told Steve in the same murmur he used when he was tinkering in the lab, “Most people think you just take off, but you need the stabilizers. Shoulders, calves. Those are what keep me in the air. Without them—can’t balance. Can’t get up top, makes you dizzy if you try. This,” he traced the lines where the shoulder thrusters dwelled, “this is it, this is how I fly. Calves just keep me from doing any unplanned cartwheels.”

A soft huff of a laugh. Tony could smile, too, even though it had been about two steps beyond the comfortable excitement he liked with flying the first time it happened, howling like a banshee before J.A.R.V.I.S. took the wheel to stabilize him. “I gotta show you some of the lab footage,” he said, inspired, shuffling on his knees, getting more comfortable. “Some of the, the early stuff, you know. Day 1 Iron Man. You’re gonna love it.” 

Without tremor, he added, “Well. Day 85. Day 1 doesn’t have footage.” He stroked his hands along Steve’s skin. He could tell Steve was listening, his head turned towards him, not quite looking at him, just indicating, _Yeah?_ Tony obliged his attention, adding, “I’m gonna be honest, I don’t know if I’d— _be_ Iron Man if—that—hadn’t happened.”

Steve said, quietly but resolutely, “You’d still be Tony Stark.” He shuffled around to look at him, ignoring the soft little disappointed sound Tony made. “And Tony Stark wouldn’t have done nothing. All that energy—sure, it might not’ve gone to the same place twice. But you made it happen.” Smiling wryly, he said, “Maybe in another universe you don’t become Iron Man, but that Tony Stark? By God, he’s doin’ something worth talking about. I bet he thinks it’d be a tragedy if he _wasn’t_ doing that thing, too. Couldn’t imagine giving it up for Iron Man.” 

With deliberately slow movements, Steve reached out and slid a thumb under the clear protective tape over the reactor, prying it off. The dim glow instantly seemed sharper, brighter. Lightly, he added, “That doesn’t make you Tony Stark. You make it yours.” 

He set the casing aside, probably unaware of the way Tony’s heart was racing, but it wasn’t trembling fear or raw fury. Steve wouldn’t take it from him. And he would’ve taken the tape off as soon as he got out of the hot tub, if he’d thought of it. Lying back against the arm of the couch, Steve added softly, “Yeah. You took something bad and made it good. That’s how good you are, Tony. Didn’t take the bad to make you good, you were already _that_ good.”

Swallowing, Tony laid down on top of him, Steve’s arms curling around his own bare back. The reactor glowed white-blue against his skin. “They didn’t make you Tony Stark,” he murmured, kissing the top of Tony’s head. “Did that all on your own. You brought all of that with you and they got more than they bargained for.” He nuzzled the top of his head, brushing his cheek against Tony’s hair. “What you do is art, but you’re the artist, Tony. I don’t think you’re only as good as your works, as good as . . . the stuff that makes you follow one path or another. I think you’re better, because you’re all of them, and all the things you could do instead. You’d still be as _good_ as you are without Iron Man. Okay? He’s a swell guy, but I like my fella a lot more. He’s the real deal.”

Heart threatening to beat out of his chest, Tony leaned up to kiss his shoulder, his jawline, right along the unblemished edge where he’d almost lost Steve, so many _almosts_. But when he kissed Steve properly, it was confirmation, grounded and real, that he’d gotten away with a lot of almosts. He’d savor every near miss, every failed opportunity, to be right here.

Then he heard a spirited scratching sound, followed by a plaintive whine and then a familiarly commanding bark. With a sigh, he stood up, holding up a hand and telling Steve, “I got it. She’s my fur-kid, too, she has to imprint on both of us.” Steve’s smirk was golden. Tony still felt woozy but not too shabby as he padded over to the door and let Laika in. She paused to sniff at him, tail wagging. He reached down to pet her head, cold and snowy as it was. Her ear twitched, and he beamed. “You’re the best dog in the whole world.” Looking at Steve, he added in his _these are the nuclear codes_ voice, “This is the best dog in the whole world.”

“She’s the best,” Steve agreed, sitting and watching them with a smile on his face. “She’s the best _for_ the best.”

Deliberately misinterpreting it, Tony conspired to Laika, “His ego is _humongous_.” Steve laughed, a full belly laugh that nearly set Tony off, a helpless toothy smile plastered across his own face. “I will make sure you get to chase all the squirrels your doggy heart desires.”

“Lotta squirrels,” Steve warned, leveraging himself to his feet carefully. “Might not have enough squirrels in New York.”

Crouching in front of Laika, Tony squished her face gently in both hands and said, “The _world_ is your oyster. Don’t listen to him.” She crowded close to lick at his face. Laughter bubbled out of him as he tried to push her back, insisting, “Steve!”

“Oh, I think you’ve got it under control,” Steve said, but he tapped his leg and whistled and Laika ignored him for a full second before trotting over, accepting a more sedate head-rub in greeting. “Good girl. _Khoroshaya sobaka_.”

“You two were made for each other,” Tony said, pushing himself to his feet and stumbling a step. Steve was there in an instant. Tony sighed in resignation but leaned into his embrace, one arm sliding around Steve’s waist as he squeezed him. “You gotta let me faceplant at least once. It makes for great home video.”

“Home video?” Steve said doubtfully, leaning him not towards the couch but towards their room. “What’s a—?” Tony groaned and Steve stopped, adding, “That like a, a home movie?”

“Ten points to Gryffindor,” Tony told him.

Steve huffed lightly. “Should be readin’ _that_. Barton won’t get off my case. I told him, ‘Now why would I need to read a children’s book?’ He said it’s like the Mickey cartoons. It’s about the culture.”

“Mickey. Mickey Mouse?”

Brightening, Steve said, “No kiddin’, that’s still around?”

Tony barked a laugh. “The genie’s been let out of the bottle, Rogers, there’s _no_ putting that one back. Humanity’s going to go extinct and all aliens will find are mouse-ear shaped drawings. A reboot of the cave art at Lascaux.”

“Cave art?” Steve repeated, letting him go and flopping down on the bed. “Lascaux?”

Tony nodded. “I’m not supposed to use my phone, so you’re gonna have to take my word for it: spectacular.” A pause. “Breathtaking. Unironically one of the coolest things humanity’s ever done, and not just because it’s 20,000 years old.”

“Okay, now I’m really curious.”

And if Tony went against doctor’s orders of using technology for an unnecessary activity, at least the look on Steve’s face, wondering and floored, was worthwhile.

“Sensational,” he said at last. Tony snuggled up to him. Steve draped an arm around him, holding him close and repeating earnestly, “Sensational.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Russian translations:  
>  _Khoroshaya sobaka._ \- Good dog.


	29. HOMECOMING

Gesturing expansively around his Malibu estate, Tony drawled, “I know I promised you a house tour, but I need a shower, a drink, and a fourteen-hour nap first.”

Steve, who had slung both their travel bags over one shoulder, replied agreeably, “If by _drink_ , you mean decaf coffee, that can be arranged.”

Tony said, “Cute.” He yawned and added, “I can handle alcohol. I’m not _supposed_ to, but neither were anti-Prohibitionists. Look how well they turned out.”

“I’ll make some coffee,” Steve assured, toeing off his shoes by the door, sliding them up against the wall neatly. Looking around, he added, a touch sadly, “You live here all by yourself?”

“I’m the sole proprietor but rarely the sole occupant,” Tony said, gesturing for Steve to make-himself-at-home. “I do have a part-time tenant—” He paused, then patted himself down, pulling out his phone. He ignored Steve’s stern look as he flicked through his contacts, held it to his ear.

“ _Tony?_ ” A beat. “ _What’s wrong? I’m—I’m tracking your phone, you’re here? I’m walking to my car, hang on, boss, I will be there in—_ ”

“Happy, kill the motor, everything’s fine,” Tony said, waving a hand and sidling over to the staircase, sitting on the third-to-last step. Steve set their bags by a chair so he could sit on it and rub Laika’s neck, watching Tony like he could hear Happy, even halfway across the room. He probably could, Tony thought ruefully.

“ _I am twenty minutes out, Tony, are you bleeding? Put pressure on the wound_.”

“I am not bleeding, I am _completely fine_.” He saw Steve’s flat look and rolled his eyes which, ow. Wincing, he added as firmly as possible, “I didn’t want you to freak out when you saw your rental was occupied.”

“ _Do you need me to call 911? I can call 911_.”

“Happy. Happy, listen. It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Understood?”

“ _Loud and clear, sir_.” A pause. “ _With all due respect, boss, what—?_ ”

“I’ll explain when you get here,” Tony said, because oh, _there_ was the 2 PM migraine, right-on-time. He sighed, reaching up to cover his eyes with a hand. “Also, Captain America is here, _do not engage_.”

“ _Oh God, is he holding you hostage?_ ” If Happy wasn’t wedded to the law, Tony was sure he would have heard the engine revving on his car. “ _I’ll be right there, boss, right there—_ ”

“He is _not_ ,” Tony said emphatically, “holding me _hostage_ , Hap, it’s _fine_.”

“ _I can hear from your tone of voice that something is awry and I will be right there, boss, right there, fifteen minutes, call 911 if anything changes and I’ll meet you at the hospital_.”

Sighing, Tony said, “Please don’t shoot him,” and hung up.

Steve said dryly, “Should I be worried?”

Tony advised, “If he tries to tackle you at the door, you’ve been warned.” He didn’t move his hand, feeling the tension bunching in his neck. “Goddammit, I really thought I was gonna get a freebie today.”

In six strides, Steve was _there_ , scooping him up in his arms like it was the most natural thing in the world. Tony was pretty sure anyone would have consented to have Captain America hold them to his chest, but only Tony got the privilege. It made him glow. “You’re spoiling me,” he told Steve, who hummed in vague agreement, like _yes but I want to_. 

So, Tony let him, surprising himself by falling asleep somewhere between the stairs and his actual bedroom one-flight-up, waking up in a sprawl of luxurious sheets to a muted if enthusiastic altercation between—

“Oh, God,” Tony groaned, as J.A.R.V.I.S. added politely:

“You should know, sir, that—”

“I know,” Tony grunted, hauling himself out of bed and _not_ falling face-first on the floor. “God, I hate being sir.”

It was a short stumble down the stairs to the main room where, lo and behold, Happy Hogan and Steve Rogers squared off. Tony noticed that Happy’s taser gun was holstered on Steve’s belt; Laika, thankfully, had decided not to join the fray, watching from the unlit fireplace instead. As Tony stepped further into the main room, Happy’s gaze snapped to him like an overeager bloodhound scenting a raccoon as he cried out, “Boss!”

Tony rubbed the sleep from his eyes, holding up a hand in warning as Happy took a step towards him. “I’m okay,” he said, hoping to defuse a patented Happy Hogan tackle-of-protection as he lied, “I’m just hungover.”

Immediately, Happy’s demeanor shifted from alert consternation to apologetic softness: “Sorry, sir—you should know, boss, that Captain Rogers confiscated my gun.”

“I can see that.” He flicked a glance at Steve, who returned the taser to Happy, who promptly pointed it at him. “Happy,” Tony grunted.

Happy holstered it, looking decidedly _unhappy_. “Sorry, boss.” A beat. “What happened? Did he hurt you?”

To Steve’s credit, he didn’t flinch, but he did straighten his shoulders in a way that plainly broadcasted, _I know guys with none’a that worth ten’a you_.

Tony shot Steve a look for good measure and Steve relaxed his stance, duly cowed. Still, Steve didn’t blink as he flicked his gaze back to Happy, entire posture radiating protective alertness. Tony wondered for a moment how spectacularly the two had collided at the door. Then the realization that they were fighting to protect _him_ from a perceived threat made him release a harsh breath as he said, “Listen, I’m fine. See? I’m fine. Picture of health.”

Happy insisted, “I can have him removed from the premises,” and Steve did not growl, but Tony saw a flash in his eyes of the man who went toe-to-toe with Thor, the God of Thunder, on a regular basis as Steve sized up Happy Hogan. Tony was tempted to let them duke it out, but he knew Happy’s pride at protecting Tony Stark from every manner of evil would never recover if Captain America body-slammed him into the floor. He didn’t want Happy to be pissed off around his boyfriend forever.

With a sigh, Tony looked at Steve in a way that he hoped conveyed, _This is not me choosing him_. Steve responded with the slightest incline of his head, barely a nod. Then Tony crossed the floor to Happy, who reflexively stepped between Tony and Steve. “It’s all right, boss,” Happy assured, hand on his holstered gun. “Everything is—”

Tony grabbed the back of Happy’s shirt and hauled him in for a hug, smacking the back of his shoulder to say, _at ease_. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Please stop pointing guns at him.”

He felt Happy slump with relief, hugging him back in that indulgent way he had—like Tony was his nephew and not employer—before adding, “Sorry, boss. Can’t be too sure.” Happy shot a tangible glare at Steve, who didn’t deign it with a response, even if he visibly bristled.

Releasing Happy, Tony strode over to Steve, kissed him _firmly_ on the cheek, and ordered, “Go upstairs.”

Steve didn’t pout, but the hand that slid across Tony’s back entreated, _And leave you?_ But Steve sidled off. Laika stood and followed him, her claws clicking on the floor.

 _Good dog_ , Tony thought, redirecting his focus to Happy, who was now looking more sheepish than before. A lot more sheepish.

“I’m sorry, boss.”

“It’s okay.” Reaching up to rub his eyes, Tony added, “It’s rude of me to stop by unannounced.”

“Not at all, boss. It’s your place.”

“Mm.” Looking around at the semi-lit space—it was dark outside; how long _had_ he been asleep?—Tony asked, “Anything fun happen while I was away?”

Happy said, surprisingly gently, “You know I’m trained to spot signs of duress, right, Stark?”

Tony looked at him, surprised. “What?”

Looking him over once, Happy observed, “You look kind of ragged. What the hell happened?”

Tony resisted the urge to walk over to the dark windows to see his reflection for himself. He knew that freshly awoken wasn’t his most _glamorous_ look, but there was something soft and anxious in Happy’s gaze, like he could see right through the act.

Tony swallowed, but the lump in his throat didn’t go away. “I don’t wanna talk about it,” he said, grateful that his voice was smooth. “If that’s a problem—”

Happy shook his head emphatically. “No, of course not.” Glancing at the stairs, he added, “I’m still running a background check on him.”

Tony sighed and said, “Yeah, I know.”

. o .

Again, Tony woke alone, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling for a long exasperated moment. Even though it was _quiet_ , he could almost hear the staring contest going on downstairs, this time in the broad light of early morning.

He wasn’t even surprised to find Steve and Happy sitting on opposite chairs in the living room, Laika curled up near Steve’s feet in apparent solidarity. Tony asked peevishly, “Did either of you sleep?”

Happy narrowed his eyes, torn between responding to Tony and making sure he didn’t take his eyes off Steve. Steve spared him, blinking once in clear concession. Tony knew for a fact that Steve could hold a stare for an uncannily long time, upwards of five minutes in an interrogative mood. Happy, like most mortals, tended to fold after less than a minute. 

Happy wasn’t _all_ talk, but he couldn’t snap bones like twigs, either. Steve was a wolf in man’s clothing who reached down to rub Laika’s head, declaring his withdrawal from the battle of wills. He didn’t look away from Happy, who flicked his gaze to Tony and stood, saying, “Stark. You’re up.” Shooting a withering look at Steve, he added, “You should know, boss, that his files are classified.”

Steve’s expression didn’t change, but he thumped Laika’s side and she stood up, loping over to Tony, who sighed and scratched between her ears. “He’s an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Happy,” Tony grunted, wandering off into the kitchen, Laika following. _Former agent_ , he thought, feeling something settle in his chest at the clarification even as he assured, “They’re all classified.”

“I thought he was an Avenger.”

Tony called from around the corner, “We don’t have separate paperwork, it’s all through S.H.I.E.L.D.” Gotta change that, he thought, understanding why Banner had held out for so long against giving S.H.I.E.L.D. so much as a cell phone number that wasn’t a dead-end. Sure, it made S.H.I.E.L.D.’s life easier, having agents on file, but Tony didn’t like it. Didn’t want it. He wondered if Barton and Romanoff would let him burn their files, knew Banner would write him a thank-you note and Thor, whose file was the government equivalent of three question marks, would appreciate being included in _their_ family, not S.H.I.E.L.D.’s.

S.H.I.E.L.D.’s reports weren’t public information, and Happy Hogan wasn’t the kind of tech wizard that unparalleled hacker Tony Stark was. Tony had broken files up to Level 8 on a casual basis, mostly to figure out what all those redacted black lines on Steve’s file _were_.

Grabbing a fresh orange from a bowl on the island—leave it to Happy Hogan, he mused, to keep them on hand—he called around the corner, “Do I need to sign a full-disclosure form that he’s not holding me under duress, Happy?”

Happy sighed. Steve didn’t make a sound, making him doubly hard to read with a wall between them. Open-concept, Tony thought, peeling the orange. He needed open-concept flooring. “No,” Happy grunted, sounding annoyed. “But it’s—it’s bad practice, boss, you can never be—”

“Too trusting,” Tony agreed, reappearing around the corner, taking a bite of his orange. “I know.” Laika stayed near him, heeling. Tony pointed out, “Would a _dog_ trust a nefarious agent intent on holding me hostage?”

Happy frowned before looking down at Laika. “She has white eyes,” he said, a touch accusingly. “What kind of dog has white eyes?”

“She’s Russian,” Tony said, taking another bite of his orange. “Ever heard of a Yakutian Laika?” He’d looked it up on the plane ride, to Steve’s chagrin, except it was Steve’s fault for sleeping and leaving him bored and alone with a tablet and a puzzle to solve. It had only taken forty minutes, which he was proud of. Laika’s black ear twitched before she padded over to Happy, walking lower and slower, sniffing.

Happy tensed. Laika retreated, settling on top of Steve’s feet instead, head low, attentive. Happy said, “See, she’s not—that’s—” Waving a hand, he added decisively, “What kind of dog has white eyes?”

Tony took another patient bite of his orange as Happy looked at Laika like he was trying to justify his defenses without being offensive, to explain that it was _dangerous_ to let _strangers_ into one’s _home_ without running _background checks_. 

Tony knew that Happy’s hyper-protective wires occasionally meant things got crossed, to the point where he’d once argued with Tony in a parking lot that Tony couldn’t drive home because he was drunk, even though Tony had been buckled in the backseat and Happy, dead-sober, had been behind the wheel with the keys already in hand. 

Tony had told Pepper, more than once, to send Happy back to the pound, but Happy was the least oppressive bodyguard on the market who was sharp even when Tony’s spectacular alacrity failed him but also sympathetic and human, unlike certain automatons that were more characteristic of the industry. Pepper had done her homework, and while Happy Hogan was a _little_ overprotective—

 _He’s a bodyguard, Tony, it’s literally the job_.

Of course, after yelling continuously for one spectacularly eventful month in early 2010—he was still reeling from the hangover he’d given himself to try to _forget_ that month, including the whole _come at me again, they replicated the suit?_ panic attack, diffused only because it wasn’t a _full_ suit replication and Ivan Vanko was just a bull-headed bastard who had reasons to hate _Howard_ Stark, but sins of the father? Really?—after _that_ , Tony had been happy to send overprotective Happy to Malibu with firm orders to _have fun, break the law, maybe adopt an iguana_ , at which point Happy had frowned and said:

 _Tony, iguanas aren’t even native to California_.

At least the Vankos had been vanquished without any loss of limb on the home team, Tony reflected, even though it was—well, there was certainly a reason why Happy had been one step away from childproofing the Tower after learning that Tony intended to _live_ in a ninety-three story glass tower in the middle of crime-riddled, danger-infested, genetically _unsafe_ New York City—

Taking another bite of his orange, Tony said blithely, “Hey, good news, Happy, I finally made it to Russia.”

And _that_ finally got him Happy’s full attention as his jaw dropped half an inch. “You _what?_ ”

. o . 

They’d been stateside for three days and Tony was confident that Steve hadn’t slept _at all_ , evidenced by his increasingly dark glares at Happy, who had slept soundly after Tony assured him that he would keep Happy’s taser in the bedside drawer, _just in case_ Steve turned out to be an alien impersonating Captain America.

It was almost funny that the only person on the planet who didn’t fall to their knees in adoration of Captain America also happened to be the one was responsible for Tony’s well-being. Except it wasn’t funny because Tony could see Steve slipping into his Captain America persona. The _last_ thing he wanted after almost losing Steve was to lose Steve.

It surprised him, then, when he returned from a refreshing-and-totally- _not-_ doing-anything-mentally-rigorous session in the lab downstairs, to find Happy and Steve sitting at the table speaking in hushed but conversational tones. Tony paused about halfway up the stairs, straining to hear them for a few seconds before wandering back down, shutting the lab door behind him, and telling J.A.R.V.I.S., “Mind being a fly on the wall?”

J.A.R.V.I.S. was used to the directive and didn’t need to ask where or who. He tuned in. Suddenly it was like Tony was in the room with them.

“ _I’m really sorry_ ,” Happy's disembodied voice was saying. “ _I shouldn’t have reacted so. . . ._ ”

Steve assured, “ _You were just doin’ your job. No hard feelings_.”

A beat. “ _Is he okay?_ ”

Tony was surprised at how anxiously he awaited the answer when Steve paused. “ _I think so_ ,” he said at last. Something relaxed in Tony’s shoulders at the confirmation, proof of the thing. He wandered around the lab and popped open the door on his R8 Spyder. Sitting in the passenger’s seat, he propped his feet up on the dash. Arms folded across his chest, he listened as Steve went on, “ _It won’t ever happen again_.”

“ _Guy like Tony, adventure is inevitable_ ,” Happy warned. “ _Can’t slow him down. You know, it’s like—first time you drive a car, you’re careful. Then you get a feel for it; you can take it anywhere. Next car’s different, but you get used to that one, too. And once you can drive three different cars, you can drive any one. So, you get bolder. Faster. And if things play out the way you plan them, you might someday drive a really fast car. Once you can handle that_ — _sky’s the limit_.”

Tony closed his eyes, trying to picture his first car. He found he couldn’t remember the model—made his head throb to try, so he let it go—but he could remember Edwin Jarvis, pressed in his perennial suit, in the passenger’s seat, saying with admirable calm, “I feel completely safe.”

And there was something about that comforting lie—he knew Jarvis dabbed at his temple with a clean cloth when he thought Tony wasn’t looking—that let him take a breath, take the wheel, and drive. He’d been fourteen in Backwater USA. His father had told him to wreck a car and learn something before handing him the keys to a ride most people could only dream of owning. His father had always encouraged him to burn his hand on the proverbial stove, to learn the ropes and fall and try, try again. 

He’d never tried to coddle Tony. Maybe it was strange, being coddled in middle adulthood, but maybe it was normal to have people like Jarvis, who insisted on going along with some excuse, _I’ll be there to help if you need it_.

He tuned back into the conversation as Steve said, “ _Never had a car. Just a bike_. _It was always fun, taking it out_.”

Without conscious thought, Tony started sketching a motorcycle in his mind, the perfect motorcycle, Plato’s ideal. Happy said, “ _Never driven a motorcycle_.”

“ _It’s liberating_ ,” was all Steve said.

There was a long pause. Tony expected the scraping of chairs. Instead, he heard Happy’s voice say, “ _I should’ve been there_.”

“ _No. No one should’ve been there_.”

“ _Not in—not in Russia—New York_.” Tony slunk deeper into the seat, suddenly unsure if he wanted to eavesdrop. He couldn’t make himself turn off the speaker as Happy went on, “ _Guy’s been through enough, you know. Then there’s aliens? I should’ve come home. I just figured, we were on the phone, right. He sounded so—normal. I figured, how bad could it be, right? So, I stayed. I should’ve come home._ ”

Steve said, his voice one degree rougher than usual, “ _New York, Russia—it’s never gonna happen again_.”

“ _I trust you. Hard not to, given the whole—living legend thing_.” Steve said nothing. Happy cleared his throat. “ _Did you really—on ice, seventy years?_ ”

“ _It still 2012?_ ” Tony could almost hear Happy nod. “ _Sixty-seven_.”

“ _Can’t imagine_.” Steve was quiet again. Happy went on conversationally: “ _Must be kind of fun_.” Again, a heavy silence. “ _All the—you know, if I got to see the future, I think it’d be interesting_.”

“ _It is interesting_ ,” Steve agreed, “ _until you can’t go back. Then it’s real_.”

Happy read Tony’s mind: “ _And do you—? Would you—? Do you want to go home?_ ”

Steve just said, “ _I am home_.”

. o .

As midnight ticked by and heralded the fourth day, Tony sidled into the main room and asked, “Is this your subtle way of telling me you’re secretly _not_ a cuddler?”

Seated in front of the glass and looking out over the water, Steve didn’t respond. Laika, who had curled up next to him with her head on his thigh, twitched her white ear and lifted her head to look at Tony. Steve looked down at her, then up at Tony. He frowned rebukingly. “When’d you—?”

Tony arched his eyebrows and Steve let the issue drop with a sigh. Glancing out over the dark waters, Tony remarked, “Better view in the morning.” He looked down at the waters and said with sudden prescience, “I thought you liked the ocean?”

Steve said quietly, “I don’t got any qualms with it.” He exhaled deeply. “I gotta keep an eye on it, s’all.”

Tony tried for levity: “Crazy thing about oceans, they don’t tend to run off often.” Amending, he added, “Except when they do. But that doesn’t happen here.”

Steve didn’t take the bait. He looked out the window, like a soldier in a foxhole, waiting. “I’m okay, Tony,” he said. His voice was strong. “Go back to sleep.”

Tony shrugged, then stepped forward and clapped him on the shoulder. “No, I don’t think I will.” He gave it a tug. “C’mon.”

Steve said, “Can’t leave yet, Tony.”

Another light tug. “Nope, I’m calling it. Ocean’s gonna win this staring contest.” He pulled, muscles bunching as he started to manually pry Steve off the ground. He didn’t care—he’d drag Steve across the smooth floor if he had to. “C’mon, Rogers. Up and at ‘em.”

Sluggishly, Steve planted a hand on the floor and stood. Tony slipped under his left arm reflexively, even though Steve planted both feet firmly on the floor. Steve sighed in muted fondness, insisting, “I’m okay, Tony.”

“I know.” Tony squeezed his waist. “I. . . .” He didn’t know how to say all the words inside his head in less than ten thousand words. They were incomprehensible, unknowable even to him. He only knew the burning emotion in his chest as an ache for companionship. “Humor me?”

Steve nodded. He didn’t turn until Tony tugged on his shirt, pulling him away from the windows.

The entire basement was Tony’s lab. The lights came on synchronously with their movement, lighting up enough to navigate the stairs and then illuminating the whole space in star-like light. Tony introduced in a murmur, “Rhodey and Pepper are the only two people who have the codes, but you already got past the Alpha 410 override. Alpha 409 isn’t that much different.”

He didn’t drift far from Steve, returning to steady himself, to prove that Steve wasn’t a figment of his imagination but the living, breathing man himself. Steve listened attentively. When Tony said, “I’d like you to meet my firstborn,” he cocked his head as Tony called out, “Dum-E, don’t be shy.”

The robot stirred in its corner and Tony felt an odd emotion in his chest as he stepped forward and it—well, it couldn’t cock its head, it didn’t have one, but it lifted its arm and tilted to the side before opening and closing its mechanical hand twice in a wave. 

Tony clasped it, not quite gently but warmly, the same way he would greet an old friend. He said, “I think I still have your hat,” and the robot followed his movements as he darted around it. Dum-E moved gently, tracking his movements. “Where is it?” Tony muttered, opening drawers. Then he felt a paper cone settle over his head and sighed.

Dum-E retracted its arm. Tony reached up to take off the Dunce cap, popping it on Dum-E. “That is _no way_ to talk to your father,” he scolded it, even as Dum-E tilted its arm accidentally—or perhaps intentionally; Tony didn’t know how sentient even J.A.R.V.I.S. was, let alone a simplified robot like Dum-E—and knocked the hat on the floor. It bounced with a sound like an empty paper towel roll. 

Tony leaned down to grab it. Dum-E stood still as he replaced the hat on its head before tilting it the opposite direction, again knocking it down.

Sighing, Tony picked up the hat and stuffed it on his own head at a rakish angle. He told Steve, “Parenthood is a thankless occupation.”

Wordlessly, Steve stepped forward. Dum-E turned to center on him, making him pause, before he took another step forward. They’d opted to leave Laika upstairs, which Tony was glad for—he wasn’t sure if she’d bark or cower from the bot, but Steve’s expression was a mixture of wonder and wariness, genuine curiosity and a touch of concern. Tony said, “He’s friendly,” and patted the robot on the metal neck. “This is my son.”

Dum-E opened and closed its hand twice in Steve’s direction. Steve took a hesitant step forward. With a quick glance at Tony, who gestured invitingly, Steve wrapped a hand around Dum-E’s mechanical one before letting it go. In a tone of abject wonder, Steve said, “Even better than a flyin’ car.”

Dum-E reached out and Tony stood still so the robot could grab the Dunce cap and replace it on its own head. Shaking his head, Steve rebuked, “Nah, don’t let him fool you,” and grabbed the cap, dropping it on the floor. “I think you’re swell.” Dum-E opened and closed its hand again, whirring. “Yeah, see, swell.” He patted Dum-E on the top of its claw, adding, “No Dunce cap for _you_.”

“He deserves it,” Tony warned. Dum-E turned to look at him. Tony said, “You know what you did.” Dum-E’s arm lowered, contrite. Tony sighed, patting it and adding, “It’s fine, I shouldn’t have set so many suits on fire.”

Steve tipped his head down incredulously, eyebrows arched. “Suits on fire?” he repeated. “How many—?”

Tony looked at Dum-E, which lifted until they were eye-to-eye, before they both looked at Steve. “Remember that home video stuff?” Tony said. Dum-E reached for the Dunce cap and alighted it on Tony’s head. “What he said,” Tony said with a nonchalant wave towards his head.

. o . 

“ _Day 11, Test 36, Configuration 2.0. Ready to rock and roll? All right, ten percent thrust capacity_.”

Tony paused the video. “In my preemptive defense,” he began, accepting the bag of popcorn Dum-E held out for him, digging around for a handful, “this is _exactly_ why I added the calf stabilizers.”

Steve, sitting with his back to the cabinets, arched his eyebrows at Tony, accepting a handful of popcorn for himself. “Famous last words,” he murmured. Tony sighed, pressed play, and let the tape roll.

On screen, Tony Stark, five years younger and a hell of a lot less experienced in the flight department, stepped backwards gingerly in the unplated Iron boots and Iron gauntlets, the whole system rigged up to the arc reactor in a crude imitation of the final suit configuration. 

The sight of it, of himself fumbling around with it made his heart swell with pride to watch, like a JPL kid watching their first backyard rocket launch. Nostalgia, paired off with a touch of longing, for a simpler time in his life when it was him and Pepper and Rhodey and Dum-E. When he didn’t know if he could make a sustainable Iron Man suit, but by God, he was going to _try_.

Then, as proof of why the sober present was preferable to the rose-colored past, on-screen Tony launched himself into a bannister before crashing to the floor and being doused in a wave of white foam. Present-day Dum-E offered him the popcorn bag again as a consolation. Tony scooped out another handful, saying, “Yeah, you were on thin ice, buddy. Disassembly was on the mind.”

Steve frowned thoughtfully. “Looks like it hurt.”

Tony shrugged. “I didn’t break anything.” He squeezed Steve’s left thigh, the nearest, absentmindedly. “Also, Rhodey laughed for like ten minutes the first time I showed him that clip. Not even a chuckle?”

Steve looked over at him, gaze flicking up and down, sizing him up, before shrugging and turning back to the screen. “Kinda wish I could give him a hug,” Steve admitted.

Tony sighed, grabbing Steve’s arm and wrapping it around his own shoulders. “There. Now you can.” He fast-forwarded the tape, letting it roll as his younger self, still dripping foam, looked at Dum-E with a withering expression before howling in alarm, _Nah-UH!_ and holding up both hands as Dum-E doused him in another short burst.

Steve huffed in amusement. On screen, Tony wrenched the fire extinguisher from Dum-E and pointed it at the robot, asking furiously, “Huh? You wanna get sprayed with the foam?” Spitting a mouthful of it aside, he added, “All right, we’ll be back in . . . twenty minutes. Give or take.”

The tape cut. Steve mused, “It's strange.”

Tony asked, “What’s strange?”

Steve said, “Feels like—in twenty minutes, he’ll walk back in the room. Pick up where he left off. But you’re still. . . .” He squeezed Tony gently. “You’re right here.”

“The magic of television,” Tony told him.

Steve said, “Hm,” and Tony wondered what it must be like, to see yourself—or even your non-celebrity relative—on-screen for the first time, a moment in time. It was one thing to watch a show or a movie, but to watch a recording of the past. . . . 

“You had longer hair,” he added thoughtfully, sliding a hand up and brushing his fingers with aching tenderness through Tony’s shorter hair. The mere motion of it, the repetition, was enough to make his eyelids heavy, chin dipping to rest on Steve’s shoulder.

In response, Tony murmured, “I aged past my boyband phase.”

Steve hummed, still carding his fingers through Tony’s hair. “I think you’re beautiful,” he said, with the kind of honesty that Tony couldn’t refute with a witty one-liner, couldn’t play off, could only swallow and accept, but he did hide his face against Steve’s shoulder, telling his shirt:

“I love you.”

He was pretty sure Steve said it back, was pretty sure there was no way he could fall asleep on a concrete floor, but with Steve next to him, the warmest, safest pillow on the planet, hand carding through his hair, and the star-light of the lab, it was easier to sleep, to give into trust than to stay on guard, and so he did.

. o .

Tony asked softly, “What’s wrong?”

Steve looked at him, tired in a way that Tony hadn’t seen him since—since the night he moved into the Tower, and sipped at a glass of water.

When it was empty, he set the glass down and said quietly, “I can’t sleep.”

The raw honesty was a testament to his exhaustion. Tony sauntered over, wrapping his arms around Steve’s shoulders, resting his chin on top of straw-colored hair, limp with exhaustion. “Why?” he pressed, chafing his palms up and down Steve’s arms. They felt cool to the touch. Mentally, he jotted down a note to increase the ambient temperature. It had felt warm enough to him, but the subsurface shivers spoke otherwise for Steve.

Steve sighed. “Because if—if something happens . . . and I’m not there. . . .” He trailed off, swallowing. “I need everyone to be okay, Tony.”

Tony nuzzled the top of his head. “They’re okay.”

Steve lifted a hand and stroked Tony’s arm with his thumb, but he didn’t say anything out loud. For a moment, his eyes did close. The midmorning light was bright and beautiful and soft against their skin, forgiving even against the slight gray of exhaustion that had settled over Steve’s. Tony had hoped to take a walk on the beach, maybe even go for—and it was bold to entertain, but Steve made him feel bolder—a dip in the pool, but seeing Steve at the table, hunch-shouldered and radiating exhaustion, tugged him in a different direction.

Tony asked so quietly it was barely even vocalized, rumbling in his own chest, “Do you wanna go home?”

Steve turned in Tony’s hold instead to kiss him firmly. Tony cupped his face and melted into it, feeling his heart rate slow, the silent emotional tremors even as he lingered, savored, and accepted all the love Steve gave.

. o . 

The bedroom was more open—with a truly inspiring view of the ocean all along the far wall—and more private, tucked away in the manor and beyond the reach of pesky reporters and other, less personal strangers who passed by on the streets. 

There was something deliciously comforting about it, being _unreachable_ , being so far away from everyone that it felt like no one else even existed. He kissed Steve like he intended to prove it, hands tangled in soft hair, holding him gently captive, _don’t run away, don’t go, don’t go_.

The bed was luxurious—Tony had spared no expense for his Malibu estate—and he felt Steve’s heavy, inaudible hum as he laid back, sliding his own hands slowly up Tony’s back, back down, rucking up his loose shirt gently. 

They breathed softly, not urgently, into each other’s space. Tony bumped his nose against Steve’s before pressing a kiss to his cheek, Steve’s hooded blue eyes watching him, his hands sweeping up and down Tony’s back, mesmerizingly firm.

Tony kissed along his cheek, down his jaw, lingering on the spot underneath that made Steve’s breathing go softer, his hands slow on Tony’s back. He hummed in approval, echoed by Steve’s breathier sigh, his hands raking up Tony’s back with so much care he was afraid he might cry. 

He let his full weight rest on Steve, knowing he could take it, knowing he _wanted_ it, like the world’s most comforting blanket. There was something silly to be said that Tony never said, brushing a kiss to Steve’s throat, lingering.

He thought that there was something he should say, something about how the world wasn’t Steve’s personal responsibility, how he didn’t _blame_ Steve for Norilsk, because he knew at the heart of it all was damning guilt over a catastrophe not of Steve’s but S.H.I.E.L.D.’s making. “Wasn’t you,” he murmured against Steve’s cheek. Then, more clearly, he explained, “Wasn’t your fault, Steve.”

Steve cupped the back of his head gently, aware that it was still bruised, still tender. Tony kissed him back, affirmation and insistence. Silently, he demanded, _Don’t you dare go_. As soon as he broke away, he whispered, “I—don’t— _blame—_ _you_.”

It was amazing how true the statement was, how—how maybe, he should have been pissed off, that his every prediction had come true, that Norilsk wasn’t just mean it was _bitter_ , it tore them apart, it hit them hard; it left its mark on them—and maybe he should have been bitter, spitting anger, _I told you, I told you_ , they never should have gone to Norilsk, nothing good would come of Norilsk, and—

He was right. Steve _knew_ he was right. Tony didn’t _care_ that he was right.

 _I told you so_ had never done more good than harm.

He said on a hush of breath, “You came home. That’s all I care about. Okay?”

Steve curved a leg around both of Tony’s, rolling him onto his side and shuffling closer, heavy but not overbearing as he curled an arm around Tony’s back, holding him. Tony could hear his short breaths, could feel the ricocheting tension, the need to prevent catastrophe warring with the fact that the danger had passed.

“We get to go home,” he murmured, feeling a shiver work down Steve’s spine, his own palm flat against warm skin, right above Steve’s hip. “We get to go home.”

Steve curled his leg over both of Tony’s more firmly. He repeated aloud, “I am home.”

Tony pressed his cheek against Steve’s shoulder, surrounded by his warmth, wide awake and insisting with every gentle brush of his thumb over Steve’s hip that _I’m here, I’m here, I’m here_.

Steve didn’t snore, but his breathing deepened. Tony tilted his head to kiss the underside of his jaw, just a comforting thing. The rhythm of Steve’s breathing didn’t change: his chest rose expansively, fell slowly, a proof of vitality so immediate it made a lump form in Tony’s throat.

Tony stayed with him, tucked close, safe and warm—and happy, for once, to do absolutely nothing.

. o .

Coming home— _really_ home; not the remote reaches of Anchorage or the snowy stretches of Whistler or even sunny southern Malibu but loud, abrasive, freeze-your-ass-off New York—was surprisingly welcome.

Tony had expected to feel crowded and out-of-place, but it was—it was more focused, more personal, and more emotional than he’d expected, like the rest of the team hadn’t _known_ if he and Steve were alive until they saw them again in the empty lobby of the Tower. They barely waited for them to get through the door before hugging them, far longer than Tony was used to, relief and joy plain in the air.

Clint gave Steve a firm bear hug and Tony the same treatment, while Bruce laughed, overwhelmed with joy. Natasha clung to Steve, holding onto his shoulders like _don’t run away_ , for such a time that impatience took over Clint as he joined in, flinging a firm arm around Steve and a much softer one around Natasha, squeezing them both. Bruce hugged Steve from behind, and Tony let Steve get a hand in his shirt and pull him in. One of Bruce’s arms slid around him, one of Natasha’s hands in the front of his shirt, everyone _anchored_.

It was stiflingly warm, _wonderfully_ warm. Someone sniffled and Tony hoped it wasn’t him. Bruce finally stepped back and accepted a tissue from a plastic tissue bag that Clint offered with a knowing smile, his own teeth bared in a grin that was pure joy. Natasha let go of Steve and surprised Tony by pulling him in for a long, gentle hug, like she hadn’t seen him in ten years. He felt abruptly very loved by these misfits, these—his _family_.

And that was the heart of it: he felt _loved_ , impossibly well-loved.

He’d never known a group of people could be capable of feeling such powerful emotion towards him. He was the cold-hearted genius who could count on one hand the number of times he’d embraced his own mother. He’d hugged Jarvis when he was small, out of a sort of desperate need to be loved by somebody he didn’t feel he had to impress. He hadn’t had a good hug, a _real_ hug, a more-than-polite-pat-on-the-back hug, until Rhodey and he met at MIT. Suddenly it wasn’t a silent pain he had to endure but a group effort, _W_ _e can do this_. He felt the puzzle piece click into place.

He was _so_ fucking worn out from flying, dazed from the last three-hour time zone jump—it was almost midnight here, nine PM back in Happy’s and Dum-E’s world—but he felt awake, enlivened, even, and was the first to suggest they go out, c’mon, it’s New York. Clint took their bags from Steve, who frowned but conceded, while Pepper, sweet, patient Pepper, passed Clint Laika’s leash before stepping in to hug Tony again.

Tony buried his face in Pepper’s hair and settled into her embrace. He assured with a gentle squeeze that _I_ _t’s okay_. Almost before he was ready to let her go, Clint was back. Pepper stepped away. Then Pepper was on the phone with Rhodey, _T_ _hey got in_. Tony could kiss her for gratitude. He didn’t have to handle it; he could _be_. He let Steve wrap an arm around him and guide him towards the parking garage. 

The six of them piled into a van with a lot of noise from the peanut gallery. The casual pandemonium was such that even Steve didn’t attempt to sort it. He let it all fill the air with a hint of a real smile, a real and tired and generous smile that was worth its weight in gold. Tony could have sat in the seat next to him, but that was a waste of a good lap as far as he was concerned. Steve didn’t mind, wrapping his arms around him. It felt almost scandalous but also very not, because the windows were blacked-out, anyway. Nobody on the inside _cared_ —

No, nobody on the inside _objected_ : they all cared. There was a warm understanding in the air as Natasha drove to constant pestering from Clint in the passenger’s seat. Pepper and Bruce had staked claims to the middle seat while Steve and Tony huddled in the back, almost but not quite forgotten.

By some happy coincidence, they ended up at Tony’s favorite diner. His stomach growled for the first time since lunch, and he knew he could’ve— _should have—_ eaten more than stomach-settling pretzels on the plane, but he’d wanted to be home. Even by private jet, it was a long flight to the city. He could almost feel Steve’s toe-tapping impatience on the plane, even though he sat still, Laika’s new leash in hand as she slept at his feet.

Tony surprised himself by missing her, the stray that had accompanied Steve out of the mines feeling like a tether to some happy ending that they’d earned, proof that they had made it out alive, that it wouldn’t all come tumbling down. He already knew that he’d have a headache by the time they got home, but he didn’t care because he’d get over it. He didn’t want to abandon it, any of it.

He was reluctant to leave his comfortable perch even for the enticement of delicious breakfast food, but as Natasha cut the engine, Tony’s growling stomach persuaded him that, yes, he could spare a few minutes, an hour at most, to eat before insisting on his fourth or fifth round of the twelve-hour-hug that Steve had promised him.

While Tony didn’t black out, he went into mental power-saving mode as soon as the doors slid open, checking back in as Steve said in his twangy Brooklyn drawl, “Canadians do it better.”

Sitting across from him at their round table, Clint said, “Amen,” and crunched down on another crisp slice of bacon. “Know who does the best coffee? Australia.”

“ _Really?_ ” Steve conveyed impressed and amused doubtfulness in the same breath as he asked, “Why?”

“I’m partial to the naming system,” Clint admitted.

“Long black coffee,” Tony chimed in, “order of kings.”

Clint tipped his head in concession before telling Bruce, “There better be whipped cream in that can or you’re a dead man.”

As proof that the world sat right on its axis, Bruce shook the can, topped off his pancakes with a hearty dollop of whipped cream, and only looked mildly humbled when Steve took the can and slid it to Clint. “Share,” Steve warned.

Clint grinned wolfishly and tipped the can to his mouth, spraying it and making Natasha sigh in exasperation while Steve chided, “ _Don’t do that_.”

“This is why you’re Team Dad,” Tony stage-whispered to him, poaching a slice of bacon from Steve’s plate and sighing euphorically. “I just wanna be Cool Uncle.”

Clint assured post-cream, “I’ll buy ‘em off,” and waved his wallet, grinning. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”

Steve noticed Tony poaching his second slice, but instead of telling him off he picked up Tony’s coffee and drank half of it in one gulp, setting it back down and pointing out, “We have whipped cream at home.”

“Not _this_ whipped cream,” Clint said seriously, shaking the can and spraying another dollop in his mouth.

Steve brushed a hand down his face. Natasha asked between bites of blueberry pancake, “Aren’t you glad you came back?”

Steve gave a long-suffering sigh, but even he couldn’t suppress a small smile. “Can’t even imagine the kind of trouble you’d get in if I _wasn’t_ here.”

. o .

Steve didn’t quite tuck everyone into bed, but it was close, insisting on bedtime hugs all around, which Tony could see were necessary for both parties.

Natasha leaned up on tiptoe to kiss Steve’s cheek. Clint pretended to shove him away playfully. Bruce just went limp in his embrace. Tony watched them and envied Pepper, already snoozing below in her own bed while he stifled another yawn. 

He waited with a touch of impatience for the routine to conclude. When it did, he waved a hand in a vague _night-night_ to the gang and waited until Steve joined him before stepping out through the door.

He kissed him firmly. Steve relaxed, like he’d had the same thought, and _God_ , being on the same wavelength was sweet. Steve tasted like that sinfully good whipped cream, and Tony couldn’t quite stifle a snicker against his cheek, Steve’s sigh affectionate and exasperated and so goddamn loving.

“You were right,” Steve murmured, sliding a hand up to cup the back of his neck, scratching the nape lightly, “those were the best hot-cakes I’ve ever had.”

Tony preened, snagged another quick kiss, then nodded towards the stairs. He admitted, “I’ve hit my elevator quota for the day.” He’d been glad that he hadn’t panicked on the way up to the balcony, even if he’d hidden underneath Steve’s jacket the second the doors closed, the darkness and warmth comforting, steady-state, _nothing is wrong_. 

And nothing was, but the last three stories weren’t backbreaking manual labor. He held the door for Steve with a smile, like a _gentleman_. Steve accepted and then crowded him against a wall and kissed him. Oh yes, he really was a genius.

Tony sighed into it, content to be _home_. 

It wasn’t a long walk upstairs even though he made a show of complaining about genuine soreness and exaggerated old man syndrome, thwarting Steve’s attempts to out-gentleman him by carrying him, darting ahead a few steps and looking down at him. Steve tilted his head in amused confusion, his big hand warm in Tony’s calloused palm as Tony took it and tugged him gently the rest of the way. Tony pushed open the door and almost cried with relief as Laika came charging over, her collar clinking. 

Tony let go of Steve so he could crash to the floor and wrap both arms around her neck, greeting, “Good girl, Laika, _khoroshaya sobaka_ , I missed you, I missed you, I did, I’m home now.”

Their bags were by the nearest door, Steve’s old room. Steve picked them up and slid them over his shoulder, one-last-time, the final march to victory. Laika allowed Tony to kiss the top of her head between her pointy ears before clambering to his feet. He caught up to Steve just as the door slid back.

God, it was his _room_ , they were _home_ , it was—

He was struck, not for the first time, by how close he had come to never coming back. He could feel it in the air as Steve slid the bags to the floor, one-last-time. Then Steve exhaled triumphantly.

That was the feeling in the air, Tony decided, grabbing him by his jacket and tugging him for another lingering kiss. He was almost cross-eyed when he opened his eyes, so exhausted he wasn’t even tired, he was just _happy_. Steve held him securely and kept him from stumbling over his own feet, guiding him to the edge of the bed. He knelt down and reverently untied Tony’s shoes, setting them aside, straightening so he could ease the jacket off Tony’s own shoulders. As soon as it was gone, Tony flopped back onto the bed, groaning in contentment because yes. _Yes_.

Bedtime.

In his own bed, his own _home_ , the only place in the world Steve was. He didn’t need to see Steve murmur to Laika, her clicking claws as he quietly spoke to her in Russian, introducing her to the space, _D_ _o you like the room? Do you like the floor? I will make you a bed, I have an idea_. 

And he did, he pulled out the spare sheet from the closet, using his own downy jacket as a base. Guided by the sound of the door opening, the zip of the jacket, Tony followed him as he patted it into a shape he liked, telling Laika in her native Russian, _S_ _ee, a good soft place_. Tony heard her settle and roll on it. Steve stripped his outermost shirt and added, _Here, this is soft, you can sleep on it_. with a final rub to her head, a final _khoroshaya sobaka_ , he sauntered back over to Tony.

Tony, who reached out and curled a hand in his undershirt, tugging, encouraging, “C’mere, big guy.”

Steve kicked off his own shoes and settled next to him. “Tomorrow is tomorrow,” he murmured, curling an arm around Tony, hauling him up the bed, tugging the blankets and covers after them, exhaling in relief as he curled around Tony. “Tonight, I’m just gonna hold you.”

Tony said breezily, “Fine by me,” and felt Steve’s smile as he pressed a kiss to Tony’s hair.

He said softly, “I don’t forget. Not just the bad. It’s—s’gonna be okay. I’ll make it okay. I will.”

Tony nuzzled into the space between shoulder and neck and told him, “Go to sleep, Steve.”

And for once, without so much as a token protest, Steve obliged, breathing deepening. It wasn’t long before Tony joined him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Russian translations:  
>  _Khoroshaya sobaka._ \- Good dog.


	30. A SENSE OF BELONGING

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :') 30 chapters. 300,000 words. Cheers.

Sitting in the therapist’s office, Steve asked calmly, “Is this a test?”

Seated across from him, Dr. Anna Bailey replied, “As in, pass or fail? No. It’s more of a—a get-to-know-you period. Therapy is a collaborative effort. It won’t work if you feel uncomfortable or don’t think that our work together can help you. And that’s perfectly fine; there are other therapists to choose from. I’d rather you find someone you feel comfortable with than stay out of obligation.”

“Isn’t the very nature of therapy uncomfortable?” Steve asked, arms folded across his chest.

“Many people feel the same way, especially prior to the first session,” Dr. Bailey agreed. She reminded him of Maria Hill, like an older cousin, not the same look but the same genetic confidence, easy and in her environment. “We often present a certain image to others and sharing anything other than that, especially to a stranger, can be unnerving. But many people also find that anonymity liberating. There’s no risk socially. This is a safe space to share your story—whatever part of your story—you’d like to.”

Steve looked her over thoughtfully, searching for malicious intent. He couldn’t consciously loosen his jaw. He asked conversationally, “And what do you get out of this?”

Dr. Bailey tilted her head slightly. “I like helping people,” she said simply. “It’s a fairly universal desire. This is how I can help people.”

Steve nodded once, conceding little, rocking in the chair. He couldn’t help his reserve. Underneath the uniform, he wasn’t a very _warm-and-fuzzy_ kind of guy, never had been—not like Bruce, who was somehow a rage monster and a panda bear in the same body, or Clint, who was exactly the kind of guy you’d take to a bar on a Saturday night, or Natasha, who hadn’t been reprogrammed to coldness anywhere near as successfully as the world at large might believe. Even Tony, who had twelve different personas for every social occasion, was fundamentally _sweet_.

Steve Rogers would never win awards for his winning personality, but he was capable of a damn good impression of one. On his own, he was kind of quiet—which meant standoffish—and he liked to draw—which was a woman’s hobby if you weren’t the next Rembrandt—and he was argumentative to a fault. People had tended to ignore scrawny, sickly Steve Rogers. He’d gotten used to ignoring them right back. Nobody was happy with it, but at least it felt like the natural order.

Hell, he thought with genuine amusement, what’d he need therapy for? He knew his own neuroses. He had two identities to hide behind. Only one of them was likeable, _magnetic_. Captain America invited people to lay their burdens at his feet. Steve never minded—he was honored to be trusted with their confidence—but he couldn’t deny that they’d be surprised if they knew how remote Captain America was from the guy from Brooklyn, if not downright off-put.

Captain America wasn’t an _act_ , per se, but Steve Rogers was. . . . He was naturally a kind of broody person. Bucky had noted that he had a permanent scowl on his face when he wasn’t smilin’. Of course James Buchanan Barnes had a movie star kind of grin, inviting no matter how little he was tryin’. He was authentically likeable to his core. Steve Rogers was . . . well. He was Steve Rogers.

“Why soldiers?” he asked suddenly, planting his feet more firmly on the floor, trying not to get lost as he looked out the window over Dr. Bailey’s shoulder. “We aren’t exactly the cuddliest bunch.” And there it was, the _Captain America_ voice, deeper than normal and a touch slower, the one that didn’t falter in the slightest. It felt good. 

It tasted like a lie, but it _felt_ good, in control. He’d take it. He’d rather be in control than exposed. “Unless that’s changed, too,” he offered, in a rather lame attempt at being conversational, flicking his gaze back to her thoughtfully. He forced himself to blink once, to not stare her down.

Dr. Bailey shrugged. “Human nature doesn’t change that quickly,” she assured. A tiny pinprick of trepidation burning under Steve’s left shoulder vanished, causing his posture to loosen fractionally. He couldn’t name why that was comforting, except that even the _lie_ of it was comforting. 

“But whether someone is a soldier or a surgeon, they’re a human being underneath the uniform.” Nodding in acknowledgment, she added, “Military engagement is a unique life experience. And it’s an area with a great need for support. I’ve spent the last twenty-two years working with individuals with a military background.”

“Twenty-two years?” Steve asked, a touch incredulously.

Dr. Bailey nodded, leaned forward in her chair. He paused mid-rock. “This is where I want to be, Captain Rogers,” she said. “The question is—is it where _you_ want to be?”

Steve actually smiled a little. It wasn’t happy. Just amused. Setting the chair back down, he said, “Let’s just say where I come from, I’d be doing everything I could to convince you I wasn’t anything other than another military guy doing his job.” He rocked slowly. “I’d tell you whatever you wanted to hear. What do you want to hear, Doc? I love my country?” 

He smiled brightly, toothily. “I do. Got all my limbs. Don’t got the shakes.” He narrowed his eyes. “Do you know what _shell shock_ is? It ain’t pretty. Ain’t subtle, either. It’s—” He paused, cleared his throat, then said, “Sorry. Gettin’ carried away on the first date.” His smile shifted into a flat, humorless spectrum. “Not used to talkin’ one-on-one with strangers. You could call me out of practice. Only been seventy years.”

Dr. Bailey said invitingly, “Actually, I’d say you’re doing fine.”

Steve rocked slowly, conceding absolutely nothing in his brooding, flat-jawed expression. Setting the chair down suddenly, he stood. He paced the length of the room once, forgetting himself, the kinetic energy like a full-body itch demanding attention, _move, move_. Then he sat back down and chafed his palms against his thighs once, itching to _run_. Run until he was tired, until he couldn’t get a word past panting breaths. It would take nine hours and he almost never had the time, but it was a good sort of terrible, to be _exhausted_. He felt jittery. Tossing out a line, he asked, “You ever get stiff doing this?”

Dr. Bailey shrugged. “Sure. I move around, mostly between sessions. You’re free to get up, walk around, sit wherever you’d like. I have clients who like to sit on the couch, the floor. This is as much your space as mine.” When Steve didn’t respond, she asked in the same conversational tone, “What brought you to my office today?” Steve wasn’t one to ignore a direct question, but he took his time, mulling over the possibility of getting up and walking out—hell, he’d take the direct route out the window, if he knew a thirty-story fall wouldn’t hurt like an SOB.

At last, determined to not to be a wimp, he said, “I’m here to disprove a theory.”

“And what theory is that?”

Steve didn’t respond. Dr. Bailey clasped her hands in her lap, loose, comfortable in her own chair, not hunch-shouldered but also not stiff-backed. Steve had to consciously keep his own shoulders rigid so he didn’t mirror her. “Insights take time, Captain Rogers,” she said at last, “but if I can hedge a guess with you—” She lifted her eyebrows, asking for permission to proceed. Steve nodded graciously. She went on, “I’d say you want to disprove that there’s something wrong with you.”

His fingers flexed against his left knee. Just a muscle spasm. An involuntary twitch. His heart seemed to beat noticeably faster in his chest. He spoke carefully. “All I’m here to prove,” he rasped, pausing, mouth dryer than he expected, “is that I’m fit for duty. If I can—” He cut himself off, refusing to finish the sentence. _If I can show you how normal I am, I can’t be crazy_.

Dr. Bailey waited, but Steve suddenly couldn’t look her in the eye, looking at his right hand instead, vaguely remembering black nails, dark blue fingertips. It had hurt like hell, but it was just another hurt to the pile. 

It healed. _He_ healed. 

He was whole and undamaged and strong. He said confidently, “I don’t need you to sign anything, you know. I need. . . .” _To see for myself_. He tightened his grip around his left knee to the point of pain. Easier than the sudden panic tightening in his throat because hell, why _had_ he come? 

He _was_ crazy. He was crazy and out of his mind and _unfit for duty_. He hated lying, pretending, acting like he wasn’t fundamentally _broken_.

And yet his voice was smooth as he said, “I don’t think you can begin to imagine what I’ve seen, Doc. So, tell me: how can you—?” He swallowed. Again, Dr. Bailey waited. He drew in a short breath. “You can’t do anything for me,” he told her, not meanly but with the same seriousness he used to tell an overworked guy to _go lay down, soldier, you’re done for the day_. 

It was a dismissal and an order, a don’t-you-dare-try-me bark that could very easily turn into a _bite_ if he was disobeyed. And yet—Dr. Bailey didn’t rise to it. He exhaled slowly. “You can’t. I know—I imagine you’re very good at what you do,” he said, falling into the role more easily, more comfortably than the dark chant, _you are unfixable_ , “I imagine you helped other people, soldiers like me. But you’ve. . . .” _You’ve never met a basket case like me_.

He released his knee, because he was squeezing it hard enough to hurt, to bruise. He stood. He paced again. Somehow, he didn’t leave the room, instead wandering over to the window and remarking calmly, “I don’t know what I want anymore. I. . . .” He turned to look at her. She leaned against one arm of her chair, having spun it around to face him, her expression inquisitive and not the least bit alarmed. He was grateful for that. 

Just because he was big and brooding didn’t mean he was—he didn’t _hurt_ people.

( _ **Liar**_.)

He sighed. “I’m not supposed to want what I want,” he said at last.

Dr. Bailey asked gently, “And what is it that you want, Captain?”

Steve looked out the window, trying to remember a different world. But the image was fading. That world was dead and gone. 

New York had moved on. A scathing voice asked him, _Why can’t you?_

“I want. . . .” He exhaled through his mouth. His eyes stung, but there were no tears. He was thankful for that. He might’ve _had_ to jump out the window to escape if that were the case. 

Dr. Bailey didn’t say anything, listening. “I _need_ to—to let ‘em go.” With a hint of a rasp, he added, “It’s wrong to walk away from it. Never tell ‘em goodbye. They were my—” 

He paused, then turned to look at her and explained with reassuring composure, “I was their commanding officer.” A beat. “Their—their—” _Cap_. “They were my responsibility.” _They were my_ ** _family_**. “I don’t think I can rest easy knowin’ that. . . .” _I left them to die_.

Itching in his own skin, he asked suddenly, “How many minutes are left?”

Dr. Bailey consulted her watch and said, “Nineteen.” She paused, looking at him with measured silence, neither judgmental nor frightened. “You don’t have to stay the full time, Captain.”

Steve nodded in understanding. He crossed his arms again, looking stoically out the window. “You got a family, Doc?”

“A husband, two daughters.”

“Congratulations.”

“Do you want a family, Captain?”

Steve huffed humorlessly, shifting his weight to his right foot. His left ached invisibly, a phantom pain. He hated phantom pain. He had enough of the visceral variety to keep him occupied. It insisted on being known, on twinging in his spine like he wasn’t allowed to forget it, either. “No. No, I don’t think I do.” Then: “I don’t think I get a choice.”

“And why is that?”

“Family just—” He paused thoughtfully. “It just sort of happens to you.” He watched a few snowflakes drift down idly, gaze darkening. “I don’t—I don’t know if I can—if I’m. . . .” _Fit to be their Captain. Fit to be_ **theirs**. “I don’t—want—” _want_ was so much safer than _deserve—_ “this. I don’t want to—to. . . . I can’t _sleep._ All I can think about is. . . .” He turned away from the window, refusing to drift into the snow, the tundra, the darkness. Softening, he said, “If I lose them, I lose me. And I don’t think I can do that twice.”

Dr. Bailey watched him with quiet, sympathetic eyes. Not quite staggering, he walked back to his chair, sat down. This time, he kept his feet flat on the floor. “I don’t know who I am anymore,” he admitted in a quiet undertone, like if he didn’t say it too loudly, it wouldn’t matter. “All I know is that I’m—” _At the end of my rope. And I can’t ask any more of them_. 

“I’m in a place I don’t wanna be,” he settled on. “And while I don’t _trust_ the—the idea—the _concept_ , you know, that talking can somehow—can—I’m willing to give it a shot. Can’t hurt.” He rocked in the chair slowly. “This the part where you ask if I have any questions? ‘Cause I think we might’ve already covered that part.”

“Have you been to therapy before, Captain?” Dr. Bailey’s voice was sympathetic. The lack of presumption was comforting. She was listenin’. He wasn’t sure what she thought of him, but he hadn’t scared her off. That was something, too.

“Not like this,” he told her, rocking in his chair. “Psych evaluations.” A beat. “I do have one more question.” He paused and set the chair down. He asked, “Still think you can handle me?”

Dr. Bailey said, “Handle is a tricky word. I’m not here to manipulate you, Captain or force you into a corner, make you confront things you don’t want to. I’m here to help you. My goal isn’t to shape you into someone new. It’s to give you the tools to lead the life you want. To find some with your life, yourself.”

Steve nodded, meeting her gaze briefly, not putting on any kind of show. She didn’t look at him with disappointment or confusion, _Where’s Captain America?_ He acknowledged quietly, “That’s a pretty good answer.”

She said, “Thank you.” Then, straightening in her chair, she added comfortingly, “You’re not broken, Captain. Therapy isn’t for broken people. It’s for _people_. Anyone who needs it.” Kindly, she added, “A lot of people are waiting to take the chance on themselves. To see if someone can help them climb out of the place they’re in, the place they don’t want to be. You took the chance today, Captain. Whether it feels like one or not, that’s a victory.”

Steve swallowed. Nodded. And said, in a conversational tone that came out too serious: “Good. I could use a few more of those.”

. o .

Whistling cheerfully, Bruce stepped into the balcony room and yelped as Tony’s shoe came within an inch of clocking him in the head. Glaring sternly, Tony held up a finger to his lips before pointing at the super-soldier sprawled next to him on the couch, arms folded on Tony’s thigh, breathing soft. Looking sheepish, Bruce pointed towards the kitchen and Tony rolled his eyes, waving a hand in permission. Without a word, Bruce toed off his shoes and scampered over to the kitchen area on surprisingly light feet, taking Tony’s warning to heart.

He creaked a cabinet on accident and Tony lofted his other shoe warningly, Bruce’s hands up shooting up in surrender. Lowering the shoe, Tony scowled at him, again pointing down to the tuft of golden hair visible over the back of the couch. Nodding apologetically, Bruce mimed zipping his lips shut. He grabbed the entire box of Froot Loops and walked off, the door sliding shut behind him.

It was seven PM, Tony noted, which marked the two-and-a-half-hour mark of Steve’s little cap-nap, if J.A.R.V.I.S. could be trusted—and he could, because he was an artificial intelligence, savvy and trustworthy like that. 

That was the miracle of being home, Tony mused—no more _guessing_ if Steve was asleep or staring blankly at the dark waters of the ocean, only proof-positive when Tony stepped through the doors to confirm it. Tony had _planned_ on about-facing and returning to his lab to keep working on repairs to the Mark IX, but four stories was an _awful_ lot of stairs to climb, even going down them, and well, who was he but a happy volunteer to be Steve Rogers’ pillow?

He’d expected Steve to do more than stir like he might say something before settling against him, but sometimes it was two in the morning at four in the afternoon. It didn’t matter that the serum produced enough kickass hormones to negate the need for eight hours a night. Nobody knew how much sleep Captain America needed to stay sane, but zero hours was a pipe dream, an impossibly steep goal. 

Every animal alive slept. It was, at some raw level, an unhackable part of their genetic code. You couldn’t cheat what sleep gave. Tony would Nerf the first person to interrupt Steve’s. The Nerf gun itself was about fifteen feet away in an ottoman. Sighing at his own lack of preparedness and vowing to remedy it at the soonest opportunity, he shifted his legs for the umpteenth time.

And still Steve didn’t get up, which was both wonderful—Tony loved being a human pillow; he and Rhodey had slept on each other in college so often he’d been rightly afraid he would actually _miss_ the casual contact once they graduated—and a touch worrying. He smoothed Steve’s hair down absentmindedly before letting his hand settle against the back of his neck. Steve breathed steadily, unfaltering.

Tony glanced out the window to watch a few more snowflakes drift down, terminating at the railing instead of the earth a thousand feet below. He wondered if the forecast for three inches of snow—about eight centimeters; and he thought it was a damn shame that they didn’t measure in _meters_ stateside because there was something triumphant, almost mind-boggling about _meters_ of snow—would actually come to fruition or not. 

It wasn’t _atypical_ weather for New York, but it was a lot of slush to deal with. Early snows producing crisp white blankets were more characteristic of country landscapes than city-scapes, where sludge was quick to settle in. They’d have to get buried in a couple feet before things became picturesque.

It was beautiful to watch. Especially from the warm comfort of his own home, with Steve breathing against him. 

Laika sat near the glass wall, head on the floor but white gaze fixed on the snowflakes. Tony told her, “I will build you a dog-door.” Laika shifted to her feet at the sound of his voice, padding over in the same low-to-the-ground walk, uncertain but not fearful in the new space, before sniffing at Steve’s shoulder. 

Tony hooked a hand in her collar and guided her over to the other side, patting her head twice in approval. “Motion-sensitive, of course,” he murmured. “I’ll have to childproof the balcony.” He frowned thoughtfully, sketching in his mind potential ways to make sure Laika didn’t find a way to slip under a railing for an express ticket to the ground.

An emphatic shiver rolled through him at the thought.

 _That_ got Steve’s attention. In less than a second, he was on his feet, fixing Tony with a confused frown before looking around the room in quiet unease. Laika inched forward again, sniffing at his pant-leg, but Steve ignored her, walking the width of the room, then the length. He repeated the maneuver in reverse order before sitting down on the couch, ignoring Laika as she sniffed at his loose hand. He stared at his own palms in frozen surprise, like they weren’t immaculate. Tony watched, waiting for something to change.

Laika sniffed at his hand. He turned his palm over before resting it on her head, folding an ear under his hand. “Da, khoroshaya sobaka,” he murmured. “Deutscher Hund.” Tony cocked his head at the discrepancy, but Steve patted her head and repeated, “Deutscher Hund.” When he removed his hand, she went to lie down on his feet and he barked suddenly, “Geh weg von mir!”

The words were incomprehensible to her, but the tone was not. Laika loped off like a spooked fox, vanishing around the couch corner. Tony saw Steve stare down at his trembling hands. Then he looked over at Tony and blinked uncomprehendingly. He looked back down at his hands, expression troubled. “Wer bir du?” he asked, looking at Tony expectantly.

_Who are you?_

Tony didn’t know how to respond, afraid to offer an actual response, _Ich bin Tony Stark_. He knew more German offhand than Russian, but he had a strong feeling that confirming he was on the opposite side of the War that was dark in Steve’s eyes wasn’t a good idea. There were some narratives he didn’t dare belong to. So he escaped it altogether, replying in plain English, “You know me.” Steve blinked once, expression blank for a terrifyingly long moment. His gaze flickered over Tony, a once-over, before his brow furrowed.

In broken English, Steve said: “Civili—civilian? Amerikanisch?” He stood up and walked away, adding allegedly for Tony’s benefit, “You shouldn’t, shouldn’t _sei hier_.” He paced, agitated. Tony felt out of his depth watching him, but he watched Steve spot Laika, standing near the wall. He crouched, hand extended, whistling, entreating calmly, “Komm her.” One of the handiest things about the German language was its overlap with English: phonetically, _komm her_ and _come here_ were almost indistinguishable. “Komm her.”

Laika, good sweet trusting Laika, walked over, head low, ears pricked permanently forward, sniffing at Steve’s outstretched hand in silent consideration. “Da,” he murmured. She wagged her tail hopefully. Resting a firm hand on her neck, Steve told her, “Good dog. Khoroshaya sobaka.” The swishing tail continued. He released her thick fur, sitting heavily and huffing out a breath. “You’re a good Russian dog,” he murmured.

“She’s the best Russian dog,” Tony corrected involuntarily, an arm curved over the back of the couch. Steve glanced up at him, eyes dark, hard to read. Tony asked quietly, “Are you okay?”

With toneless calm, Steve replied, “Did I hurt anyone?”

Tony thought it was a rather sad way of asking, _Did I hurt you?_

Shaking his head, Tony assured, “No. Of course not, Steve.”

Steve nodded once and patted Laika’s shoulder. He climbed to his feet. Laika wandered back to her self-appointed spot near the glass windows. Steve looked around the room, then firmed his jaw. “You ever wish you could check out of your own head, Tony?” he asked without turning around, looking out the window. “Be somebody else?”

Tony ambled over, slowly enough to not startle. “Don’t we all?” Steve turned his head, not looking at him but . . . listening. “I mean, it’s a—it’s a pain response, right? Stress, fear. Loneliness. That kind of thing. Like when you’re studying for a test, you wanna be the guy who passed it.” He reached out and curled his fingers in the back of Steve’s shirt. 

“Maybe you’ve got a toothache and you wish you could be anybody else eating at the same table.” He tugged gently. Testing the waters. Steve didn’t move. “Or maybe you’re in a dark cave in a distant country sweating through a ratty t-shirt wishing you could be just about any other nobody out there.” He tugged again. This time, Steve turned to face him, looking somber, like he was hearing it for the first time. Tony told him seriously, “I think it helps us stay sane, imagining being the other guy, the one who doesn’t have to live our life.”

Steve tucked him wordlessly into his arms, slinging them around Tony’s shoulders. Tony could hear his deep hum before he admitted, “I keep lookin’ for ‘em.” Tony settled his own hands on Steve’s belt, grounding himself. “A hundred and ninety-seven soldiers were under my direct command, Tony, and I . . . I keep looking for ‘em. Like they’re gonna turn up in foxholes or—I’d, I’d almost rather see bodies than nothing.” 

He swallowed, then shook his head, clearing it. “I hope the Lieutenant Colonel knew to look after ‘em. You know? I know they were just a couple hundred soldiers, but they were—they were _my_ kids.” He sighed. “I could’ve throttled some of them, because they _were_ kids. Average age of my company was twenty-five. 

“The youngest ones—the ones who’d lied on their recruitment forms but couldn’t lie to Captain America—they were fifteen, sixteen. Some of the older guys were in their fifties, but a lotta them—lotta them were young. And all of them were scared outta their minds.” 

Steve’s breath was warm and short against Tony’s shoulder as he admitted, “There was the officer’s tent, you know, but I slept in the barracks, rotating between platoons, traveling a lot because of it. It helped keep things calm. Kind of a persistent rumor, see, that Captain America was a lucky charm. Nobody ever died on his team.” 

A long pause. “So long as I was in the room,” Steve said slowly, rocking them, “there weren’t as many skirmishes, you know, infighting. Wasn’t because other COs weren’t good, it was—a plague, a disease. Because everybody knew they might be blown to pieces tomorrow, and doing that over and over and over again, it starts to break you down. But nobody ever died on Captain America’s watch. Soldiers, they _begged_ to be put in my company. Everybody wanted to be a Howling Commando.” 

He dug his fingers, very gently, into the back of Tony’s shirt. “I kept tellin’ them, I can’t be in charge ’a this many people, I’m not a _leader_. Then there would be two or three more transferred over, good guys, always, to them it was a goddamn _promotion—_ ” He swallowed. Tony could feel Steve’s heart racing. He didn’t say anything.

Slowly, Steve continued, like he was speaking to an invisible audience, “I told them, told _my_ COs, I said, ‘You put these boys under my watch, I can’t guarantee their safety’ and they said, ‘None of us can.’ And, you know what, that was enough. It wasn’t fair of me to shirk responsibility. If there was a _chance_ that we could—if a one-hundred-percent survival rate was possible, it was cruel to deny them the opportunity. 

“So, I let them assign more of ‘em to my company. I gave up on knowing all their names—that’s what dog tags were for—and I . . . I listened, I broke up fights—you can’t eradicate that kind of cancer, not wholly—and when they wanted to run, I told ‘em that there was nowhere else to go, that the War was everywhere. Learning to live with it here, where we could _do_ something about it, was meaningful.”

He shivered, not visibly, subsurface tremors. Tony wondered if he’d shivered back then, too. He didn’t say anything about it, gripping his utility belt more firmly. “I was there to justify why they had to die,” he said dully. It was Tony’s turn to shiver, a shudder that zipped down his spine. Steve said numbly, “But I wasn’t supposed to spell it out. I told them why they had to _live_. And—you know, Tony, know who the first person to die was? It was my right-hand. It was the one person who kept me sane, who’d promised to stick it out with me. And it was _my_ fault.” 

He eased his grip on the back of Tony’s shoulders, which made the trembling seem stronger. “Kind of a—a sick karma. I always told my kids it was worthwhile to lose, their friends, their own life. Here I was— _untouchable_. Captain America wasn’t supposed to lose, but I—I let him slip through my fingers. ‘f I’d been half a second faster—”

Tony said nothing, eyes shut, safe in the huddle of his arms. He knew that it wasn’t about him, not here, not now, wasn’t about Tony being safe: it was about Steve being _able_ to keep him safe. Being able to look after him. 

Steve’s fingers scrabbled at his back, fingertips digging in, trying to find a safe hold. He settled for gripping his own wrist, arms resting heavily on Tony’s shoulders. “Doesn’t matter. They’re dead now. And I left ‘em to die. I told them that there was no way to get outta the War, that they could either die here quick or die at home in a raid, but I—I got out. But nobody else made it.”

He breathed raggedly for a few seconds, on the verge of panic, but it subsided like a tide as he loosened his grip on Tony, not stepping back but not _leaning_ anymore, either. He caught himself, saying in a surprisingly normal tone, “If anybody had died in Siberia, I honestly don’t know what I would’ve done.” The dissonance—the mundanity of the statement, a tone reserved for _Cloudy today; think it’ll rain later?—_ paired with the gravity of the statement left Tony’s head spinning.

Tony formed the words: “We survived.”

Steve turned his head and nodded once shakily. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Nobody died.” He squeezed Tony. “Nobody died this time.” He released Tony with a gentle kiss to the side of his head, affirming, “Never gonna happen again. I don’t _need_ to be the leader. Not at S.H.I.E.L.D. Not anymore.”

Stepping back, Tony looked up at his face, eyes red but cheeks dry. Tony cupped his face in both hands. “You don’t. Still our Captain.”

A smile twitched at the corners of Steve’s lips. Steve turned his head, pressing his cheek into one of Tony’s palms, eyes closed. “Know somethin’—something kind of interesting, Tony?” he mused, blinking at Tony, his expression raw, open, so fond, fixed on _him_ , not the whole wide world beyond them. “I bet, bet my Pa, he’d be proud. His scrawny, sickly kid ended up makin’ something of himself, after all.”

“You know, you were something before you made something of yourself, right?” Steve blinked at him. Tony insisted, “The shield, the serum—they made you Captain America. A symbol to the nation.” _A hero to the world_. “But you, Steve Rogers—you’ve been here the whole time. And yeah, I admired Captain America. But I love _you_.”

Steve closed his eyes. Tony leaned up on tiptoe to kiss his forehead. Settling back on his soles, he added lightly, almost under his breath, “I’m your once-in-forever? You’re my one-in-ten-trillion, Steve. I found the best guy in the whole universe. Best guy who’s ever lived.” 

Steve looked at him for a long moment, blue eyes dim, half-hooded, almost demure as he looked down. Gently, Tony shook his head back and forth a couple times. Steve’s eyes slid shut. Swallowing around the lump in his throat, Tony insisted, “And if you bad-mouth my boyfriend, I will be forced to use countermeasures.”

He held Steve’s head in place as a hint of blue eyes flickered to him. “Countermeasures?” he murmured, amused. “What, you gonna shoot me?”

Tony arched an eyebrow, then leaned up without preamble, sealing a kiss that seemed to send a ripple of calm down Steve’s back, warmth pooling in his own chest as he lingered, breathlessly close, marveling silently that this life, _this_ life, was his.

Steve kissed him again, pausing with a soft exhale to rub his smooth cheek once against Tony’s beard and say, “Well, now I almost wanna start a fight.”

Tony sighed in exasperated fondness, tangled his fingers in Steve’s short hair, and said, “Of course you do.” But Steve kissed him again, and Tony felt like they both won.

. o .

Tony experienced a strong sense of déjà vu as he sat in a diner booth across from Nick Fury. Taking a bite of a deliciously crunchy BLT, he said by means of an icebreaker, “These really are the best in town.” He was proud of his choices: nothing said friendly lunch interrogation like good sandwiches.

Fury and Steve, who were currently staring each other down, didn’t respond. Taking another bite, Tony added, “More for me.”

Without blinking, Steve asked Fury, “Who has access to the Norilsk case files?”

Fury replied, “Level 9 and up. Hill, myself, the Council. Usual suspects.”

Steve nodded, taking a long sip of his water. He ignored his own BLT, jaw hard. “I didn’t file a report yet. Anybody ask why?”

Fury’s brow furrowed, smoothing a moment later in understanding. “It’s hard,” Fury admitted, deliberately lifting his own glass and taking a long sip, “to follow a trail that high up.”

“Are we hacking S.H.I.E.L.D.?” Tony asked bluntly, taking another generous bite of his sandwich. “Because if _yes_ , I’m in.”

Fury glanced at him, his expression holding no amusement, before looking back at Steve. There was worry in his eyes. It made the amusement in Tony’s chest fade. “You think we’ve been compromised?”

Steve nodded once.

Fury took a long sip of his coffee— _caffeinated_ coffee. The bastard. Admittedly, Tony was surprised that Steve hadn’t tried to guard him from the aroma, as if diffused caffeine could harm Tony. “How do you figure?” Fury asked, before taking a bite of his grilled cheese, freeing up the floor.

Resting an arm along the back of the booth, Steve said conversationally, “Vasilieva. She didn’t send out the alerts. She wasn’t in Russia.” He took a sip of water, adding, “She was in Berlin.”

“Berlin,” Fury repeated incredulously.

Steve nodded. “Barton confirmed it.” He paused. “Someone hacked her account. All she could find were green alerts. Her outgoing message about the trip wasn’t registered.”

Fury frowned. “An intercept at that level. . . .” He shook his head, took another bite.

“I know.” Steve’s eyes were somber, unflinching. “Like cutting a phone wire.” Reaching reluctantly for his sandwich, he took a small bite and swallowed it before adding, “Damn shame we didn’t. . . .” He trailed off. “It was my oversight. I should have—checked.”

“What could you have done?” Fury asked. The absolution in his tone was surprisingly comforting. “An intercept at that level—it’s invisible. Almost untraceable,” he added, looking at Tony sternly, but there was sadness in his eye, too. “It was a trap.”

Again, Steve nodded. “Vasilieva couldn’t warn us because she didn’t know there was a problem,” he said, suppressing a sigh. “And Smirnova was taken hostage once we confirmed our plans to visit Norilsk.” He frowned, then shook his head. “If we’d done nothing, Vasilieva would have returned, Smirnova would have been set free—”

“Or killed,” Fury pointed out.

Steve inhaled shortly. “Or killed,” he agreed neutrally. He paused, like he hadn’t thought about the possibility, before shaking his head. “Why?”

“Eliminating S.H.I.E.L.D. agents is a pastime of many unfriendly organizations,” Fury said coolly, taking another bite of his sandwich.

Steve tilted his head in concession. When he didn’t say anything else, Fury prompted, “Vasilieva was in Berlin.”

“Vasilieva was in Berlin,” Steve agreed, picking up the thread with another nod. “Hydra—they went after Smirnova. That’s why her reports cut off.” A beat. “She has an—her older sister, Diana? She stepped in at the company, kept things operational in her sister’s absence.” Quietly, he added, “Strong family resemblance. At a glance, you’d never question it.”

“What gave it away?”

Steve tapped below one eye. “Wrong color.”

Fury nodded, taking another bite of his sandwich, inviting Steve to go on. He did. “Smirnova couldn’t send an all-clear and Vasilieva had no idea that S.H.I.E.L.D. was planning a visit while she was away. Then we come in.”

Fury’s gaze flicked to Tony, held. Tony set down his sandwich, saying a touch defensively, “ _You_ were the one who wanted me to join your super-secret boy band. I did. No takebacks.” Sobering, he added, “And in case you forgot what happened in Detroit—which I did _not—_ ”

Steve didn’t relinquish his casual demeanor, but his teeth nearly cracked as he gritted them. He deliberately reached for his water and unlocked his jaw to take a long sip, forcing himself not to get worked up over it.

It wasn’t kind, but Tony needed Fury to know, to _see_ how _Detroit_ had become a forbidden word to them. Despite healing with time, forgiveness with distance, Tony had never worked up the strength to read the mission report. He’d never needed to: it had been enough for him to see Steve’s jaw nearly unhinged from a bullet wound and two agents lying on the floor in body bags to know that something terrible had happened in Detroit.

With an unmistakable bite to his voice, Steve said suddenly, “It was wrong to let anyone else come to Norilsk.” Staring at Fury’s good eye, he added seriously, “That’s on me.”

“On _us_ ,” Fury reminded, leaning forward and pushing his plate aside. When Steve looked doubtful, pained, he added, “I filed the paperwork myself, Rogers. We both said mission-go.” Waiting until Steve set down his glass, he pointed out, “Most of our field agents work in teams for a reason, even with two agents running point. You know that.”

“I do, sir.” The deferential seemed to set something back into place, to put them back on steady ground, the tremors of a confrontation subsiding. It was like a verbal Jenga match: one wrong move and the whole tower could come down. Stable emotional ground meant they could remain cordial as Steve added, “I blame myself more than you, sir.”

Tony challenged, “I actually blame Nick more than you.”

Fury looked at Tony again, allowing calmly, “For once, I appreciate that.” Looking back at Steve, he added sternly, “This is on _us_. I authorized the mission. If I felt there was a serious danger, it was my duty to call it off.” A beat. “I can see now why you didn’t log a report.”

Almost coolly, Steve said, “Sorry to keep you on ice, Director. I didn’t want interested parties to wise up while I was overseas.”

Fury didn’t blink. “I trust your judgment, Captain.” Sipping his coffee fortifyingly, he refilled it from the pot, adding, “Romanoff contacted me to let me know things had . . . _not_ gone according to plan.” He set the pot aside, holding his cup between his hands. 

Tony almost wished he hadn’t indulged in his sandwich. His stomach felt off, knotted with uneasiness. He regretted, very strongly, mentioning _Detroit_.

Steve asked in a low voice, “And what did she tell you, sir?”

Fury looked him dead in the eye. “Not much,” he admitted in the same undertone, though there weren’t many people in the rural diner: a couple waitstaff and an old hound at the bar who was reading a newspaper. Their secluded corner could have been the edge of the world. “She said you were MIA and she was stateside with Stark and Banner. Barton was up North.” Shrugging a shoulder, he added, “Then Barton showed up and said you were alive and apparently AWOL.”

And that was that, Tony mused, amazed and dazed at how completely the last two weeks had slipped under Fury’s radar. It didn’t seem entirely possible. Hell, none of it made any sense. Tony himself had lived fucking November 15th _twice_. 

It was truly a nightmare come to life: right when he thought he’d escaped the horror, he’d been thrown back to the past, where he could look at a clock on the wall that said 11:21 AM—Thursday, November 15th—and know that in half an hour, the tunnel would collapse and the elevator would drop like a freight train.

Except the tunnel had _already_ collapsed, the elevator had _already broken_. He had already lived twelve-noon on Thursday, November 15th once. Realizing it was going to happen _again_ was a terror so indescribable he couldn’t even panic about being in a hospital, because all he could do was watch the clock on the wall and think, _Not again, not again, not again—_

He shivered at the memory. It was perhaps the rarest privilege in the world to relieve your worst day _twice_.

Without even looking at him, Steve unzipped his hoodie and draped it around Tony’s shoulders, adding aloud, “About the flavor of it.” His voice sounded rough, tired, suddenly, as he added, “Sir.” Letting his arm settle around Tony’s shoulders as Tony tucked his arms through the sleeves shamelessly, he explained in the same low voice, “Things—they went south in the mines.” And suddenly, he was talking, not feverishly but without interruption, barely pausing for breath:

“Days one through five, nothing to write home about, got in, met the host family, got settled. Romanoff and I met with Nornickel next day, usual song-and-dance, permission to tour the mines on day five. We set up the tour for midmorning, day six, get downstairs, check things out, met with Smirnova, she took over the tour, we headed to the lower levels, and then—bang.” 

He finished off his water, hand shaking as he set it on the table. “Hydra planted explosives, day three or four, maybe two, woulda been pushing it to wait till five. Soon as our guy went upstairs, one of them detonated the bombs. Structural beam in the tunnel, cables in the elevator. Must not’ve been too powerful, just enough to—well. Make things shift, snap.”

He snapped his fingers for emphasis.

Fury said nothing, watchful. Steve went on, “I got held up in the mine, Romanoff and Stark,” he squeezed Tony’s shoulders, perhaps unconsciously, “were in the elevator with Smirnova when it went down. Smirnova’s sister. Luckily, they had the Iron Man suit, they made it out. Smirnova’s sister got hurt, broke her—” He cleared his throat. “Broke her neck. She’s alive, but—she’s done, Director.”

Fury nodded once. He said nothing. And so, Steve continued, squeezing Tony’s shoulders a bit more as he spoke. “Barton was topside when things went south downstairs, so he took over once Romanoff and Stark here got upstairs.” A beat. “Somebody got Banner involved—”

“I did,” Tony said suddenly, helpfully.

Steve nodded absentmindedly and carried on virtually uninterrupted. “Banner came down, helped Barton sort things out, you know, keep emotions in check. Barton stayed—had to, you know, had to—to finish the mission.” A longer pause. Tony squeezed his right thigh out of sight. Steve exhaled shortly. “Romanoff and Stark flew stateside,” he continued. “Got treated, you know, they got roughed up in the crash. Banner went with ‘em, kept an eye on—it was a miracle, honestly, that nobody di—” Again he paused, drew in another short breath. 

“Dug my way out,” he said, again in that _think it’ll rain_ tone, but it made Tony feel cold to hear. “Climbed down the elevator shaft, checked on Smirnova. Diana,” he added aimlessly. “Diana, not Yelena. Hydra took Yelena. Couldn’t let them—couldn’t let them know they’d failed, that I was still up, so I told Diana to tell the people who found her that I was in the mine.”

He loosened his grip on Tony’s shoulders. Tony squeezed his leg again, silently offering, _hey, hey, I’m here_. “I was down for—a long time,” he said at last. “Dark, the air tasted bad, took an age, but I got up top, managed to get out without being detected, walked home. Got Barton, nailed Hydra to a wall. Locked it down. Talked with Smirnova, the agent, not her sister. Found out about—about Vasilieva.” 

A hard huff of breath, another short inhale, followed by another hard huff of a breath. He reached up and grabbed his collar before he lowered his hand to the table again. “Sorry. Just a—a long—couldn’t write it down, not with—with the—the leak, the mole, someone’s—someone’s in on this, Director.”

 _Someone’s trying to kill me_ , he didn’t say, but Tony could read between the lines, the enormity of the words pressing down on him harder every time, a recitation that cost more every time. Wordlessly, he swapped Steve’s empty glass with his own partially full one. Steve picked it up and drained it in one fell swoop. He set it down, too. His hand was still trembling, but he didn’t seem on the verge of vibrating out of the booth or leaping out the window. His voice was perfectly calm as he added, “Can’t work for people I don’t trust. Can’t endanger people for my own. . . .” He trailed off.

Fury took another fortifying sip of his coffee. At last, he set it down and said firmly, “Spell it out, Rogers.”

“I want out.” Three little words, and there was warmth in Tony’s chest, like a fire in the middle of a storm, something to huddle around, like Steve’s arm around his shoulders or Steve’s hoodie wrapped around his back. “I—I want out, sir.”

Fury warned, “The Avengers Initiative—”

“Maybe on paper,” Tony chimed in, sitting up more, pressing against Steve’s arm, his voice thankfully firm as he added, “it’s S.H.I.E.L.D.’s idea, but _we’re_ not. S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t own the Hulk, or Thor, or Iron Man, or Captain America. None of us. We’re the Avengers. We’re our own team. We don’t work because S.H.I.E.L.D. tells us to jump. We work because that’s what we _do_. And we can stand with you, but we’re not S.H.I.E.L.D.’s. That’s the only way this is gonna work out, Nick.”

Fury reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Do you know how hard it is to—?”

“I can imagine,” Tony cut in bluntly, immovable, relentless as he pressed forward, leaning forward, getting in his space. “I manufactured _weapons_ for the better part of two decades, I _created_ the first Iron Man. I’ve had the Department of Defense on my ass since day one. Day fucking zero. My father beat them back with a stick and passed that stick down as a family heirloom. This ain’t my first rodeo and I will _gladly_ piss off whoever I have to to ensure that we’re not _yours_.”

He felt Steve’s hand flex on his shoulders, but his expression was hard to read, jaw firm but not clenched. He looked . . . _sad_. And Tony could see the loss in Fury’s own eyes. He felt some of the hot anger inside him cool, but he didn’t back down. “It’s not about you, Nick. You’re part of this, part of _us_ , the _Avengers_. And you have to see that it goes beyond S.H.I.E.L.D. We aren’t S.H.I.E.L.D.’s.”

Fury flicked his gaze between them, but if he could read Steve any better than Tony, it didn’t show.

Steve took a bite of his own sandwich, chewing slowly. Into the quiet, a waitress stopped by and topped off their waters. Steve nodded his thanks but said nothing, gaze fixed on Fury, measuring the man.

Taking a sip of his water, Steve said, “I don’t want to fight you. Or S.H.I.E.L.D.” His gaze darkened, his voice dipping into a register that was one degree shy of threatening as he added, “But for them? You don’t want to know how far I’ll go.” He shook out his sleeve, exposing a metal bracelet, plucking a chip off it, sliding it across the table. “Keep that.” With an air of resignation, he added, “I’m done. If you need it in writing, I’ll do that, too. But I’m done.”

It took Tony a moment to realize the chip was his ID tag, his Level 8—Level fucking _8—_ security clearance. Fury reached for it slowly, closing his hand around it. “I am honestly sorry for what happened in Norilsk,” he said. “And Detroit.” He pocketed the chip. His voice was steady as he added, “Really, Samarkand should have been the last one.” Then, shaking his head, he said, “This won’t be easy.”

Tony thought, _Samarkand?_

Steve just said, “Nothing’s ever been easy, sir.”

. o . 

Walking into the lab, Steve said, gently chiding, “Tony, it’s two in the morning.”

Humming in acknowledgment, Tony said, “The passage of time is amazing. You override Alpha 410 again?” He returned to the helmet, all but cross-eyed with fatigue. If he could connect these wires, he could get the mask to light up. That was the best part, the eyes lighting up for the first time, the suit having a life and _soul_ of its own. But his fingers were too shaky from fatigue to be clever. He could only misplace the wires. 

He couldn’t step away from it. 

He had to get it to light up. Then he could go to bed.

“I thought you were in bed,” Steve said, tired and torn.

Tony retorted quietly, “Clearly you weren’t.” He pressed the wire to the panel and missed. Setting the helmet down, he said, “I need another minute. Can you do that? Can you give me one minute?” He didn’t know why he was asking: he was a fucking adult, he could stay up for six nights in a row if he so chose, but that was stupid, his head hurt, and he was about two degrees of pain away from shredding a pillow out of frustration.

Steve stepped up beside him and didn’t make the mistake of wrapping Tony in his arms, tugging him away, because Tony would’ve had to snap at him, _I just need a goddamn minute!_ and it was a minute that had taken two hours already.

Finally, Steve asked, “Can I help?”

Tony blinked in surprise. He turned to look at Steve, a thoughtful furrow to his brow, eyes dark with fatigue. He was struck by the commanding officer as much as the man behind the insignia, behind the worn blue uniform and worn blue eyes. Steve looked down at the helmet, then back at Tony, then frowned thoughtfully.

It wasn’t a new helmet, after all. It was the Mark VII helmet, the very first one, ripped asunder after the Chitauri attack, overwhelmed by the vacuum of space.

There was every chance it would never light up again, but Tony wanted to try. He had to try.

Taking a chance, he said, “Yeah,” and held out the helmet to Steve. “See that loose wire?” He picked up the tweezers again and pointed to it. “It goes against that panel.” He pointed again with the tweezers to a tiny metal platform, the cathode for the concealed battery’s anode, the unfinished circuit begging for an assist.

Steve nodded mutely, taking the helmet with quiet reverence. Holding the helmet in one hand, he took the tweezers in the other. With sculptor-steady fingers, he connected the wire into place.

Blue-white light filled the space.

Marveling quietly, Steve held the tweezers in place—after all, the connection was temporary, the metal too damaged to hold it properly—and together they stared, mesmerized, at the blue-white glow for a long time. Tony wondered nonsensically what stories the first Mark VII, the shortest-lived suit of them all, would tell. Surely its stories would be beautiful, beautiful. _I went beyond the edge_ , it would whisper. _And it was everything_.

Steve held the wire in place, the bright white-blue light flushing the space. Tony felt the arc reactor’s light through his own black t-shirt shining, too. _Mind, heart, soul_ , he mused, reaching out, catching the helmet in his hands. Steve withdrew the tweezers and it went dark again, lifeless.

Setting it down on the desk, Tony exhaled harshly in relief, in quiet joy. _N_ _ot dead, not dead_.

“I can’t believe that actually worked,” he admitted.

Steve set the tweezers down and murmured, “I can.” He tugged on the back of Tony’s shirt. Tony turned in his arms, draping his own around Steve’s neck, leaning against him. “Shh,” Steve said softly. Tony wasn’t making any sound, but he was shaking from effort, from exhaustion. Maybe it was, in fact, “Bedtime.”

He mumbled against Steve’s chest, “Way ahead of you.” He savored the chuckle he got in reply, hands raking down his back, holding him close, Steve’s fire-like warmth mesmerizing, magnetic, holding him in the white-blue light burning from his own chest.

Somehow, he floated from the lab to his room, telling Steve’s shirt, “Let me build you a new suit.”

Steve sighed, asking, “Why?”

Tony murmured, “Because I want to.” Steve set him on the bed—huh; fancy that—and Tony held onto his shirt, dragging him down until Steve conceded, crawling over him and kissing along his cheek, his lips, sweet. 

“Mm,” Tony purred, curling his hands around the back of Steve’s neck and tilting his head to the side with a sigh as Steve kissed beneath his ear. A sigh of a sound slipped past his lips. He held onto Steve, dozing, catching a glimpse of consciousness as Steve tugged him towards the headboard instead of the foot of the bed. 

Tony held onto Steve even though his grip had loosened, there only by some reflexive need to keep _warm-soft-yes-good_ close. He let out a disappointed sound when Steve slid out of his grip, Tony’s hands resting on his own belly instead.

He felt Steve work his shoes off carefully, more dream than reality. Clicking claws preceded Steve’s indecipherable murmurs as he patted Laika, maybe brushed over pointed black and white ears. Then Laika settled down with an audible huff on her makeshift dog bed. Steve toed off his shoes and joined Tony in their human bed. Tony heard him sigh before shuffling close, wrapping his arms around Tony.

Tony mumbled against his bare chest, “Newer. Better. Stronger.”

Steve hushed him, a _shhhh_ that seemed to carry the weight of everything behind it. Tony exhaled in quiet agreement.

 _Your suit. Yours. Not theirs_.

He thought he might have said it aloud, but Steve’s arm was invitingly heavy, curled around him. He allowed himself to walk down a dark forested path into peaceful oblivion, promising Steve, _You’re ours. Not theirs._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Russian (R) and German (G) translations in chronological order:
> 
>  _Da._ \- Yes. (R)  
>  _Khoroshaya sobaka._ \- Good dog. (R)  
>  _Deutscher Hund._ \- German dog. (G)  
>  _Geh weg von mir!_ \- Get away from me! (G)  
>  _Wer bir du?_ \- Who are you? (G)  
>  _Ich bin Tony Stark._ \- My name is Tony Stark. (G)  
>  _Amerikanisch. - American._ (G)  
>  _Sei hier._ \- Be here. (G)  
>  _Komm her._ \- Come here. (G)


	31. BEST DAY OF THE WEEK

Tony had a special fondness for Mondays.

He relished waking up with a grunt of disapproval at seven AM. He savored the shock of cold air as he slumped out of bed, taking comfort in the prospect of another day of caffeine-free consciousness. He felt it was a privilege unparalleled to almost forget to cover the arc reactor prior to stepping into the shower, pausing only at J.A.R.V.I.S.’ hasty suggestion to remedy the oversight and prevent a lively electrical shock. He looked forward to the five hundred unread emails in his inbox (culled from ten times as many thanks to the tenacious efforts of his underlings). He could scarcely wait to spend hours in boring board meetings and half the night in the lab, tinkering with the suit. He wanted nothing more than to rinse and repeat the cycle of work, work, work until he dropped into grateful unconsciousness at two in the morning.

Charmed life, he mused, yawning widely and yelping in alarm when Laika nearly plowed him over, colliding with his legs. Steve, rosy-faced and smiling apologetically, appeared at the end of the hall waving her leash in one hand. “Hey,” he said. “You’re up.”

Tony grunted noncommittally, brushing Laika’s cold head with a limp hand. She waited patiently for him to lift his hand before loping back to Steve, tail high. He told her, “No, Laika, no more, we’ll go out later.” He brushed a hand over a pointed black ear before confiding to Tony, “Finally found someone that can keep up on my morning jog.” His smile was small but sincere, reminding Tony of a man who had casually predicted the winning horse on a race, a man who’d won a very small lottery and relished the joy it brought him.

Mutely, Tony shuffled over and planted his forehead against Steve’s chest. Steve didn’t try to stop him even though he was cold and dappled with sweat, curling his arms carefully around Tony’s back. He brushed a kiss against Tony’s cheek, adding hopefully, “Tony?”

“Mm.”

With a soft huff, Steve said, “Not a morning person, huh?”

“Mmm.” He was, tentatively, a midafternoon or late-evening person. Two to four was a sweet spot, whether it was in the AM or PM. Of course, it wasn’t nearly so sweet as the way Steve’s breath fanned light and warm over his ear as he pressed another lingering kiss to Tony’s jaw. Tony thought about saying, _I have work_ , but that was the caffeine-free Neanderthal genes speaking. That was why he needed coffee. Coffee was his best friend.

“I won’t be bribed,” he warned aloud. He had to stick to his guns, after all: _Steve_ was the reason he couldn’t have coffee. Except he wasn’t, not in the strictest sense of blame, but it was a lot easier to blame Steve than the abstract concept of a three-week old concussion. Steve was just the real-life personification of his inner life accountant trying to keep him alive long-term rather than blissfully insensate in the short run. The image of Steve wearing round accountant glasses askew with his fussy accountant hair akimbo, seated behind a desk and looking up at Tony vague disapproval, made Tony snicker, assuring, “I am, in fact, laughing at you, but not you-you.”

Steve didn’t bother pulling back. He just murmured, “Goddamn enigma, Stark,” and nipped his ear. Tony hummed in agreement because oh, hell yeah, that was a compelling counterargument. 

Knitting his fingers behind Steve’s bowed neck, brushing his thumbs idly through cool, spiked hair, he stepped backwards, tugging Steve with him. He bumped gently into the wall and leaned into it, putting his weight on his grip, Steve’s own hands steady and huge around his hips, fanned across his flanks. He couldn’t say who had captured who, his own grip around Steve’s neck not insubstantial but Steve’s weight leaning into him, pressing him into unyielding wall with gentle but incontestable pressure. He slid his right foot carefully around the back of Steve’s left ankle, pulling on it. If Steve wasn’t literally a super soldier capable of lifting Thor off his feet, Tony might’ve stood a chance at tugging him off-balance.

Instead, it wasn’t a challenge, it was encouragement. Steve’s hands slid down and curled under his thighs, picking him up and crowding that little bit closer. Leaning against him, holding him up, Steve pressed warm open-mouthed kisses across his neck, like Tony was the one who needed warming up. Tony curled his legs around Steve’s hips easy-as-anything, eyes shut, warm and buzzing with contentment. Steve’s hold was completely trustworthy. Tony felt tension unspool from his shoulders. Scruffing the back of Steve’s neck, he smiled in helpless amusement as Steve kissed his cheek, right next to his mouth.

“You missed,” he murmured. Steve hiked him up a bit higher, firming his hold so he could think about it even less, before pressing his closed mouth to Tony’s clothed shoulder, resting his head there for a few long moments.

“No,” Steve said at last, lifting his head. Tony looked at him, ocean-blue eyes flicking between Tony’s and his lips. He murmured, “I just like your smile.”

Tony had to turn his head aside, close his eyes again, because fuck. It wasn’t fair that he’d come so full circle, that he had once smiled like it was going out of _style_ , but then he’d grown out of it because it wasn’t good to wear your heart on your goddamn sleeve, it was a trap. Then came along Steve fucking Rogers, who made him want to throw away the last twenty years and rewrite history. _Make it better. We’d make it so much better_.

But time wasn’t going backwards. He felt Steve press a soft kiss to his cheek and turned into it, tangling his fingers in Steve’s hair and pulling him closer, always closer, _don’t go, don’t run, please don’t leave me_ , he was afraid of what would happen to him, who he would _become_ if Steve left now, walked out of his life as easily as he’d walked in.

He’d sent so many people _packing_ that he should be indifferent to the prospect, but he wanted to let Steve into his life, into his heart, to see that he was only a monster to the _monsters_ , that he was—he had to be—there was still something _good_ inside him, they hadn’t carved out his heart, they hadn’t killed him.

And no one could kill Steve. 

The absurdity of the statement almost made him laugh, a helpless breathless little sound, Steve’s affection almost overwhelming as he kissed Tony’s temple, assuring, “S’okay, Tony.” Because it was. He was alive. No one could kill him. Steve Rogers was functionally immortal, if only because he had a will to live that rivaled the forces of nature that conspired to usher him away. The world needed him too much for him to die.

 _I need you_ , Tony thought but didn’t say, because that was dangerous, he couldn’t _need_ someone the way he _needed_ Steve, he had to be able to stand on his own two feet, but it was nice to sink into it, to pretend that Steve could keep every dark unhappy feeling at bay. He could. He _would_. And it was beautiful and terrifying, that he no longer knew what would happen to him, immortal Tony Stark, if Steve walked. If Steve disappeared. If the unthinkable, the _impossible_ , ever came to pass.

“Tony?” Steve asked, letting him down slowly. Tony’s grip on his neck tightened reflexively. “Hey, s’okay. I’m here,” Steve assured, pressing against him, holding him, hands flattening across his back as he held Tony against him, furnace-warm, heart beating fast even though his breathing was steady and slow, every line of him a tangible promise of vitality that was more soothing than a thousand long-distance reassurances. “I’m right here.”

( _I’ll come home. I promise. I promise_.)

Tony nodded, looking at him and assuring in a slightly croaky tone, “I know. I know you are.” He cleared his throat, eased his grip on Steve. “You must have an awful lot of good karma stored up, you know. In Mother Russia, mortal men die.”

Steve sighed, raking his hands gently up Tony’s back. “Yeah. No, I know.” He was quiet for a long moment, adding at last, “It won’t happen again.” He released Tony, not quite all at once, lingering, his fingertips on Tony’s sides. “We okay?” he asked, not quite warily. Like he expected Tony to say no, to send him off. The thought made Tony shake his head because _no_.

Realizing how _that_ looked, he hastened to assure, “We’re fine. We’re good.” He leaned up, kissed the top of Steve’s nose, and added lightly, “I wouldn’t classify shared near-death experiences as _romantic_ , but you’ve got one of those hard-to-stay-mad-at faces.”

Steve scrunched up his nose, eyes squinting shut. “Oh, well,” he said humbly, “in that case, I oughtta count my lucky stars.”

“You should,” Tony agreed seriously. Then, because he couldn’t help it, he slid his hands into Steve’s back pockets, squeezing handfuls and declaring, “I mean, who _wouldn’t_ be thankful for this ass?”

Steve rolled his eyes, a hint of red on his ears as he muttered, “Yeah, well, ain’t mine.”

Tony said, “I mean, on a molecular level we’re all star-stuff anyway, you can at least be grateful _your_ star-stuff is well-endowed.” Letting him go, he gave him a light push on the stomach, adding, “I have five thousand unread emails to delete and a gallon of decaf coffee to drink. Only one of those is an exaggeration.”

Steve said breezily, “About the coffee.”

Tony warned, “Don’t tease me.”

Steve laughed, a happy little sound. “No, never. No, I just figured—everybody’s got a, what do they call it now, cheat day? You’ve been good. I think you deserve a cheat day.”

“You _lawless man_ ,” Tony simpered, sweeping in for an exaggerated, almost swooning hug that made him laugh again. “I accept your hand in marriage.”

Still chuckling, Steve said, “Now, wait a minute—” and Tony planted a nice big _mwah!_ on his lips, darting away and adding:

“Nope, tough luck, that’s binding!”

He let the door to the bedroom slide shut behind him. He grinned as Steve reminded from the other side of the door, “I need to shower, sweetheart.”

Leaning a shoulder against it, Tony asked, “What’s the magic word?”

There was a long, overly thoughtful pause. “Tony?”

Tony sighed, sliding the door back manually and telling him, “Close enough.” Laika darted in past him. Tony said, “Aww, I locked my dog-daughter out. Steve—”

Steve dropped a kiss to the top of his head—it was gratifying that he had to lean up on tiptoe to do it—and said sweetly, “I’m sure she’ll forgive you.”

Sighing in mock chagrin, Tony waved him off and padded over to Laika, who was currently circling her dog bed before flopping down next to it, resting her head on it. “Who’s perfect? Who’s _ideal'nyy_?”

Tail wagging hopefully, Laika looked up at him with those clear white eyes, head on the sheets as he crouched down and rubbed the fur between her ears. “Yes, you are perfect, you are as _ideal'nyy_ as _ideal'nyy_ can be.” His old bone knees protested, but his love for his dog surpassed it.

Because Laika was _his_ dog, his, the only dog in the world that belonged to Tony Stark—and Steve Rogers; that was it, she was _their_ dog, theirs. It made something warm burn in his chest to think about it, a soft glow like the soft fur between her ears. With a final pat to her head, he straightened, groaning and complaining for Steve’s benefit, “Old bones man.”

“Eat more blueberries,” Steve called back, voice only slightly muffled by the door. “Heard it’s good for them.”

Tony slid back the door, leaning his hip against the threshold and observing, “Smart ass.”

In reply, Steve drew a heart on the fogged-up shower door. 

. o .

Sprawled on his back on their bed, Tony declared, “Steven.”

Steve, rubbing a towel through his damp hair and wearing only a pair of dark blue boxers, offered, “Hm?”

“Steven,” Tony repeated. Steve rolled his eyes, hanging the towel up to dry. “I love you,” Tony said seriously, because, God, he loved the bastard. 

Steve was magnetic, the one who held Tony’s hand and led him out onto a tightrope, insisting without a hint of fear, _Tr_ _ust me._

And Tony, who danced on tightropes for a _living_ , found himself fumbling for Steve’s hand, terrified because what if _he_ fell, Tony had to make sure he could _catch_ him. He’d never had to worry about dropping someone before so much even though Steve was emphatically the least fragile person he’d ever dated.

But it was all a metaphor, because underneath the shield, Steve was as human as the rest of them. No one had a tough heart. Some people just had more armored hearts. More scarred hearts.

Tony Stark had a metal heart, as metal as the skin he wore to let him fly. He felt almost naked fully clothed without it and understood why Steve wore his shield even when he wasn’t off to fight.

Steve sat down next to him, having tugged on pants and a shirt while Tony was daydreaming. He looked over with a pout at the sight, all that covered skin. It was a shame to America. The world deserved to see it.

Actually, Tony decided, pulling himself upright with a heroic effort, nobody did. He wasn’t even sure _he_ did, if Steve should trust him with his heart. _I am a heartbreaker_ , he wanted to say, hooking his chin over Steve’s shoulder while Steve hummed and continued lacing up his shoes. _I am a walking one-night-stand. I am the guy you don’t take home because I ruin everyone I touch_.

He had always been too good to be true. He would charm them, invite them into his life for a few electric hours. When he started to feel sober, he would kick them out, never to be seen again. He never slept with people he’d have to see again. It created the worst sort of relationship, a guilt so corrosive he thought it should be classified as its own kind of cancer.

Steve reached back with a hand, scratched the side of his head lightly, and asked, “What’s going on in your head, anyway?”

Tony turned his head downward, boldly closing his teeth around t-shirt and skin underneath it, gently, deliberately evading the question in a way Steve couldn’t misunderstand. _Did I ruin you?_ he wondered, absurd a notion as it was, because maybe America’s sweetheart was a better man in another world, whole and hale and—and whoever Steve Rogers would become in a vacuum. At least, a different kind of vacuum, one that was filled with different influences.

With S.H.I.E.L.D. A lot more war, a lot less love.

He wasn’t entirely sure he _wanted_ to meet that Steve Rogers. He liked to think he would love every version of Steve, that there was something so fundamentally charming about him that he would fall in love in ten million different ways, but even he wouldn’t have fallen in love— _couldn’t_ have fallen in love—with Steve ten years ago. He wasn’t a man who fell in love, ten years ago. Steve wasn’t too soon to enjoy his heart, and Tony wasn’t too late to save it.

Closing his eyes, releasing his mouthful but pressing his closed mouth to Steve’s shoulder, he lingered, breathing him in. He would always love the physicality, the strong-held-warm feeling that Steve exuded, but the thought of Steve without _Steve_ , the warmth and wit and way he laughed, that funny little bray—and it was higher than he’d expected it to be, no undertone, no gruff soldier there, just high and _happy—_ he couldn’t say he’d love them equally.

 _Fuck ‘em all_.

Wrapping both arms around Steve’s waist tightly, he told him, “You’re mine.”

Another amused hum, followed by a soft, “Yeah. Yours.” He ruffled the side of Tony’s hair before dropping his hand and adding, “Four months and counting.”

Tony blinked, surprised. Steve pecked him on the cheek. “You’re not the only one who can count,” he murmured, launching himself to his feet and adding lightly, “or make coffee.”

. o .

Mm. _Caffeine_.

. o . 

Listening to AC/DC’s dynamite classic _TNT_ , Tony tapped an Iron foot to the beat as he tinkered with the Mark X helmet, savoring his first cup of caffeinated coffee in three goddamn _weeks_.

He had the boots and gauntlets on, forgoing the full suit even though the Mark X was almost completely wearable. Without a proper cooling system, it would overheat quickly. Tony had no desire to sweat in a bulky metal suit. 

Besides, the boots and gauntlets were most of the fun. The boots provided buoyancy; the gauntlets provided power. He could actually fly, fairly well, with just them. He’d do better with the shoulder and calf stabilizers, but he could go where he needed to go in a pinch.

The tunic-like assemblage comprising the rest of the suit would be reconstructed by future Tony. It wouldn’t even take very long: everything was labeled and easier to assemble than a piece of IKEA furniture. After a weekend of frenetic activity interspersed with avoiding responsibilities, he had the bulk of construction behind him. All that was left were final adjustments and a paint job.

Pleased, he flexed one hand experimentally, almost able to see the tiny bridges underneath the metal plating. Bridges were the key to everything, keeping the suit intact and allowing for all its fun extras. They compressed and expanded, strong as steel but soft-edged and detachable. He had whole boxes of them pre-assembled, ten thousand in all. Some people folded paper cranes. Tony Stark molded metal.

At least it was a productive habit. Bridges were like the nuts and bolts of the suits. They kept them intact, hooking like with like and allowing the full suit to be three times its advertised size. Like an exquisite jigsaw puzzle, he needed hundreds of them per suit. Thus, spares were handy.

They were especially handy because he had to be in a particular mood to make them. Each one was shaped from a sheet of titanium-nickel alloy using a laser cutter. Without proper motivation, the process was tedious, nothing more than a means to an end. When it was needed as a distraction, bridge-making became a balm to a tired genius’ soul.

And they were more than an exercise in paper crane making. They were critical to suit functionality. The larger metal plates acted like muscles—keeping the big things together, legs and shoulders, back and neck, et al.—but the bridges were the strings, keeping _everything_ , big and small, interconnected without locking anything into permanent place.

They were essential because the armor _needed_ to breathe. It couldn’t be covered in a cohesive skin or it wouldn’t separate the way he needed it to. Couldn’t hold any surprises, couldn’t lose a component without compromising the entire suit, couldn’t even fly very well.

Without bridges to expand and shift the shoulder plates, he would need an external jet pack to get the same lift. That was precisely the Iron Patriot’s problem. S.H.I.E.L.D. had the muscle-plate system down-pat—it wasn’t difficult with a roadmap and some dedicated engineers—but they hadn’t independently discovered the bridge-tissue solution. Chalk one up for the rogue genius.

The Iron Patriot suit was a great example of why the Devil was in the details. On the surface, it was nearly indistinguishable from its inspiration. It walked and flew like Iron Man below fifteen thousand feet. But as pressures dropped off at greater altitudes, it would start to disintegrate, allowing for lethal exposure to high-altitude cold and vacuum conditions.

Bridges allowed the suit to move dynamically without being locked into place as one molded piece. They were the solution to the cohesive-skin problem, one that Tony had stumbled across while building the Mark II. Instead of welding everything into permanent place, he used bridges to hook things together.

The proposition was absurdly risky on the face of it—a seamless suit with big metal plates and lots and lots and _lots_ of flexible metal sinews to pull and reshape those plates however he wanted it—but it worked amazingly well in practice.

The only suit that hadn’t used bridges was the Mark I. And yet despite its clunky, borderline comical appearance, the Mark I was still his baby. He was proud of it. It had been built under extremely marginal conditions, but it had flown and stood up to combat admirably. It was proof that the _concept_ of a personal armored flying machine wasn’t unduplicably difficult, but there were certain challenges to overcome in order to achieve more than temporary, low-altitude flight.

Not least the fact that all of his protective armor had shattered like an eggshell on impact. He’d been lucky: rather than plummeting straight-down like a meteor, he’d fallen in a parabolic arc, launched into space before curving gently back towards the Earth. Howling in alarm, he hadn’t timed the fall or taken a picture with a nonexistent camera, but like a good amateur pilot, he had caught a glimpse of the low-lying hills and figured that his maximum height was no more than five hundred feet.

Still, even from that comparatively low altitude, a full-steam-ahead landing would have turned him into an interesting artifact for future historians to uncover.

Shuddering at the thought, he noted, “Little chilly, J.” J.A.R.V.I.S. kicked the heater up a couple degrees. “Thank you.”

J.A.R.V.I.S. said, “Of course, sir.”

The music dwindled out. Selecting another song required more mental energy than Tony was willing to devote to the task, so he turned over the Mark X helmet in his hands in silence, staring at dark, unlit, soul-full black eyes. They were the same eyes he’d come to know and love over the years, even though so much else had changed.

The last five years had kept him busy: panicking, reclaiming Stark Industries, panicking some more, learning trademark laws to a truly excruciating degree, dealing with the metal nightmare implanted in his chest, panicking, and courting the Department of Defense—which had been sadistically eager to prove that the whole kidnapped-by-terrorists thing was a staged publicity stunt, complete with burned bodies and a storybook rescue in the desert—and finally panicking until he was too tired to panic anymore.

Over time, he’d gotten things back under control, giving him more time to focus on the suits. For a few blissful months prior to the crisis in New York City, he’d been hard at work on them, on Stark Tower, on a _new life_. He’d set up Stark Industries with Pepper to take that particular headache off his list, learned the law to the letter to defend his babies, and successfully fought the DoD on every front until even they were tired of reading his name on the itinerary. Somewhere in the middle of it all, he’d even managed to create a better casing for the arc reactor that had solved a lot of problems.

His sternum ached abruptly and he grimaced, setting the helmet aside so he could rub a hand over the arc reactor. He was becoming an old man, he thought distastefully. Prior to Afghanistan, he’d been—well, he hadn’t been _young_ , but he hadn’t aged past year twenty, either. He’d been the same insufferable narcissist with a drinking problem and an even bigger people problem that he’d always been.

After Afghanistan, he’d aged ten years.

To distract himself from his own face—his own dead eyes—he’d started working on the Mark II. At first it was only an improvement on the Kevlar concept—why wear a bulletproof vest when you could wear a bomb shelter?—but over time it became a way to reclaim his life, his _vitality_. He would never be as young and unscarred as he was prior to Afghanistan, but he would be better, he would _make_ himself better, he would turn that panic-inducing box in his chest into something magical.

The whole enterprise became more than business. It was at its core very personal to him.

Lowering his hand to the workbench, he leaned on it, alone in his lab, alone with his handiwork, alone with the quiet.

Despite the calm, he felt the buzzing under his skin, the sense of urgency. He worked like he would start dying if he wasn’t putting together the next suit, the next suit, it was always about the _next_ suit. Such purposefulness had been a comfort on many dark nights but a burden in the cold light of day when he needed to focus on the mundane and ordinary and found himself mentally making adjustments to the suit instead, itching before the day was half-over to get back to the lab.

Building suits was more than an exercise in paper crane-making. It was a creative challenge, a thing that kept him sharp, _alive_. He didn’t add new polish to an old idea; he reimagined it. Rarely did he settle for the same model twice.

The Mark Vs and Mark VIIs were exceptions to the rule, duplicated because their predecessors had lasted mere hours before being taken out of commission. Those losses had hit harder than he’d expected. He hadn’t wanted to reimagine them; he’d wanted to _enjoy_ the new idea for a while. So, he’d taken the time to recreate them. Precious time that could have been spent on a new suit was spent instead reviving the idea of an old one.

Despite the self-inflicted delay, he itched to get the assembly line moving faster. A dozen Iron Man suits in four years was a phenomenal success rate to the general public, but it wasn’t enough for Tony Stark. He wanted a hundred suits. He wanted a _thousand_ suits. He wanted to find the perfect formula for suits that were truly indestructible, that could fly to the edge and beyond. Suits that were proof that Tony Stark was not only alive but getting stronger with time.

And he wanted to make them with his own two hands. Even though it would expediate the process to outsource it, he didn’t want to automate the process, to sit back and watch the magic happen. That wasn’t his work; that was the machine’s work, the _machine’s_ triumph. He was the machine and he refused to turn his job over to someone or something else. Maybe one day he’d be too tired to build suits and he’d have to turn it over.

He hoped that day never came.

Sliding the Mark X helmet on, he surrounded himself in Stygian darkness. He thought, _Hi, Model Ten_. He closed his eyes, imagining the first taste of the sky above, the ecstatic wonder of being up top.

No matter how far humanity came, Tony Stark would always be the first Iron Man. But he didn’t need to be the _only_. He didn’t want the Mark I to rest alone or the Mark II to preside as the pinnacle of his creations. He wanted to go farther, to expand the reach of Iron Man beyond himself.

He wanted the whole world to know this particular joy. To know what it was like to _fly_ , to take a leap off the edge and never hit the ground. To get a glimpse of the stars and realize how small they were compared to the infinity up there.

Breathing in the helmet’s metallic scent, he slid it off his head and set it down on the bench, surprised at how calm he felt. He’d had enough of the bag-over-the-head treatment for a lifetime, had a visceral and seemingly irremovable fear of dark little spaces, but he had no problems with the helmet alone or the full suit lit up. It reminded him, almost absurdly, of a kid with a bucket over their head. He could pick it up and take it off. It was a darkness of his own design.

Even the scary stuff was okay as long as he was in control of it. He only panicked when the lights went off without him flicking the switch.

Well. He still didn’t care for tubs of water, whether he poured them or not.

Rubbing his neck and feeling the first hint of a headache, he announced to J.A.R.V.I.S., “That’s good enough for now.”

Picking up the Mark X helmet, he stored it in an empty box underneath the table. It felt like bad luck to leave an unfinished helmet in plain view, even though only three people were even capable of accessing this room without permission. One was already _in_ the room. Clicking the locks on the box still gave him a certain indefinable satisfaction, like it was his gem, his golden egg. Nobody could take it from him.

“Anybody breaks in, disintegrate them,” Tony advised J.A.R.V.I.S., who politely replied:

“That’s beyond my capabilities, sir.”

 _Whoever said rogue AIs would take over the world?_ Tony thought, amused. “Do your best,” he said forgivingly.

. o .

“Ooh, did I miss it?” Tony asked, stepping into the balcony room for a bite to eat as a growl of thunder, almost a mutter of disapproval, rumbled outside the uncharacteristically dark windows. “Please tell me I didn’t miss it, the lab’s soundproof, this wasn’t even in the forecast.”

Without looking up, Steve, who was sitting in a chair with a paperback in hand and Laika draped over his feet, asked, “Miss what?”

Another low growl of thunder, followed by a flash of lightning, made Tony grin.

Bruce, huddled with his laptop in a corner, remarked unhappily, “Not a fan of storms.”

“This is the safest place on Planet Earth during a thunderstorm,” Tony said seriously, vaulting to his feet and all but bolting for the windows to slide the door open, listening to hard rain wash down. “I’m serious, you could not get struck by lightning in here if you tried. And you know how I know this?”

“Is it because of Thor?”

“It’s because of Thor,” Tony answered smartly, shooting Bruce a disappointed look. “Why would you deprive me of the punchline?”

“That was a joke?” Bruce asked, skepticism heavy in his voice.

Tony opened his mouth to respond when another, louder growl of thunder sounded off, unmuffled. Laika let out a sharp bark. Tony startled more at the sound than the storm, turning to look at her as Steve, once again without looking, assured, “Just a small storm. Little storm, _malen'kaya burya_.” He patted her head, but she stood up and successfully wedged herself under his legs, unhappy.

Natasha, who alone had sense among them, announced suddenly from her chair on the balcony, “If you’re coming out, Stark, come out or shut the door.”

That was easy enough. Tony stepped out into the rain and slid the door shut behind himself. Inhaling deeply, he sidled over to Natasha’s perch as rain pattered off the roof and landed on the edge of balcony, soaking the ground but not their seating. “Nice view,” Tony remarked casually, flopping down in a chair and propping his feet up on an adjacent one, because again: _safest place on Planet Earth_.

Everything about the Avengers Tower was nearly stormproof, whether it was a rainstorm, a thunderstorm, or even a low-level hurricane. It would take a truly harrowing geologic event to make him want to abandon ship, which was precisely why he’d gone all-out with it. He wanted home to be safe and this was home. The illusion of danger—being outside, being closer to the source—only seemed to make the whole thing more spectacular and immersive. The Earth was throwing its own sort of show; he was there to watch.

He felt almost sad that Steve, pinned down with Laika, couldn’t enjoy it. It seemed like his favorite show, but he was a dog-dad first and a danger-enthusiast second. Tony vowed to enjoy it twice as much on his behalf, breathing in deeply.

It was the last hurrah of warmth—in the first week of December, no less. An uncommonly balmy sixty degrees Fahrenheit seemed positively inviting against the preceding days of mid-forties. He was not looking forward to full-time freezing his ass off. He loved snow, looking at snow, even chucking the occasional snowball around, but he also loved his extremities. He’d had plenty of close encounters of the frostbite kind in Norilsk. He just wanted to be warm and toasty.

“Which is better,” he asked suddenly, conversationally, “South America or Australia?”

Natasha said, “You know, I almost miss you on concussion watch.”

Wounded, Tony asked, “Why?”

“Quieter. Some of us like the sound of the rain.”

“Noted.” Tony fell silent for a few moments, arms crossed over his chest, enjoying the ambience with her. He stifled a grin at an even sharper crackle of thunder. “Getting closer.”

“Mm.”

“Don’t you have super-secret spy stuff to do?”

She cast him a flat look. He shrugged and told her, “I am self-employed. And nosey.”

Listening to the rain, Natasha allowed, “Quiet at work.”

Tony waited and she obliged him with another nugget: “Barton’s still at the office. Said he wanted to catch up on paperwork.”

“Poor guy,” Tony said, surprising himself with his sincerity. To miss the storm of the season _and_ be stuck writing S.H.I.E.L.D. reports? “So, you’re—self-employed?”

Natasha frowned and looked at him. “What?”

Shrugging, Tony elaborated, “Choose your own hours.”

Natasha watched him with such flatness that he itched suddenly to bolt. This, he knew,was why she and Steve got along so well. It was almost uncanny, how familiarly soul searing that look was. That _why are you out after midnight?_ look that somehow only Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff could make feel threatening. He shrank in his seat, slouching to mask it. “That’s fair,” he said, looking out at the rain.

Another crackle of thunder.

“We’re commissioned,” Natasha indulged him at last. It was an indulgence, the tone, the way she looked back out at the rain. “We work when there’s work, we play when there’s not.”

Tony almost said, _And what kind of play is that?_ Thankfully, he held his tongue.

The rain was soothing to listen to. He wasn’t used to the conversational pace of one sentence per minute, but it was almost calming. He expected Natasha’s voice when she said obligingly, “There’ll be more work.”

Tony waited before asking, “Why?”

Natasha nodded towards the windows. “Him,” was all she said.

For a moment, Tony felt sorry for her, that her work—shared with Clint; he hoped that Clint was ready for it—would increase substantially without Captain America to carry far more than his assigned workload. Tony knew he did as much because he’d seen the files, the reports. The sheer volume of reports—to say nothing of timestamps—was telling.

But Steve had only been with S.H.I.E.L.D. since April. Natasha and Clint had been with S.H.I.E.L.D. for five and twelve years, respectively. They had been S.H.I.E.L.D.’s first and the Avengers’ second. They knew S.H.I.E.L.D.’s inner workings.

They’d be fine. 

“It’ll be different,” Natasha allowed, voice so carefully blank Tony couldn’t read it.

Tony wanted to say, _Better_. But it wouldn’t be. Not for them.

He felt no sympathy for S.H.I.E.L.D., but when he said, “I don’t envy you,” there was no meanness in his tone towards her, either. He had a strong feeling he’d happily get Fury on the horn if S.H.I.E.L.D. tried to maintain its strange new normal by overworking the rest of its employees. It would be a cold move, but Tony couldn’t put it above them. It wouldn’t be Fury’s decision, either. No: Fury was just the wall, the insulation between the Avengers and the higher-ups at S.H.I.E.L.D.

He’d be fine, too.

Everything would be fine.

Exhaling gustily, Tony mused, “Was it so bad?”

“Was what so bad?” Natasha asked calmly.

“Working for me.” Shrugging, Tony added, “I mean, aside from the whole Natalie Rushman thing. Although maybe that wasn’t bad. You know? New year, new name, new me?” He could almost _hear_ Natasha roll her eyes, even though her expression was still perfectly blank. “Really, I thought I was a pretty good boss,” Tony said, going all-in. “I let you drive my Spyder. Did you not like my Spyder?” He paused, then added: “On second thought, in light of your alter-ego—”

Another growl of thunder spared him the need to finish the statement. Tony clamped his mouth shut gratefully, looking out at the rain.

Meekly, he asked again, “So, Australia or—”

“South America,” Natasha said suddenly.

Tony nodded to himself. “I prefer Australia, but Bruce voted South America.” Tipping an invisible hat, he added, “Thank you for your contribution.”

Natasha did not deign that with a response.

Leaving her be required the strength of a bigger man, but a particularly bright flash of lightning made him jump. He skittered towards safety. Natasha didn’t budge, but the door slid back to Tony’s request. He sighed in contentment as warm air seeped into his bones.

Bruce and Steve had both found better places to hang out, Tony noticed immediately, fixing himself a sandwich and asking J.A.R.V.I.S., “Where’s Steve?”

“If I respond according to my programming, I believe you will put me in sleep mode,” J.A.R.V.I.S. said delicately.

Tony sighed and took another bite of his sandwich. He swallowed it before adding, “Just tell me.”

“The main lab, sir.”

Tony nodded—he already knew the answer, that apologetic tone of voice could only mean an Alpha override; then again, it was more his forgetfulness to give Steve the code than a genuine desire to lock Steve out—and finished off his sandwich before grabbing a bag of baked chips. “Okay,” he said, popping the top and chewing on a chip. “You’re still on thin ice, JAR.”

The lab was either four flights of stairs or less than two seconds in an elevator. Tony opted without a hint of regret to take the stairs, deciding that it was _convenient_ to be afraid of elevators in a ninety-three story building because it made him _healthier_. He crunched on his chips and paused to listen to a rumble of thunder to pass by before finishing the descent.

Sure enough, Steve, Laika, and the apparently deeply immersive paperback had taken up residence in his lab on his favorite chair, which was nothing more than a souped-up bean bag. Laika, who was lying on the floor with her head on the edge, wagged her tail hopefully at the sight of him, while Steve glanced up and looked at him thoughtfully.

Tony said blithely, “If you’re here to steal my suit, J.A.R.V.I.S. has been given permission to disintegrate you.”

“I am incapable of disintegrating anything, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. reminded delicately.

Steve blinked, reaching down to rub between Laika’s ears. Tony sighed and stepped farther into the room, letting the door slide shut behind him. And yes: he couldn’t even tell it was raining outside, let alone thundering to beat the band. Sighing tragically, he added, “This is a terrible place to watch a storm, Steve Rogers.” Laika stood up and wandered over, and he held his chip bag carefully out of reach with one hand as he crouched down to rub her shoulders with the other, cooing, “Hey, hi, yes I _did_ come to see you and no you may _not_ have a potato chip.” She sniffed hopefully at the bag and he straightened, fishing out another chip for himself and adding, “Why here?”

Steve closed the book, moving to stand up before Tony waved a hand and wandered over. He cozied up next to Steve, curling under an arm and fishing out another chip. “Hm? I know it’s _terribly_ interesting when I’m not around,” he added. Ironically, it was, in an odd, museum-after-hours kind of way. Huh. He still provided the vibrancy of music playing, a screwdriver in hand, Iron boots on his feet, but the soft blue lighting, the almost cavernous interior in the dark, coupled with tool boxes and shelves, all tantalizingly off-limits, with only a few artifacts on display, was enamoring. “Okay, maybe there are worse places to hang out,” he acknowledged, snuggling down into Steve’s side and holding up the chip bag. “Chip?”

Steve ignored the offering, draping his free arm more comfortably around Tony’s shoulders. Laika padded over and returned to her spot. It was, Tony thought, able to hear Steve’s breath if not his heartbeat, cozy, a bit wonderful. He almost purred. “Mm, okay, I forgive you,” he decided after another chip.

At last, Steve said, “Thank you.”

Patting his chest one-handed, Tony assured, “I’m not actually mad you’re here. You know that, right? Is my dry wit too dry?” Crunching on another chip, he added unhappily, “It will be if I finish the bag, but that’s what— _no_ , my dear, it is _not_ for you,” he told Laika, whose tail wagged hopefully as she sniffed at the air. “No chips for anyone whose name ends in an A.”

There was a pause. “Sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. pointed out helpfully, “if I may, that excludes Ms. Romanoff.”

Sighing, Tony said, “I’m surrounded by idiots.”

“That’s not very nice,” Steve murmured. “Be nice to him.”

“You’re taking his side now?” Tony asked, crunching on another chip. “That’s rude. Does J.A.R.V.I.S. let you sleep in his bed? No. J.A.R.V.I.S. does not.”

“I am an artificial construct, sir. I lack even a corporeal form,” J.A.R.V.I.S. said helpfully.

Tony gestured with the chip bag pointedly. “See, Mr. Noncorporeal doesn’t even _have_ a form.” Steve stroked his side idly, silent. Finally, and with no small amount of wariness, Tony asked, “What happened?” He rolled the top of the chip bag shut, setting it on the floor, and told Laika firmly, “ _No_.” To her credit, her swishing tail was the only sign she was even tempted. He promised her, “I will make you a _bountiful_ meal later. It will put potato chips to shame.” Returning his attention to Captain Corporeal, he poked his side gently. “Earth to Rogers, come in Rogers.”

“You know, it kinda—kinda _sounds_ like. . . .” Steve paused.

Tony waited and waited. Finally, he tilted his head to look at Steve, but he couldn’t make out Steve’s face with his cheek pressed against his torso. At last, Steve said cryptically, “But it’s not.”

“Nope,” Tony agreed, even though he hadn’t the faintest idea of what Steve was talking about. “But for the sake of argument, what, exactly, is not? Or are we talking more of the Socratic, I am and that’s all she wrote?”

“Hm?” Steve’s hand paused, then resumed stroking his side, up and down, gentle. Yes, indeed, Tony was happy he was able to override the Alpha lock because even his favorite chair was better with Steve in it. “Oh.” He shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.” Clearing his throat, he added, “Don’t let me stop you, I just—I figured, y’know, with. . . .” He leaned forward, brushed a hand over Laika’s head, then settled back, gathering Tony to his chest. “Guess there aren’t a lotta storms in Norilsk,” he said explanatorily. “Think it spooked her.”

A cog clicked into place, then. Tony hummed in acknowledgment. He curled a hand in Steve’s shirt loosely. He wanted to say, _Scared you, too_ because he knew it was true. But unlike Bruce, Steve hadn’t said a word about it.

Wishing he could offer more support without backing Steve into a corner, Tony said, “Good of you to look out.”

He could feel the tension ease in Steve’s shoulders as he nodded, saying, “Yeah, of course. I—s’what I do. I—” He paused, then said carefully, “I just, y’know, I look out for her.” He inhaled bracingly, then said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t apologize.” Tony toed off his shoes, tucking his legs up towards his chest so he could feel more of Steve’s super-soldier warmth against him. God, he was so warm. He loved how hot Steve ran, like a human space-heater. He almost felt sorry for the rest of humanity, because they _weren’t_ dating Steve. Then he asked suddenly, “Have you ever seen—of course you haven’t, why would you—hey, J.A.R.V., make yourself useful and put on my favorite Disney movie.”

“Favorite,” Steve murmured. “You sure I’ve earned the right to that knowledge, Tony?”

Tony sighed, pillowing his cheek on Steve’s chest. He watched as a series of lights coalesced into a screen across from them. “Shush,” was all he said. The tape rolled.

Steve’s hand traced long brushstrokes along his side, almost like he was comforting Tony. Tony let him—far be it from him to deny him that comfort. He did find it incredibly nice, almost soporific—as Michael Crawford belted out, “ _Out there . . . there’s a world outside of Yonkers . . . way out there beyond this hick town, Barnaby . . . there’s a slick town, Barnabyyy_.”

. o . 

Was there any simpler joy than this? Tony wondered, watching through half-lidded eyes as WALL-E accidentally smacked himself in the face with a paddle ball and Steve _laughed_ under him, a little laugh but oh so _sincere_. There was nothing not to love about the intrepid little robot making his way through a great big world on his lonesome, even though the more Tony watched, the more it suddenly seemed so . . . familiarly sad.

It was a miracle caught out of time, the last one of his kind in a great big world, trying to clean up everybody else’s mess.

And yet there was something comforting about it, too, the tenaciousness of life, the persistence of the desire to do what was good. 

There was something especially charming to Tony about the stories of artificial life. Some people thought machines were a sign of losing humanity. Tony saw them as the very embodiment of humanity— _what do we choose to create?—_ as well as proof that humanity could show compassion towards nearly anything in the universe. It was comforting to him. It felt right to him.

Tony watched the metal miracle rove along on its own two treads and decided that this was definitely worth missing the tail-end of the last good storm of the season.

. o .

Into the quiet dark lab, Steve narrated, “You know, when I was in art school, my teacher used to say that I wouldn’t go anywhere because it took me too long to finish a drawing.”

Leaning against his side, Tony watched him sketch in his sketchbook, one hand moving with slow, methodical, almost excruciating repetition in a single line. “It’d take me half a day to do what the guy next to me could do in an hour,” he went on, still working on that same curving line. “I didn’t know when to quit. It felt like I had to give these worlds . . . a demanding firmness, a sense of reality, you know. Can’t half-do that. Who wants to live in a ghost world?”

He swept over the same line a few more times before moving on, striking a perpendicular line and repeating the motion. Tony could feel him breathing steadily, Laika’s soft sleeping breaths nearby. If he closed his eyes and concentrated very hard, he could make out the impression of rainfall far beyond. But not here, in this quiet space. Not with them. “Maybe ghosts do, I don’t know,” Steve murmured, pencil moving restlessly, unceasingly across the page. “And I’m not sayin’ I’m this great artist, because I’m not. But I feel like, if you’re gonna make something, you gotta spend the time on it that you think it deserves. If you rush art, all you get is rushed art.”

Unhurriedly, he stroked a line upwards, parallel to the first, forming a two-prong fork without the stem. “Now, maybe rushed art is better than no art. Can’t disagree with that. But when you’ve got the time, when you have a moment between—well, between everything else, it’s good to take your time with something. It’s good to settle in for a good long while. That make any sense?”

Tony nodded against his shoulder. Yeah. It did. Because with every single Iron Man suit, he went through an exacting eight-stage process, ranging from pre-pre-construction ideas to post-construction additions. The first and shortest stage was aptly entitled the Mercury phase, where he drew sketches, fast and furious, before he ever worked with any metal. Those sketches were satisfying in an animal way, proof that he could make art in nearly an instant. But when it came to fleshing out the details in the succeeding Venus phase, the real blueprint stage, he spent hours with the design, rearranging all the little pieces to his liking before finally making it real.

Steve arched a fourth line across the top complete the box and went on hypnotically, “You know, sometimes I think, maybe our lives are too short for this kind of art. Any art that isn’t rushed, you know, on some kind of deadline. But then I think about the old art, the kind of art that took generations to finish. Like those big cathedrals. And sometimes you ask yourself, why did they spend so much time on those cathedrals? I think it’s because each one was a monument to their God. They wanted it to be a place for their God to dwell. You can’t rush that. Stuff like that, you gotta make it the way it’s meant to be.”

Still moving at the same steady pace, Steve cut a line across the top of the rectangle to make it longer than the bottom, adding shoulders. He continued, “I also think that, with art, it’s not all about finishing the art. It’s about making it.” He drew a straight line down from the top corner at a forty-five-degree angle. He filled it in, slanted a short line at the base, then caged that rectangle, too, forming an arm to his boxy undefined figure.

“You know, you are as much Iron Man because you wear the suit as you are Iron Man because you _created_ the suit,” Steve said, still never looking up from the page, keeping his brush-strokes controlled as he mirror-imaged the arm on the opposite side of torso. And suddenly it _was_ a torso, clear as day when given context. He left that arm shorter than the other before drawing a line upwards at an angle, filling it out, like it was uplifted, poised.

He boxed in a hand and added comfortably, “I think people make art because it helps them recalibrate. You know, I can—I can work at the factory all day, ‘til my hands are raw and my teeth are sore, then I get my bread and get in bed, but it’s that paperback I’m halfway through, or that new picture reel they’re showin’, or even just that song on the gramophone that makes me wanna be alive. You ever encounter a piece of art that just makes you fall in love?”

He paused briefly to look at Tony, boxed hands on the end of boxy arms. Tony blinked at him, almost caught off-guard, before Steve’s small but warm smile absolved him of an answer. “End of the day, art is what makes us human. And I think it’s relaxing, you know, that you can just draw. Kids who can’t spell their own names draw. Isn’t that beautiful?” 

The figure on the page was taking shape slowly as Steve expanded the torso, drawing long lean rectangles for legs. They were planted shoulder-width apart. Even without a face, the figure struck a proud, strong pose. Steve wordlessly boxed in the knees, one leaning more than the other, indicating uneven weight. And with each new boxy line, he spent maybe ten brush-strokes on it, adding weight to it until it was shadowed and real.

Tony said nothing, watching him sketch. A stage formed beneath the stick figure’s feet. The stick figure itself acquired dimensions of its own, a heaviness in space. A long before its metal plates came to life under patient, shorter strokes. “Can’t make it too heavy,” Steve explained, as he sketched little spider-frame lines all around the figure’s square dimensions, adding plates everywhere. “You know, too heavy, can’t fly.” Tony hummed in agreement, watching as an orb materialized in the proto-Iron Man’s hand. Steve barely stenciled it in before moving on. 

For a long sleepy time, he focused on the face, that flat-browed expression materializing with an almost wonder, beholding the orb. Steve explained lightly, “I’m not one for a deep metaphor.”

He turned the pencil on its side and smoothed in negative space, darkness, a crowd materializing before the Iron Man holding the shiny, almost shapeless orb aloft. He let the shadows touch the edges of the suit, but the eyes glowed. The orb’s reflective light dazzled. Steve finished sketching in the crowd, smaller figures leaning on the stage, arrested by the sight, the bright light of everything, indefinable novelty. “And that’s it,” he murmured. “I don’t think I ever got faster,” he mused, “I just got familiar, cut out the planning.”

Tony stared mutely at the drawing for so long Steve finally prompted, “Tony?”

“Mm?”

Steve switched his pencil to his left hand, settling his right arm around Tony more comfortably as he lowered the sketchbook to the floor next to him. “You okay? You’re awfully quiet.”

“Just in my head,” Tony admitted, cheek resting on his chest.

“You know,” Steve mused, “it’s not fair to all of them, that I’m the one that gets to—to _see_ it, you know—anybody, absolutely anybody a hundred years ago would’ve been over-the-moon to see the suit, and I’m the guy who gets that. Almost isn’t fair to them. I’m not—I’m not, not that _special_ , I’m just _it_. That make any sense?”

Tony curled a hand in his shirt. “Maybe this is a surprise,” he said, “but there aren’t a lot of people like you, Rogers. I don’t wanna share my suit with them. I wanna share it with _you_.” Flattening his palm, he drew a cartoon heart over Steve’s real one. “You’re my big sap and no I do _not_ accept exchanges.”

Steve kissed the top of his head. “Feels like the best kind of accident, bein’ here. You know? I feel like I’m living the best life and it never should’ve happened.”

Tony said simply, “That’s called fate.”

. o .

Mm. Caffei—

“No.” Tony pouted as Steve plucked the mug from his hands and set it on top of the fridge, like the thoughtful bastard he was. “It’s after five,” Steve said pointedly.

Tony turned his most hopeful eyes on him and said, “I’m making up for lost time.”

“You can have more tomorrow,” Steve assured.

Wheedling, Tony said, “It’s a crime to let coffee that good go to waste.”

Steve arched his eyebrows. Without so much as a blink of repentance, he grabbed the cup and drained it in one gulp.

Tony turned up the sadness a notch. “Steven.”

Half-conscious and shuffling like a zombie, Clint stumbled past them with a grunt of, “Thank God” before he snatched the entire goddamn coffeepot, walking off without so much as a how-do-you-do.

“What a terrible accident,” Steve deadpanned. “No more coffee. It’s after five.”

“It’s after five,” Tony mimicked petulantly, watching with hateful eyes as Clint dumped the coffee straight from the pot into his mouth. “Animal.”

Clint flipped him off without even pausing, chugging down black coffee like a man dying of thirst.

Mondays, Tony reflected sullenly, as he plastered himself against Steve’s back and wheedled, “I have more coffee. And coffeepots.”

Steve filled a glass of water and handed it to him. “Here.”

Tony sighed, telling the back of his shoulder, “It’s been _three weeks_ ,” before sipping on the glass anyway. He did have a bit of a headache—not that he would ever tell Captain Caffeine Deprivation that—and the water did help mitigate it once he gave up on wheedling Steve.

Still, he declared, “You know, when I lived alone, I could drink coffee all day.”

Clint set the empty pot aside and grunted, then nearly tripped over Laika, who was lounging on the floor and promptly darted out of the way. “If you step on her, I will kill you,” Tony warned, taking a threatening step towards Clint before a hand in the back of his shirt stopped him.

“If I step on her, I will kill myself,” Clint assured, saluting them and adding, “I’m going to bed. Night night.”

He was out the door, then. Steve released Tony’s shirt, musing, “You’d think he’d go to bed _before_ drinking an entire pot of coffee.”

“We all choose our own hills to die on,” Tony said sagely.

Steve hummed in acknowledgment. “Commitment to the cause,” he said at last. Tony opened his mouth to prove his own commitment to the cause, and Steve sighed and said, “Would hot chocolate make you feel any better?”

. o . 

It wasn’t caffeine, no, but he didn’t need any more caffeine to make it through the last leg of miserable Monday, happy-four-month-anniversary Monday.

That was what mm, Steve was for anyway. “Don’t make me like Mondays,” he murmured, “I have a reputation to maintain.”

Steve just hummed, flipping through another paperback while Tony lounged on his chest, Laika snoozing in her bed nearby. “What reputation is that?” he asked, giving himself away.

“Ruthless,” yawning, Tony finished, “cunning, unpredictable, breathtakingly handsome genius-billionaire.”

Turning the page lightly, Steve assured, “Go to bed, sweetheart.”

Tony wondered if he was getting soft, no longer the last to bed and first to rise in his own home, but there was something irresistible about caving to temptation, Steve’s soft deep breathing, the gently turning page. The prospect of another ordinary day—complete with ten thousand unread emails—awaiting him tomorrow.

Steve wasn’t going anywhere, and that left Tony free to dream.

It was peace itself.


	32. ONCE A MITTEN, ALWAYS A MITTEN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *salutes* Have a wonderful night, champs. <3 Enjoy. Thanks as always for the support! You guys mean the world to me.

_Tuesday, August 20, 1985_.  
Cambridge, Massachusetts.  
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).  
Random Hall, Fourth Floor.

“Hey, Rhodey.”

“Tony,” eighteen-year-old James Rhodes rebuked, “you aren’t supposed to be here.”

Sitting cross-legged on Rhodey’s bed, fifteen-year-old Tony Stark stuffed down a frown. “That’s no way to greet your very closest friend.”

“You’re my third closest friend,” Rhodey quipped.

Rolling his eyes, Tony said dryly, “Coffee and ice cream do not count as friends, Rhodes.”

“They do when they don’t talk back,” Rhodey said, dropping his satchel on his roommate’s bed and asking, “Gabe let you in?”

Examining his fingernails, Tony said, “Funny story, actually, Random’s main lock is _extremely_ hackable and they really need to upgrade security, I did them a favor discovering it. Also, I might have hacked the security footage, but that was to cover my tracks.”

“ _Tony_.” With a sigh, Rhodey sat on the bed next to him. Tony listed towards him and planted his face against Rhodey’s shoulder. “You’re gonna get me kicked out of Random. Hell, you’re gonna get me kicked out of MIT.”

“They would never kick you out of MIT.”

Rhodey reached up to rub his own face. “What are you doing here, Tony? You’re not supposed to be here. You’re still a kid.”

Tony pouted in soft disappointment before he smoothed out his expression. His reaction times were still slow, too slow, but one day, he’d be fast enough to catch himself before he ever stumbled. His dad was so fast Tony had never seen him _emote_ spontaneously. He wasn’t even sure Howard could emote anymore. Someday, Tony thought bitterly, he’d get there, too. “I’m not a kid,” he declared suddenly, his voice sharp, forceful. He sat up fully, then stood, glaring down at Rhodey and insisting, “I’m not a kid, I’m a _student_ and I _should_ have a dorm and it’s _wrong_ that I can’t—”

“You can’t,” Rhodey agreed bluntly. “You’re a minor, Tony, don’t you get that? You need to get out before an RA stops by. We can hang out somewhere else, you just can’t be in my dorm.”

Stuffing down the unhappiness bubbling in his chest, Tony said, only a touch thinly, “Admissions let me in. It’s not fair that I can’t really be a student if they, they let me in.” Folding his arms over his chest, he said with unexpected venom, “I’m not a kid. I’m not.”

“No. You’re not a kid,” Rhodey said. Tony lifted his chin, grateful for the concession. “But you’re still a minor, Tony. You can’t be in a coed dorm with eighteen-year-olds. And there aren’t any dorms for minors.”

Tony scowled, opening his mouth to respond before looking over as the door opened. In the doorway stood a lean, glasses-wearing, somewhat nerdy-looking fellow who could have passed for James Rhodes in another universe if James Rhodes was afraid of bees. After a pointed pause, Gabriel Morris stepped further into the cramped room and nodded at Tony, saying introductorily, “Gabe Morris.”

“Tony Stark,” Tony challenged, chin up.

Rhodey sighed. “Forget your card again, Gabe?”

Gabe said, “I need a lanyard.” He swiped the card conspicuously waiting on the tiny desk wedged next to his bed and saluted with it. “Nice to meet you, Tony.” Then he ducked back out, a backpack over one shoulder hanging open.

Tony said calmly, “Yes, dorm life seems terribly dangerous.”

“This isn’t high school,” Rhodey said seriously.

Emanating boredom, Tony examined his nails, leaning a hip against Rhodey’s desk arrogantly. “I wouldn’t know, I was homeschooled.” Looking up at Rhodey without lifting his head, he added, “But I’ve heard that it’s not a deal-breaker to have eighteen-year-olds live on campus.”

“On property,” Rhodey corrected, making Tony’s jaw clench. “They don’t live together. I’m sorry, Tony,” he said. There was real apology in his tone. “Orientation was fun. And we have three classes together. You’ll get sick of me. But you can’t be in my dorm. We’re not family. You’re—”

“A minor,” Tony quipped. He glared at Rhodey, then the window, as if the gray overcast day was responsible for all of his woes. “I know. I hear you. But it’s not _right_ , Rhodes,” he insisted. “I’m a student. I should be able to live on campus.” He crossed his arms over his chest, hating that it only emphasized the fact that he was skinny, lanky, fragile Tony fucking Stark, because he convinced absolutely no one that he wasn’t anything other than a _kid_ who didn’t belong at a prestigious university. He unfolded his arms and insisted, “They made a precedent letting me _in_. They can make another letting me stay.”

Rhodey said, “What’s so bad about home, Tony?”

Tony blinked, caught off-guard and trying hard to hide it. He failed. He knew he did. Because Rhodey’s expression _softened_.

Swallowing hard, Tony said, “Nothing. I—” He pulled at thin air. “I hate that I can’t have _one_ normal thing, you know?” _One good thing_ was on the tip of his tongue. He was glad he didn’t say it. It would have been a lie. He had Jarvis. He had lots of good things. Really.

He just had a loveless home.

Rhodey stood up. Tony did not move, chin lifted defiantly, arms across his chest, mustering up every inch of his five-foot-three puniness he could.

He hated that James Rhodes was almost five feet, eight inches tall. He towered over Tony by almost half a foot. He was well-built—lean, but not _lanky_ , not middle-adolescence like Tony—and he had that mature frown to his brow and set to his jaw that screamed, _I am an adult_.

A young adult but an adult, nonetheless.

Tony wasn’t. And it was painfully obvious to everyone at every party he’d ever attended that Tony Stark was aging twice as quickly in everything but appearance. He looked young. He was small. And he hated it.

Rhodey measured him up, looking down at him thoughtfully. Tony fidgeted, shying back a step, trying to use distance to compensate for reality. Science said if he stood back far enough, they could look eye-to-eye. Of course, that distance was absurd for conversational purposes. He wasn’t _that_ petty, but he felt small and out-of-his-depth and abruptly very powerless.

He sniffed.

There were no tears, but Rhodey sighed and said, “C’mere, kid,” like it was an apology and an offering at once. Tony planted his forehead against Rhodey’s shoulder, shivering unstoppably in the gravity well of human compassion. Rhodey wrapped warm arms around his shoulders, holding him. Hugging him. It was strange to be hugged by a person he hadn’t even known existed ten days ago, but it was also comforting.

Because they hadn’t met at his father’s functions or because of his name. They had met because Rhodey had slipped into the cafeteria seat next to him, said, “It’s not taken, is it?” and acceptance like warmth flooded Tony’s chest as he shook his head reassuringly, because he’d honestly half-expected to spend the entire time alone and unwanted.

He said quietly, “I’m sorry,” because all of it was too much to ask of someone he barely knew, who had no obligations to him, no real _reason_ to talk to him. No family ties. James Rhodes did not _have_ to be nice to him, or tolerate him, or want him around. Tony Stark was famously intractable, even at his own birthday parties. He’d never once invited a friend. That required having friends. It was always enough to spend time with Jarvis and his pet robots. It was.

It was.

If at times he’d wished for something warmer and softer to hug than cold metal, that was the pathetic little monkey in him. An experiment with baby rhesus monkeys had shown that they unfailingly gravitated towards the warm cloth mother over the cold metal nurturer. It was science, that was all. To crave love in a tangible form was nothing more than science.

He curled his fingers tentatively in Rhodey’s shirt, holding on, wondering if Rhodey would hate him if he knew him as anything more than the reclusive genius.

Rhodey said, “It’s okay.”

Tony nodded, forcing himself to let go and step back. “Yeah.” He reached up to brush his sleeve over dry eyes to be safe. “Yeah. Yup. Mm-hm. It’s great.” He nodded more emphatically. “I’m gonna. . . .” He pointed a thumb over his shoulder vaguely. “I’ll see you around?”

Rhodey shook his head. Tony’s stomach sank like a stone, until Rhodey swiped his own card off his desk and said seriously, “Nah. I need to stretch my legs.”

Heart beating fast, gratitude and elation and hopefulness blooming in his chest, Tony said as dryly as he could manage, “Sure thing, old man. Gotta stay spry somehow.”

Seven hours later, dorm keys and a fuckton of paperwork in hand—his father’s signature pasted onto almost a dozen sheets in all—Tony beamed as he took in their room, observing, “Poor Gabe.” Gabriel Morris was all alone now, but that was okay, because Tony was _not_ , and that was wonderful.

“Poor Gabe?” Rhodey replied, hucking his final bag over a shoulder onto his new-new dorm bed, the same model cot as before. “Poor _me_. I had to move in _twice_.”

Lounging like the world’s happiest starfish on his godawful spring-bed, Tony announced, “We’re gonna rule the world, Rhodes, just you wait. We are gonna goddamn own it.”

“Whole world’s not made up of sweet admissions’ ladies,” Rhodey reminded, organizing his stuff to his previous exacting standards. “And they’re not as liberal as MIT, either. But.” And he smiled, the same rueful enjoyment as Tony as he added, “I’d call that a pretty rousing success.”

. o .

**_Thursday, December 6, 2012_** **.  
** New York City, New York.  
Avengers Tower.

“Hey, tough guy.”

Standing in front of the midnight-black balcony window, Steve turned to look at Tony, who hiked a cardboard box up onto one shoulder. “They had postal back then, right?” Tony asked, stifling a yawn. Giving the box a good shake, he asked, “Wanna take a guess?” Without waiting for an answer, he tossed the box to Steve, who caught it without a hitch.

Looking at Tony skeptically, Steve asked with bemused flatness, “Why?”

Tony kept his distance, folding his arms across his chest and gesturing at the box impatiently. “Just open it.”

“It’s not my birthday,” Steve reminded. Tony rolled his eyes. Tenaciously, Steve added, “Or Christmas.” He paused, then wondered aloud, “Did they make a new holiday?”

“Not yet,” Tony said, rocking on his heels, clasping his hands before waving at the box. “It’s not for a holiday. Or special occasion. It’s just a thing. Open it.”

Steve turned the box over in his hands carefully. “Where’s it from?” he asked.

“It’s from the U.S. postal service,” Tony said, glad he’d tastefully removed the shipping label already. “It’s also been through at least three distinct layers of security, so if there’s a bomb, that’s on me.”

Steve smirked, a hint of humor in his eyes as he looked at Tony, then back at the box, fingers flexing around it. At last, he said in a carefully quiet tone, “But I didn’t get you anything.”

Sighing, Tony muttered, “Christmas is gonna be a nightmare.” Bargaining, he lowered his arms and said, “You let me buy you food.”

“I do. Food’s food.” Steve gave the box a gentle shake. It made no sound. “This is not food.”

“If you guess what it is, I’m gonna be pissed off,” Tony warned.

Steve’s eyes twinkled with mirth, even though his mouth was firm, giving little away. Holding the box up to his ear, he added dryly, “Not a live animal. Or a dead one. Is it a dead one?”

Tony frowned and echoed, “Why?” When Steve made no move to open the box, he stepped forward and grabbed Steve’s utility belt. He pried a small knife from one of the little holsters. He flicked the blade open and stuck it in the tape on top of the box, ordering, “Open the box.”

Steve plucked the knife from the top and slid the blade back into place before returning it to its holster. Tucking a thumb under the seam, he pried the top open and asked wryly, “You always take the hard way, Tony?”

“I _love_ the hard way,” Tony deadpanned, keeping a hand on his belt and definitely _not_ shifting from foot to foot with anticipation. It wasn’t even _his_ gift.

Well, technically—

Steve eased back the cardboard flaps and pulled out a plastic-wrapped folded-up piece of fabric. He mused, “This what I think it is?”

“Jesus Christ, Socrates.” Caving to impatience, Tony snatched the object and ripped the plastic off in one go. He warned, “I’m putting a ten-second cap on your ‘opening presents’ time, anything over and Hulk gets them.”

A touch warily, Steve asked, “How many presents are you planning on—?” He sighed tolerantly as Tony leaned up and energetically stuffed the fabric over his head, recreating the classic Headless Horseman look in one stroke. “This seems contrary to the spirit of unwrapping a present,” Steve remarked, slightly muffled behind the fabric, looking around blindly. “Is this another hint?”

Tony said, “You’re insufferable,” and, as Steve took a step away, he asked, “What are you doing?”

“Hm? Oh.” Steve stopped, returning to his side. “I can see pretty well, actually, just testin’ it out. Nice to know.”

“You’re not allowed to get kidnapped anymore,” Tony reminded him, adding with a sigh, “c’mere.” Steve obediently bowed his head so Tony could tug the fabric down. “There,” he said triumphantly, stepping back so Steve could reach up and slide his arms into place.

Hair ruffled, Steve looked down at the sleeves and mused, “This one fits better’n the last one.” Then he saw the lettering on the chest and laughed, a startled sound that made Tony beam helplessly with pleasure. “I didn’t go to MIT, Tony.”

“Neither did half the people who wear them,” Tony assured, pressing up against Steve’s chest, arms wrapped snugly around his back. He rubbed his cheek against the fabric deliciously, adding modestly, “God, I’m a genius. I truly am the world’s _smartest_ man.”

“Yeah. You are,” Steve agreed, curling his arms around Tony’s back. “Is this a gift for me or for you?” he teased, rocking them. “‘Cause I’m starting to feel like a human-sized teddy bear.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Teddy bears don’t talk this much,” he grunted, squeezing Steve warningly when Steve made a contrary sound, ready for an argument. “Just accept it. No take-backs, Steve.” Fumbling blindly, he found the tag on the back of the hood and yanked it off. “See, now you can’t take it back.”

“I wasn’t planning to, Tony.” Tony nodded in acknowledgement, hair rasping along the hoodie. Kissing the side of Tony’s head, Steve said softly, “It’s wonderful.” The sincerity in his voice made something tighten in Tony’s chest. His even softer _thank you_ only made Tony close his eyes. Tony could hear the smile in his voice as he added, “It’s a very nice false advertisement.”

Sighing, Tony pulled back and said, “You really are gonna be a riot at Christmas.” And then he cupped Steve’s face and kissed him firmly, relishing warmth and softness and _all-mine_ vibes.

. o . 

Lying on the couch in the balcony room watching _Jurassic Park_ for the fourth time since Steve’s timely arrival in the modern era, Tony stifled a yawn against his shoulder. Steve said in a voice quiet and rumbling, “That one fella, Malcolm?” Tony nodded without lifting his head. “He sure likes to be shirtless.”

“If you were that pretty, you’d like to be shirtless, too,” Tony said with a mock sniff, feeling Steve’s soft chuckle underneath him.

“Yeah. I’m so ugly, I gotta wear a bag over my head,” he said, reaching up with his free hand to tug the collar of his hoodie up and over his face. “’m I tolerable now, Tony?” he asked, voice muffled.

Tony rolled his eyes, sitting up lazily so he could tug it back down. “Don’t stretch out the fabric,” he chided. “I _will_ buy you another one.” He kissed the tip of Steve’s nose to make his ears turn red. And because he could. So, he did it again, another kiss above the first. Steve shut his eyes, resting both hands on Tony’s hips.

“Is that a threat?” he murmured, smiling when Tony kissed his cheek. 

“Yes,” Tony assured, and bit his ear gently.

He buried himself in Steve’s arms, then, flattening himself against him, feeling his weight, hyper-aware of Steve’s warm, deep breathing. He deep-breathed naturally. It was as amazing as it was tragic, that modern humans didn’t naturally do what they’d been built to. Tony had a feeling it was what humanity could be, if it wasn’t so gosh-darned caught up in the blisteringly paced wheel of progress.

Lounging, lingering, pausing for _breath_ , these were things worth doing. These were the moments life existed in. The rest were snapshots in time, brilliant and flashy and easy to frame, but there was nothing to frame or lose as he pressed a kiss to Steve’s mouth, as he drew strength from his presence, comforting and real.

He didn’t know when he fell asleep, exactly, only that one moment he had his head pillowed on Steve’s shoulder and the next it was sunrise and he awoke with a soft snort into a pillow, silently mourning the loss of his favorite super-soldier. Pawing around, he found the blanket draped over his belly and tugged it over his face. But it wasn’t a blanket, it was the _hoodie_. He hummed in wordless pleasure and contentment as he dragged it up over his head, blocking out the light. 

The soft gray fabric was thick enough to keep the sunlight from being blinding. He exhaled deeply, satisfied. He inhaled Steve, Steve, Steve.

Heroic attempts had been made in the past to describe human scents in ways humans could understand. All too often, the task struggled with the daunting difficulty of capturing rain on skin from the other side of a closed window. The whole package of olfactory pleasure was a feeling as much as a chemical mixture, a place and time imprinted in scent-memories. 

In ways, it was a negative language, a lack of offensive odors, a collection of soft and subtle undertones that evaded names. He could only note absences, reflections, appearances, including a distinct lack of a floral scent, but even that stated as fact deprived nature’s many aromatic mysteries their due. Perhaps there was a flower, or bush, or tree that twinned the scent perfectly. They knew too little to explain so much. 

One thing he did note, lingering on the hoodie, was a hint of ozone’s undiscovered twin, something neither metallic nor liquid but some plasma-like state in between, cool and chrome and otherworldly. It lingered on Steve’s clothes as if he was still burning off ice. 

A sharper nose might even pick it up in a room, small enough and occupied long enough, like a favored reading nook. Tony suspected it was the serum itself lending its own preternatural contribution to his general aura. And yet even that ungraspable thing was only the outermost layer of the thing. It was vulnerable, too: it could be drowned with the comfortingly familiar, intoxicatingly lovely scent of his own soap on Steve’s skin.

There were a thousand little moments to describe pieces of the picture—the fresh chlorine buzz of a pool, the dry dirt coat of a packed-down road, the new-car varnish of a private jet plane, the sharp leather-metal of belt buckles and boots, the forlorn taste of old red wine, the crisp parchment tang of cut firewood, the first cold rain of winter, the last tired exhale of dusk—but so few described what filled his lungs so readily with pure joy and the comfort of home sweet home.

Only one came close, and that was sunshine. Fresh, vibrant, warm skin and eternal promises. It was a cliché above them all, but it was the only helpless shrug of an answer, the only pen-to-paper way he could name the thing that he loved unconsciously and irrevocably. Steve was a living star to him, a rarity in space and time whose twin did not exist. Tony treasured every inch of him, even just the impression.

Naturally, he grinned like a kid on Christmas morning when he heard the door slide back, followed by the sound of clicking claws. He dropped a hand over the edge of the couch to feel a cool furred head press against it, heard sniffing near his ear. 

He snickered and pushed Laika back gently, sitting up and pulling the hoodie down simultaneously. There was Steve by the door, smiling and rosy-cheeked, snowflakes melting in his hair. Tony blinked at him, startled. Then he twisted to look out the window, staring in open _wonder_ at the sheet of snow blanketing every inch of the city.

“Morning, chief,” Steve greeted lightly, carefully toeing off his shoes near the door. There wasn’t much snow on them—and Tony idly wondered how easy it was to jog in New York City in the wake of a snow-flurry—but the gesture counted as he unzipped his jacket, slinging it over the back of a chair for want of a coat hanger. “How’d you sleep?” he asked conversationally, ambling into the kitchen.

Tony closed his eyes in thought, yelping when Laika jumped onto the couch and flopped over his legs. Steve chided, “Laika,” but she wagged her tail, watching Tony with hopeful clear eyes, silently entreating _bargain for me_. He leaned forward, cupped a black ear carefully and smoothed his hand down her soft black-and-white neck before leaning back against the arm of the couch.

He mused aloud, “Steve, we adopted a panda.”

Steve, who was thankfully busy making coffeemaking noises—opening cabinets, grabbing bags, etc.—huffed in amusement. “You know, when I found her, it was pitch-black,” he said. She was cold against Tony’s legs, but he was warm enough to share and the balcony room was comfortably warm. “Could’ve been the real deal, for all I knew.”

“Pandas aren’t native to Siberia,” Tony prompted, resting his chin on the back of the couch and watching Steve work.

“No,” Steve agreed, glancing up at him and smirking. “Not what that nifty little brochure said.” He got the coffee started and stepped around the counter. “You know, in my time,” he said, almost incongruous, not the _back in my day_ tonality Tony almost expected but rather the inviting confidence of _remember when?_ , “we didn’t have that kind of knowledge lying around. The world was your fingertips. Telephones. Radio dials. The people you shook hands with, talked to.” 

He stepped up to the window, looking out at the city and musing, “Sometimes, I think about all the letters we used to write. Because that was the extent of our worldly knowledge. It was all shared, hand-to-hand. Even fliers, there was a sense of somebody printing them out and putting them up. These days, that kind of—of _knowledge_ , of experience, it’s just lyin’ around.” He looked over at Tony without moving from his perch, adding, “I’m not sayin’ it was better, but—it was more personal. These days, anyone can learn anything, anywhere. Why ask questions when you can—can ask that Google thing, yeah?”

Tony patted Laika, who obediently hopped down. He shuffled around to stand, sliding his arms into the hoodie as he did so. “I don’t know,” he said, letting a hint of playful doubt cover his tone. Steve tilted his head at him, curious. “We leave footprints in the digital sand,” he explained, sauntering over, bumping his shoulder against Steve’s. “That’s where word-of-mouth is still king. No trace. It’s nice to be invisible sometimes. To disappear. You know?” 

He looked out the window at the white world, adding, “It’s a small world, Rogers. Only way to get out is to get off the grid sometimes. It’s not a totally lost art,” he assured, leaning against Steve’s shoulder. “Trust me, as long as people exist, we’ll still talk to each other. We can’t not. Google doesn’t tell us we’re pretty,” he added with a haughty sniff.

Steve laughed, slinging an arm around his shoulders and saying, “That so?”

The door slide back behind them and Tony leaned up to plant a quick kiss on Steve’s cheek before turning around and greeting, “Hi, Bruce.”

Bruce, looking vaguely hungover, squint-eyed and ruffled, grunted something that might have been a hello on a more charitable day. Steve asked, “Feelin’ all right?” Another indiscernible grunt.

Tony told Steve conspiratorially, “He’s not a morning person.” Steve hummed in understanding.

Bruce took up a silent vigil next to the coffeemaker, pulling the pot off the second it was done and pouring himself a mug, adding the requisite spoonful of sugar before taking a mouth-searing gulp without flinching. He closed his eyes, then took another long sip. Finally, he said, “Skyped till five AM with Antarctica.”

Tony shivered involuntarily, ambling over to steal the pot. “Why?”

“Eight PM in Antarctica.”

“Really?” Steve said, with such a tone of genuine curiosity that Bruce nodded patiently and explained between sips:

“Ever heard of McMurdo?” Steve shook his head. “McMurdo Station is a U.S. Antarctic base,” Bruce said. “It’s kind of like an under-the-world city, but with just a few hundred people instead of millions. There are no permanent inhabitants, but they work seasonal shifts. Right now —December—is actually mid-summer. Usually runs from October to April. Everyone ships out by May, with a few hundred people staying behind to overwinter.”

“A few hundred people?” Steve repeated, making incredulity sound inviting as he took a seat at the island, leaning his elbows on it like a guy at a bar. Tony hummed joyously at the first taste of his own cup of coffee, slanting a look at Steve, who shrugged in response. The docs had advised Tony steer clear of caffeine for at least two weeks, preferably three to four. He’d paid his due diligence. All but purring, he leaned a hip against the counter, keeping out of Bruce’s way. He waited.

Obligingly, Bruce went on. “Mm-hm. A few thousand live there in the summer, doing research, conducting experiments, digging up meteorites. One of the best places in the world to find space rocks.”

Even Tony confessed interest as he asked, “Why?”

Bruce shrugged, taking a bite of an apple—how typical, Tony thought, amused—and explaining after swallowing a mouthful, “For the most part, meteorites aren’t drawn to any particular place on Earth, they’re fairly evenly distributed. But most places are vegetated, tectonically active, or underwater. Antarctica is a big white emptiness.” Looking outside, he pointed and added, “Where would you look for slate-gray rocks?”

Steve said, “They really find space rocks down there?”

Bruce nodded seriously and took another bite. “It’s a side hobby. And because Antarctica is technically the international waters of continents, it gets dicey deciding things like ownership and display rights. Most of the rocks are left behind.” He shrugged ambivalently. “Namibia, Tanzania—those are big hubs for space rocks. Again, it’s the contrast. Lots of sand. Deserts, deserts are a great place to look for meteorites.”

“Noted,” Tony said. He wasn’t entirely kidding. Steve looked at him and he shrugged. “What?”

Bruce gave a huff of laughter, taking another bite of his apple before saying, “Don’t get too excited. Most rocks belong to somebody, even the ones that fall from the sky. Unless it crashes into your house—and sometimes not even then—it’s not really yours. It’s God and country’s.”

“What’s God and country’s?” Natasha asked. Steve looked over at her, reciprocating the small smile, sliding off his seat like he would offer it to her. She was intercepted by Laika, who approached, head low but tail wagging, ears perked forward. “Good morning,” she told Laika, holding out her hand, back of it facing Laika. Tony beamed with pride as Laika sniffed at her hand before stepping up and brushing against Natasha’s legs. Rubbing her head, Natasha added, “What are you boys up to?”

“Space rocks,” Bruce told her, saluting her with his cup.

“I’m going on a Tanzanian-Namibian joint safari, if you want in,” Tony added blithely.

Bruce sighed patiently. “No, he’s not.”

“Don’t stifle my creativity,” Tony said. “I wanna get arrested for something interesting.”

Rolling his eyes, Bruce took a final bite of his apple before chucking the core in the garbage bin. “Just go to NASA and steal Moon rocks like a real man.” He topped off his coffee, taking another long draw and sighing with relief. “Thank God for coffee. Almost feel bad for the kids. Everything hot’s a commodity down there, so there’s not much of it to go around.”

Tony shuddered with real horror, reaching for his cup and pouting when Natasha swiped it from under him with a magician’s ease. 

“Do that again,” he dared. Patiently, she handed the mug back to him, stepped past him, and then his mug was just _gone_ , so handily removed that he blinked dumbly at his open palm before turning to watch her finish it off. “I wanna learn super-secret spy stuff,” he declared.

“Sleight of hand isn’t that secret,” Natasha said. She glanced at Steve, who tilted his head, the kind of watchful observation of someone who just learned a new trick. She smirked, asserting, “Don’t tell him.”

Tony pinned Steve with his gaze, but Steve just smiled, blue eyes dark with amusement. “Can’t break a lady’s trust,” he copped out.

Flashing him the middle finger, Tony fetched another mug, growling when it, too, disappeared. Steve laughed. Tony insisted, “ _Stop that_.”

Natasha said, “No,” and snagged the pot, topping off both mugs and sliding one to Steve, who reclaimed his seat at the counter.

“Both of you are menaces to society,” Tony said, gripping a third mug in both hands. He stepped aside as Natasha stepped around him, reaching for a lower cabinet. He didn’t consciously relax his grip but the mug disappeared as easily as if he’d dropped it.

Natasha handed him his original empty mug and filled the new mug for herself. “This is a pyramid scheme,” Tony said, scowling at the now-empty coffeepot as he set it up for another pot. “I hate all of you.” He looked at Laika, tail swishing as she approached. Pointed at her, he pushed his oversized sleeve back and said seriously, “Except you. I would die for you.”

. o .

“His name is Gerald.”

Steve cocked his head thoughtfully at the stout little snowman, Laika heeled at his side, her leash in one gloved hand. “Why?” he asked.

Tony said, “Because he is a distinguished snowman.” He started work on a second snowman.

Steve idly unclipped Laika’s collar from her leash. She took off at a sprint across the snowy field, silent and fast. Tony grinned as he watched her go before returning to his work, rolling his snowball with firm, easy movements.

The drive from New York had taken less than two hours, but it felt like another world, especially in the early darkness of evening. Penn’s tree land didn’t disappoint in its namesake department, with ample foliage on either side of the huge meadow. It was even more heavily snowed than its northerly neighbor: Tony’s boots sunk fully three inches into cold arctic fluff. Near the long winding country road, it crunched lightly underfoot, muted but satisfying.

Steve whistled and Laika paused near the trees before returning at the same bold sprint, charging full-tilt. Tony warned sharply, “ _Stop!_ ” She halted, looking at them and sitting down, folding herself flat on the ground expectantly. Tony patted his leg and she stood up, loping over at a sedate pace and letting Tony brush snowy gloved hands over her furry neck, telling her, “Good, good dog. _Khoroshaya sobaka_. Good dog.”

Steve mused, “I wonder if her owner is looking for her. She’s trained.” Laika blitzed over to him. Steve knelt down and grabbed her head gently, telling her, “ _Moya khoroshaya sobaka_.”

 _My good dog_.

It made Tony’s heart warm, even though his face was going numb with cold, as he watched Steve sling an arm around her, almost a hug, while she sniffed hopefully at his scarf. She was a rather quiet dog, which made sense: loud or obtrusive and she might have been removed permanently from the mines. It made him indescribably sad to imagine. She was the best dog in the world. No one, absolutely no one, could take her from them.

 _And_ she was a good car dog, which was nice, since she’d also been a good plane dog. She was a good dog. A good, good dog.

 _Khoroshaya sobaka. Khoroshaya sobaka_.

Good Russian dog.

He said, surprisingly heartfelt, “I don’t think I ever thanked you.”

Steve looked up at him, scrunching up his nose in irreverent amusement as Laika licked his face, pushing her back with a gloved hand. “For what? Coffee?” He smiled, adding, “Don’t have to thank me for that, Tony.” He stood up, patting Laika’s head. His brow furrowed; he repeated softly, “Tony?”

Tony shook his head, because it was suddenly too much to verbalize, to say, _You gave me a dog_ , even though it was simple, almost a cliché, really. Because it wasn’t his dog: it was _their_ dog. She found Steve and Steve couldn’t get rid of her. He’d tried, because it was the right thing to do, but Tony knew that he loved Laika, too. _My dog. Our dog_.

Family, he thought, turning away so he could focus on the second snowman. He’d always made them as a kid, because if there was one thing Tony Stark had always been good at, it was having fun. Still, he wondered absently if Steve ever had, if it was a _thing_ back in 1940. He decided not to ask. 

He didn’t want to go to 1940. For once, he wanted to stay in 2012.

Steve joined him after a few moments, holding up a snowball that probably weighed twenty pounds, asking, “Is this good?” Laika pressed against Tony’s legs before he patted her head, nodded towards the open field. 

He encouraged, “Go on. _Veselit'sya_.” _Have fun_. She took off. He watched her go, hands on his hips, yearning for something.

There was something almost magical about Russian, the way it sounded, Ve-seel-it-sa. It was a language that enjoyed life, that took its time. He missed it suddenly, hearing it murmured and chattered and barked and laughed in the bar that Dmitry Petrov took him to as he drank until the warmth in his belly exceeded the biting, breathtaking, unyielding cold outside those walls, lukewarm strains of music and long vodka-hot conversations filling the air.

It was amazing, he decided, how persistent humans were, thinking of the cold unforgiving North and the cold unforgiving South, one embracing its own winter, the other stranded in middle of summer. 

Earth was not a gentle mother. It was a harsh cosmic experiment, a meteorite drifting in space of unimaginably dark nothingness, where life had to either cling to its surface or die trying, where there were no safe havens, only safe moments. Everyone alive knew they were vulnerable to it and any cosmic visitors that crashed into it.

He paused before rolling the foundation for another snowman, next to the first. He built it up in silence, working methodically, as Steve whistled occasionally for Laika, who only reappeared briefly before cantering off into the wilderness. After a long, face-numbing time, he stepped back from not two but six little snowmen, each two snowballs-tall, before saying, “You gonna help or you gonna watch?”

Steve admitted, “I didn’t want to interrupt.” He spared a glance into the woods where Laika had disappeared before crouching and gathering a snowball, musing, “Is this what people do without a war?”

Tony wasn’t sure it was a question meant for him, but he answered it anyway. “You had a childhood.”

“I did.” Steve rolled his snowball forward. “It wasn’t very exciting.” He was quiet for a few moments, planting his snowball in the far corner of the three-by-three grid Tony had started. “There’s never been a time without war,” he added soberly. He stacked a second snowball on top of the first.

“Gotta say, sometimes I miss that brand of giddy optimism,” Tony said dryly. Steve looked at him, blinking in surprise. Tony shrugged, elaborating, “A world without war. Thought that was your—you know.” He planted his seventh snowman next to Steve’s. “Your spiel.” Steve didn’t respond right away, quietly molding snow.

Tony kept at it, too, shaping little snowmen, an army emerging, sixteen, twenty-five, thirty-six. Then it was sundown, almost too dark to see.

Stepping back to admire their handiwork, Steve said suddenly, “I do believe in the good.”

Tony, reaching up to brush his nose with a glove absently, asked, “Hm?”

“The good guys. And gals.” Stripping off his gloves so he could shake the snow off them, Steve tucked them back into place and insisted, “I believe in that, in them. People. Even if I don’t know about the rest, I still believe in people.”

Tony leaned against Steve’s side, prompting him to wrap an arm around him. There wasn’t much warmth through the jackets, but Steve was strong, solid. Tony said, “I had a really hard time after Afghanistan believing in anybody.” Steve squeezed him. Assuringly, Tony added, “I believed in Pepper. Rhodey. I believed in them. That they had lives to lead. But I didn’t know about the rest. It—it felt _tired_. Empty. Everyone else was fake. They wanted me to die so they could have my money. I almost let them have it, too,” he added humorlessly. 

Steve turned his head, tucking his cheek against the top of Tony’s as Tony bowed it, huddling against him, the faintest hint of a breeze hushing through the field. “I wanted them to take it to see what I’d have left.” Into Steve’s down-covered collarbone, he admitted, “I was afraid there’d be nothing.” He was quiet before carrying on carefully, “But I still had Pepper and Rhodey. I didn’t buy them. They didn’t _need_ me, not to survive. I wasn’t—I wasn’t anything to them but. . . .” _A friend_.

The words stuck in his throat. He heard Steve say softly, “It’s okay, Tony.”

He nodded, staying in his huddle. “I want to live in their world,” he said at last, pulling back to look at Steve, deep blue eyes dark in the twilight. “Your world.” He gestured off into the distance where their wolf-descendant roamed. “Hers. The Avengers’. I want to live for the _good people_. The ones worth fighting for.”

Steve looked down at him, unblinking. At last, he nodded, looking off into the distance, looking for something, before looking back at Tony. He gathered Tony close again, arms wrapped around his back, shielding him from the elements. “I’d fight for your life to the ends of the Earth,” he said at last, his voice a low rumble in his chest. “We need you, Tony. You. Not Iron Man, not—not the CEO of some big company, not even the guy who’s able to make magic with machines. Just you. The guy who is recklessly, relentlessly alive.”

Tony exhaled against his chest, a soft cold puff of air. He stayed in his huddle, savoring safe. Held. Cold, but warm-hearted.

 _Cold hands, warm heart_.

He closed his eyes, aching with quiet gratitude that he’d lived long enough for this, long enough for this moment, for this life.

Then he stepped back, looking around the field, down at the army of snowmen. He smiled. “Gerald,” he decided. “They’re all named Gerald.”

Steve reached up and scuffed a gloved hand over the back of his head, pushing the hair up. He said, “There are other names, you know.”

Tony wrinkled his nose, reaching up to smooth down his hair even as Steve whistled out into the wilderness. A low-to-the-ground shape came loping towards them. “Gerald,” he insisted before he crouched, arms open, to catch Laika as she crashed into him with a bark. Rubbing her back vigorously, he told her, “Hi, hi, I missed you, too. Are you cold yet? Hm? I bet you’re not. I’m _freezing_. Yes, I am. Yes.” He kissed her head, straightening with a quiet groan as his knees cracked audibly.

Surveying their snowy colony, Steve asked casually, “What do you think, hoss?”

“It’s pronounced _Hobbes_ ,” Tony said, enjoying the way Steve’s brow furrowed in confusion. “ _Calvin and Hobbes._ Don’t worry. It’s not another movie, I know your list is obscenely long. Just the greatest comic of all time.”

Steve arched his eyebrows, adding playfully, “All time, huh? Tall order.”

Nodding seriously, Tony repeated, “All time.” Then he stooped to sweep Laika into his arms like a sheep, huffing, “God Himself could not stop me from picking up my dog.” He set her down and she sniffed at his leg, letting him pat her head in apology and gratitude. “Okay, my face is completely frozen, let’s blow this popsicle stand before my ass freezes over, too.”

. o .

Tony said, “You know, you’re terrible for my ego.”

Steve huffed, patting the snow-dog under the table before realigning his fingers into an end goal arrangement. “I didn’t invent it.”

Tony squinted at him, folded up little napkin perched between two fingers, ready to flick. “No,” he agreed, “but you’re still winning.” He flicked the napkin. It zinged off to the side. Sighing, he said, “Your turn.”

Steve plucked the triangle off the table and pointed out, “We don’t have to play, Tony.”

“Is that surrender? I sense forfeiture.” He let his shoulders droop as Steve set up the triangle, obediently holding his hands in the appropriate formation. He felt Laika rest her head on his foot and told Steve, “At least my dog-daughter still loves me.” The little triangle zipped over his fingers neatly. Tony did not pout as it bounced off his jacket and landed on the table. He did not. 

Steve lifted his chin like he wanted to grin but was trying to be polite. Sighing, Tony said, “Laugh it up.” He set up the triangle, insisting, “Table games are not an indicator of any intelligence. Except those little wooden triangle thingies at Cracker Barrel. I’m a whiz at those and they absolutely certify me as a genius.” He flicked the triangle without much thought and it zipped between Steve’s fingers. He huffed. “That’s, what, twelve to one?”

Steve smiled and admitted, “Wasn’t keepin’ count.” Tony squinted dubiously at him. Steve shrugged. He took a long sip of his coffee and said, “You know, I always had good aim.” Tony arched an eyebrow. Steve nodded, explaining, “Nobody believed me, because my eyes were bad and I’d never really thought to correct ‘em, but I had a good sense of . . . space. I could flick a coin into a bottle. That was my party trick.” 

He balanced the paper triangle on his thumb, flicked it into the air, and caught it neatly in his other hand. “I could always draw,” he added quietly. He turned the triangle over in his hand rather than looking at Tony. “I wasn’t always helpless. I was—a little bent outta shape. That was all. Once the docs fixed me up, things changed. Things changed.”

Tony rested an elbow on the table, chin in hand. He said, “You weren’t bent.” Steve looked at him, blue eyes not entirely _there_ , that same looking-for-something-else look that kind of broke Tony’s heart. He insisted, “You weren’t.” He tried to find a way around the blunt words, but there was no equivalent: “I read your file. And yeah, some of that stuff—the fevers, we’ve got treatments, so nobody suffers through them anymore.” 

Nodding in concession, he added, “Almost no one. Hard to eradicate completely. But there’s no—there’s no Platonic ideal of a person, you know? I mean, look at me.” Steve’s eyes seemed to focus more as they flicked over Tony, narrowing a touch in confusion. It kind of ached inside him that, yeah, even lean-built and average-height Tony Stark would’ve been a stiff breeze to painfully skinny Steve Rogers. 

Not letting the thought settle long, he said, “I’m a barely-reformed alcoholic with a heart condition. And that’s not the same. I’m not saying it is. What I _am_ saying is that nobody’s the holotype. Nobody’s the model one of humanity that everyone else is cut to look like.

“Did you know almost one in three people has astigmatism at some point in their life? They teach you that in the Army?” Steve blinked at him, surprise plain as day on his face even though his mouth remained a flat, indecipherable line. Listening. But uncertain. 

“We make these things called contacts now, so it’s not always clear which people have it or don’t. Lot of people with glasses, yeah. But there’s a lot of invisible stuff out there, too. Take cancer. One of the leading killers in the world, but cancer is—honestly, until it really starts to kill you, it can be very quiet.” 

He had a sudden unwanted image of Edwin Jarvis in his golden years, kneeling on his good knee in the garden, tending to his freesias with gentle, slow-moving hands, the same hands that shook out white pills from a bottle that helped keep the stomach cancer from killing him, that straightened glasses over his face delicately, that fluttered for a handkerchief as he coughed pneumonically into it.

A warm smooth hand slid under his free one, curling around it, squeezing gently. He swallowed. He lingered on their intertwined fingers, head tipped almost insolently in hand as Steve brushed a thumb over his knuckles and Laika slept on his foot. 

“We used to think that humanity was supposed to be perfect,” he pushed onward. “That if you limped, you were a defect. If you coughed, you were a disease. And if you stood out, you were supposed to be better in every way. Untouchable.” Steve squeezed his hand again, gently. 

“Gravity is a bitch,” Tony said in a fierce undertone, “and we’re fighting the entire Earth every time we stand up. But it’s still hard for us to believe that sometimes bone and sinew can’t do that, can’t fight an entire planet and win. It’s hard for us to imagine being weak. Paralyzed. Affected. Amputated.” 

He paused to use the hand not in Steve's to take a sip of his water, determinedly not thinking about the fist-sized hole in his chest, no. Never. He set the water aside and looked Steve in the eye, saying firmly, “We think we’ve all gotta stand tall until the day we die. Then we get sick, or we get tired, and we’re not that guy anymore.” Shaking his head, he insisted, “The strongest athletes suffocate on Mount Everest. No one can dive deep in the oceans, either. But we don’t look at swimmers disdainfully because they don’t have gills. We look at climbers like the crazy sons of bitches that they are, because who wants to go that high, huh?” He squeezed Steve’s hand and got a small rueful smile in return. 

“We accept limitations like that,” he said seriously, gripping Steve’s hand for self-comfort. “We accept, too, that if and when it kills you, it really was a sonuvabitch, but somehow we can overlook everyday struggles. The thing that killed you and the white pills you take every day aren’t the same thing, right?” He swallowed and took another fortifying drink. 

“There’s this . . . illusion, that people are _broken_ ,” he said, fierce, adamant, “and we act like they should do everything they can to hide how broken they are. And then we wonder—how did they die so suddenly? Why didn’t we see it coming?” He pulled Steve’s hand to his face and rested his cheek against it, uncaring that the dingy little diner with the best BLTs on this coast was nearly but not completely deserted. It was late. It was dark outside. And their corner was quiet. Alone. Safe. 

Eyes closed, he murmured, “Nobody’s broken. Got that? Nobody. Nobody on planet Earth is broken. Some people struggle because they’ve got bad bones, or bad parents, or bad genes. Some people had a bad accident, or a series of bad accidents. And,” he opened his eyes, looking at Steve, lowering his hand to the table, still holding on. Holding on. 

“Some people are pretty good at keeping their life story out of plain view because they know others will _judge_ them for problems they can’t solve in their own unexchangeable skin. And some people don’t have a choice because they can’t hide a broken back or a missing arm or a blind eye. And a few very brave people choose not to hide at all, to not pretend that they are what they aren’t because they’re not _broken_. And they band together, you know? Everybody’s—everybody’s a bit left of whatever dream we thought we were making. And that’s . . . that’s _okay_. You know? That’s okay. It’s okay.” 

Steve’s eyes were so soft and dark, even though the faintest sheen was impossible to hide. “It’s okay to be who you are, even if it feels like less than you should’ve been. Some people die very young. We don’t all get the best, most charmed life, but maybe it’s—maybe it’s comforting, that none of us really do.”

Steve squeezed his hand firmly, then released it, reaching up self-consciously to brush a stray tear from the corner of his eye before it could run free. “And they say I’m good at speeches,” he muttered, but there was warmth in his town, a warmth that curled Tony’s toes, that validated every word, that said _thank you_. 

Tony nodded, folding his arms on the table and resting his chin on them, looking at Steve with starstruck eyes. Steve looked back at him, fearless and unflinching, but more—more than that, loving and understanding. Tony knew that if he got cancer, if he couldn’t walk, if he went blind in one eye, Steve wouldn’t get up out of the booth and run, searching for a more symmetrical Tony somewhere, a closer approximation of an impossible dream.

He hadn’t left Jarvis in those final days. If anything, it had only brought them closer. Seeing a strong man falter was the pinnacle of humanity to him. _I am doing all right_ , he would tell Tony, never _I’m fine_ or _I’m all right_ , but _I am doing all right_. He thought that was a lovely sentiment because it allowed so much, allowed everything in the middle, whether it was exhaustion or soreness or nausea or nightmares, whatever struggles Jarvis did not attempt to conceal from him. 

He couldn’t, in the end, but even on the days when he might have lied to Tony that his knee did not hurt, he chose to be honest, instead. _Yes, it aches_ , he would say, or _Yes, I am tired_. It felt almost like he was speaking to a child— _Yes, I am cold_ had an emotional vibration nearer to _What can I do? Fetch a blanket_ than _I feel this way and it is immutable_. In a way, he taught Tony more in those final years than his own father had over the course of his whole life.

Looking at Steve, Tony smiled and said quietly, “If you think I wouldn’t love you then, you haven’t met you.” Steve closed his eyes, his smile warm, almost uncontainable joy even as Tony reached across the table and brushed a thumb under an eye gently, the deep, almost dark blue arresting as Steve blinked at him, gaze soft. “I don’t love you because you’re special now,” he added, arms folded underneath his head comfortably. “I love you because you always were.” 

Then, carefully, he said, “Honestly, I’m just glad you’re in less pain now than you were before, and that’s it. If you were still scrappy, I’d still do this,” and he reached up, ruffling Steve’s hair, making him huff and duck his head, frowning at Tony in a very pouty way. “So maybe I missed out. _You_ missed my teenage years. I was abominable.” Shaking his head, Tony beamed as their expertly timed meal arrived. Lofting a triangular half of a sandwich, he pointed it at Steve and added, “My God, you missed my entire Bruce Springsteen phase. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I was an embarrassment to society, Steven.”

Steve said, “I doubt that’s true,” and lifted his own half, tapping it against Tony’s. He took a bite, closed his eyes in momentary pleasure, and said, “You know what? This is a damn good sandwich.”

Making a show of sitting up and stuffing two fingers in his mouth, Tony whistled loudly and Steve blushed, slouching like he could hide in his shirt as he said, “Tony, what are you—?”

Their waitress reappeared with a jug of water. Though tempted to say, _You can put the Captain America ‘damn good’ seal of approval on it_ , Tony just said, “I forgot to ask for another water.” 

Holding up the glass, he grinned as Steve took a bite of his own sandwich, chewing for a few moments. As soon as they were alone again, he sighed, “You’re trouble, you know that?”

Tony leaned across the table and kissed his cheek. “I love you, too.”

Steve rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help a smile. It felt like love burning in Tony’s chest.

. o . 

Love, Tony thought, was Steve holding his hand across the console, Laika sprawled over the backseat, the soft strains of Bruce Springsteen’s upbeat classic, _Born to Run_ , electrifying the air.

“ _Oh, baby this town rips the bones from your back_ ,” Springsteen growled. “ _It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap—w_ _e gotta get out while we're young._ ”

Steve squeezed his hand and mused, “There’s so much going on. How do you keep track of it all?”

“Welcome to modern music,” Tony said, kicking up the volume, delighting in Steve’s amused, toothy smile. “It’s loud, it’s proud, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.” He grinned, taking his hand off the wheel deliberately, letting the car take care of itself. He closed his eyes, bobbing his head. “Shit yeah, this was the Golden Age, Steve. I know you had it all back in 1939, but we had loud music with too many instruments, so who’s the real winner?”

Steve said, “I love you.”

Tony bobbed his head to the beat, teasing, “Don’t interrupt the chorus.” And then, opening bright eyes to look at Steve, dutifully wearing the MIT hoodie, his winter coat in the back seat with Steve’s, a makeshift bed for their dog-daughter, he said, “Recklessly, relentlessly alive, right? That’s us.”

“That’s us,” Steve agreed, smiling against his lips as Tony kissed him before melting into it. God, did it feel like every movie cliché and more. Tony loved it.

There was no such thing as a cliché with Steve Rogers. Just a wonderful new experience, every time. If that wasn’t sweet, Tony didn’t know what was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P.S. No, I do not think MIT students are called MITtens, but that title pun was irresistible. <3
> 
> P.P.S. Why yes, "Random Hall" is a real MIT dormitory. <3
> 
> Russian translations in chronological order:  
>  _Khoroshaya sobaka._ \- Good dog.  
>  _Moya khoroshaya sobaka._ \- My good dog.  
>  _Veselit'sya._ \- Enjoy.


	33. THE GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS YET TO COME

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 1 of our two-part Christmas special.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi champs. <3
> 
> So Grandpa died. Mentioned that in a brief edit to the previous chapter, but I figured I'd say that outright here to explain the unusually long gap between chapters. It's not the new normal. In case you're worried about me writing during this difficult time, I find that writing OMA is one of the most comforting and loving things I can do for myself right now.
> 
> I appreciate your support, your love, and your kindness more than words can say. I wanted to take a moment to thank you for being on this journey with me. It's been joyful and heart-breaking and ecstatic. I have lost so much sleep but have loved the endeavor so thoroughly that I truly regret nothing. I only hope that the rest is as good as the story we've experienced so far has been.
> 
> As far as this lovely chapter is concerned, in light of my grandfather's passing, I wanted to write something soft and sweet. This is a two-part Christmas special—in our time October, no less. Yeah, I apologize; in a perfect world, the fictional and real seasons would line up a bit better. But, hey, that's what fiction is for. Going beyond reality for a bit.
> 
> What else? I love you.
> 
> And thank you.
> 
> Thank you, thank you, *thank you* for clicking on this story. I will never be able to express how much it means to me that you do, that you choose to check it out, to enjoy it. 
> 
> This is a gift for you. Cheers, my friends. From your affectionate Captain_Pandamore.
> 
> P.S. For added fun, I strongly recommend clicking on in-text links. They provide charming references for the objects in question. <3

_Saturday, December 24, 2020._

“No, no, no.”

Sitting on the floor, [K2](https://i.redd.it/9kb8irtshac21.jpg) and [Gannett](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/83/68/d7/8368d72c00924d51af8c8d6ed9d61e1b.png) looked up at their dog-father hopefully. Tony Stark pointed a spoon down at them and warned seriously, “No cookies for you. Go make puppy eyes at your father.”

On cue, Steve Rogers sidled over and picked up K2 like the Elkhound-Shepherd mix didn’t weigh forty-two-pounds-and-counting. He smiled tiredly, pressing his face against K2’s warm coat. “I can’t believe they invented new dogs,” he mused. Steve spoke with such warmth that it made Tony’s heart swell; he popped a spoonful of cookie dough into his mouth in a vain attempt to conceal his smile. “Who’s perfect, huh?” Steve asked his fur-kid. “That’s right. Koda’s perfect.”

“Koda Koda,” Tony corrected. Steve huffed and set down his oversized puppy. He rubbed Gannett’s head affectionately, but the Samoyed-Collie mix didn’t blink, looking up at Tony with unwavering hopefulness. Gane was tirelessly sweet, bright-eyed joy and lolling tongue. With his tail swishing back and forth optimistically, he was a living Christmas card in puppy form.

 _You are your father’s dog_ , Tony mused, holding his ground. “I am not giving you a cookie,” he insisted. “No. These are mine. All of them.” He looked at Steve, who smiled a close-mouthed smile, announcing gravely, “I have promised our children that all of these cookies are mine. I can’t break that promise.”

Humming, Steve straightened and looped an arm around his waist, burying his face against Tony’s shoulder. No sooner had Tony straightened and opened his mouth to argue than the doorbell rang. Gane took off like a shot, tripping over K2, who yowled in joyful alarm, careening after him.

“Oh, hey, whoa, hi, are you the dogs? You’re the dogs, why else would you be in—hi, hi, I’m Peter Parker, it’s nice to meet you, are you Mr. Stark’s dogs?”

“The well-mannered one is,” Tony called out, smirking when Steve withdrew with a quick peck to his cheek.

“Oh, hi, Mr. Stark!” Peter piped in cheerfully, attempting to round the corner with a truly phenomenal number of bags and Tupperwares in hand, Koda and Gane disappearing through the open door. “So, I know you said not to bring anything,” he preluded, “but Aunt May, see, she said that—” He yelped as Gane came soaring back inside, covered in snow and plowing into his legs, making his tower of bags topple but not fall. “Whoa, cool, okay, hi, hi, Mr. Stark’s dog.”

“Gannett,” Steve warned. Gannett trotted over, tail wagging, but K2 stuffed his head in a snowbank, plowing a path forward. “Here, let me help ya, kid,” he added, stepping up and holding out an arm.

“Oh, thanks so much, Captain Rogers, really, it’s no problem, you know I have super strength now, too? I don’t know how, don’t ask me, but—hey, Mr. Stark, you can explain—”

“I am not,” Tony said, thumping Gane on the side once affectionately, “explaining how you got Spidey powers on Christmas Eve.”

“Yeah, so, cool, right?” Peter finished, assuring, “I got the rest, it’s fine.”

“You got heart, kid,” Steve said, amused. He returned to the kitchen with his bounty in hand. “I don’t think we have enough food,” he said with dry mournful humor.

“No, it’s okay, I can eat like, five pizzas,” Peter chimed in, stamping his feet on the mat to get the snow off. “Hey, Mr. Stark, you wouldn’t believe how much it’s snowing, did you see it? We had to take a back-route, there was an accident on the highway, I checked it out—”

“I told him _not_ to check it out,” Happy Hogan grunted, appearing with a single briefcase in hand. “I don’t know why I—” He lifted the briefcase out of the way as K2, also covered in snow, skittered back inside, shaking out his coat in the front hall.

“Yeah, so, I checked it out,” Peter continued cheerfully, dumping the rest of the boxes onto a free chair near the front hall. “And I was like, ‘Hey dudes, anybody need a hand?’ and this one guy, you know, he was like ‘Whoa, it’s Spider-Kid,’ and I, uh, I may have told him, ‘I’m nineteen now, it’s Spider- _Man_ ,’ and he was like, ‘Oh, cool, thanks, Spider-Man!’ because I popped a dent out of his car, that was cool.”

“You told him,” Tony deadpanned, “that you were nineteen.”

Peter scratched the back of his neck, making a noncommittal noise. “So, uh, where is everybody?”

“Well,” Steve drawled, reclaiming his place in the kitchen, nodding down the hall, “last I checked, they were having a knock-out brawl in the basement, so if you wanted—”

“Aw, man, they started without me?” Peter whined, taking off, Gane trampling after him. “Hey, guys, I’m here! You better not have done anything fun without me!” he hollered down the stairs, laughter and chatter audible below before the door slid shut, cutting out the noise.

With an aggrieved sigh, Happy took a seat at the island, sat his briefcase next to him, and stated, “I tried.” He let K2 sniff his hand before petting his neck and shoulders. “This Gannett or K2?”

“K2,” Steve replied, arching his eyebrows innocently even though he had a spoonful of cookie dough in hand, popping it into his mouth like the thief he was. To be fair, Koda couldn’t see him under the island and Gannett had tromped downstairs after Peter, so a broken promise was acceptable. “Koda Koda,” he added, a touch dryly.

“The Great Compromise,” Tony elaborated, grinning as he picked up the cookie dough bowl and slid it to the opposite end of the counter. “Save some for the penniless masses downstairs,” he told Steve. Shrugging, Steve crouched and picked K2 up again, holding him in his arms. Tony flattened the sugar dough into a pancake shape before pressing a snowman-shaped cookie-cutter into it. “Gerald,” he announced. Steve laughed unabashedly into Koda’s shoulder.

Aloud, Steve insisted, “Can’t name all of ‘em Gerald, Tony.”

“Watch me,” Tony replied.

There was a markedly louder crashing noise and Happy stood up, announcing with a sigh, “I’m gonna go check on him.”

Steve didn’t set K2 down as he stepped closer. Tony paused in his snowman-making to cup K2′s fuzzy head, pressing a kiss to it. “My sweet Prince,” he announced. “King Koda.”

“Poor Gane,” Steve teased, even though Tony knew it was one of Steve’s favorite pastimes to sleep with Gannett sprawled on his chest and K2 curled up in a ball on the floor. There was no real distinction between them, other than Tony found Gannett and Steve found K2. Neither on their namesake mountains, but Tony had been inspired by those temples of the sky. Besides, _Koda_ and _Gane_ rolled off the tongue well enough.

Steve set K2 down as another muffled crashing noise came from the basement, followed by the muffled but comforting noise of raucous laughter. He wanted to be in on the joke, but he found himself grabbing the edges of Steve’s faded MIT hoodie and pulling him in for a kiss instead.

. o .

_Sunday, December 24, 2023_.

Face smushed against the window, Tony Stark awoke unexpectedly, blinking back stars. He looked out over the grand emptiness below, marveling at the view from 35,000 feet. It was beautiful across the Great Basin—empty, arid, phenomenally dark for hundreds of miles—but his private view was even better as he glanced to his right and saw his companion.

Steve Rogers sat upright with his arms folded over his chest, chin down, eyes shut. He conveyed alertness even at rest, but Tony could tell from the soft quality of his breathing that he wasn’t thinking about anything but counting sheep.

Experimentally, Tony listed towards him, not making a sound, before smushing his cheek against Steve’s shoulder.

Steve’s breathing didn’t change. Tony smiled, amused. And then, because he had a bastard gene that couldn’t help itself, he closed his teeth around Steve’s shoulder, shirt and all. He didn’t bite hard, but it only took a second before Steve said, voice deeper than usual, “Can I help you?”

Without releasing his mouthful, Tony replied, “Uh-uh.”

He heard Steve sigh, reaching up a big paw of a hand and patting the side of Tony’s head. “Whatever makes you happy, Tony,” he said breezily. Tony kissed his cheek instead, savoring the little smile he got, and added:

“You do.”

Steve hummed, squinting at him thoughtfully. “You’re trouble, you know that?”

“I’m _your_ trouble,” Tony purred, intertwining their fingers, casually brushing his thumb over Steve’s gold band.

Steve lifted Tony’s hand, kissed the back of it, and murmured, “Always and forever.”

. o . 

_Wednesday, December 24, 2025_.

The brilliant azure-blue lightsaber came to light in the darkness to delighted gasps. Twenty-year-old Cooper Barton barked, “First!”

“Not fair!” Nathaniel Barton, aged ten, wailed indignantly. “I wanna try it!”

“Kids,” Clint Barton growled ominously, sitting on the porch to his barn house. Lofting an unlit lightsaber, he ordered, “Say thank you first.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Lila Barton, fifteen, chimed in. Tony Stark bestowed upon her the first gift of Christmas. He took a chance, but he knew Clint’s favorite color— _purple_ , grunted once; Tony had jotted it down in the mental file labeled _useful information about friends and family—_ and Lila was the most like him.

Holding out the unlit saber, he instructed, “Press that button and you’re good to go. It’ll cut off if it gets within a quarter-inch of human flesh, so go ham.”

Standing in the evening dusk, Lila planted her feet, held the saber out in front of her, and pressed the switch. Instantly, the light-sword came to life. Brilliant purple light filled the space, joining the blue. Lila’s face lit up with radiant joy as she said, “Oh, wow. Wow. Thank you, Mr. Stark.”

Reaching for the satchel slung over his shoulder, Tony told the boys blithely, “Pick a color, any color.”

Nathaniel asked, “Red? Is there red?”

“A future Sith Lord? In my family?” Clint called out dryly, twirling his own white saber idly. “You wanna join the Dark Side, buddy?”

“Yeah!” Nathaniel agreed.

Tony smirked and found the saber marked with the little red dot. He held it out. “Come and get it.”

Nathaniel lunged forward with both wrapped his hands around the hilt, jabbing the button to light the saber up. As promised, it didn’t respond until he moved the blade away from Tony, at which point it lit up fire-engine red. With a delighted gasp, he shrieked, “I’m a Jedi!” and took off running, waving his sword like the world’s biggest sparkler.

“Pays to be patient,” Tony told Cooper, who rocked on his heels, stepping forward shyly. “Pick a color.”

Cooper said at once, “Amber.”

Lila piped in curiously, “Amber?”

Tony nodded and fished in the bag again, shuffling sabers around before he found the requisite golden-yellow sword. “Good choice,” he commended, passing it along hilt-first. “Merry Christmas,” he added. Cooper took the sword.

A husky voice piped in, “Mine is also blue.”

Tony looked over and saw Nebula wielding her ice-blue lightsaber, adding importantly, “I like blue.”

“It’s a good color,” Clint said.

Nebula nodded, looking at them all and announcing, “I would like to eat the Christmas turkey now.”

“Once Nathaniel’s finished carving up the forest, we can,” Tony assured.

Clint huffed a laugh. Cooper pointed his sword at Lila, who grinned and squared off. The swords hummed, a feature he’d had to install—they were soundless on their own, more like laser pointers than actual steel blades—in the hilt, so they purred reassuringly in hand, too. They clashed, dancing across the dirt path with verve, Nathaniel howling in the distance and waving his sword through the air.

Steve Rogers said, “Awh, God, Tony, they’re gonna lose an arm.”

“You’re such an old man,” Tony replied, twirling his own deep-blue lightsaber in hand. “They’re childproof, Steve, get with the program.”

“Childproof,” Steve repeated, but there was a smirk at the corner of his mouth as he leaned against the doorframe, refusing to step outside. “Childproof?”

“Did I stutter?” Tony quipped.

“No,” Nebula replied firmly. She pointed her saber at Steve and requested, “I would like to duel you now.”

Steve arched his eyebrows. “What about the turkey?” he asked.

“Still got an hour to go, doesn’t it?” Clint drawled. “It’ll be fine.” He flicked off his sword and held it up to Steve, adding, “Go on. I gotta go check on my beautiful wife.”

Steve accepted the sword, turning it over idly. Clint thumped him on the shoulder in passing. Lighting up, Steve said carefully, “I don’t wanna hurt ya.”

“You can’t,” Tony said reassuringly, deliberately turning his sword around, blade towards his chest. Steve was there before it finished the arc, but the blade flicked off. Tony shrugged placidly as he twitched it away and it lit up again. “It’s like those blades they use to cut off casts. You can saw a tree in half, but it won’t hurt your skin.”

Huffing incredulously, Steve reached up to ruffle his hair and said, “Don’t do that.” Pointing his own lightsaber at Nebula, he added, “All right. Best of three?”

“I accept these terms,” Nebula said gravely.

Cooper and Lila stepped aside, swords on but at their sides. Steve stepped up to bat, white lightsaber in front of him.

Icy-blue and white light met in a cosmic instant, dancing around each other like they’d been fighting with lightsabers for years.

The impression of white-blue light on his eyelids made Tony smile long after the mock battle was over.

. o . 

_Monday, December 24, 2029_.

Tony Stark swayed with Steve Rogers, cheek against his shoulder as he soaked in Steve’s soft, summer-warm vitality. K2 watched from the fireplace, Gannett lounging on the couch. 

They were getting older, all of them, but they still had time on the clock. Steve’s heart beat strongly, his movements easy. Tony pressed a peppermint-sweet kiss to his cheek. “Merry Christmas,” he murmured.

“Merry Christmas Eve,” Steve corrected lightly, smiling when Tony muttered against his shoulder:

“Semantics.”

. o . 

_Tuesday, December 24, 2041_.

The chest cold was not exactly the Christmas present Tony Stark was hoping for, but you couldn’t get everything you ever wanted.

And he was damn near close, with every necessity attended, every whim tickled. Patting Dum-E on the head, he announced, “Merry Christmas, buddy.”

Dum-E offered him a tissue box. Tony laughed, coughed, then accepted one graciously. “Good boy.” He patted it again.

After all these years and a thousand updates and tweaks, Dum-E still moved like it had when he first flicked the switch. That was the beauty of robots.

Tony himself moved spryly for a newly minted septuagenarian. Yeup, seventy-one years had passed since the Universe declared history was ready for the lightning bolt that was Anthony Edward Stark. And so much had changed in the middle, from successive Moon landings to the rise of the Internet and the meteoric rise of the truly modern era, where humanity learned not to conquer the Earth but to exist with it. 

Even the clothes were different from his childhood, made with plastic-free fabrics. He’d never seen himself as a true fashionista, but that was life—unpredictable and astonishing. 

Duty had once called him to help clean up the oceans. After they had done that, he’d found himself championing other clean-up causes, including satellite sweeping, an initiative to clean up their extra-terrestrial lawn, and the manufacture of more sustainable clothing. He’d even developed a super-efficient oil-eating compound and stumbled across a spectacularly effective cancer treatment that all but eradicated one type of blood cancer, all in a decade’s work.

Best of all, he’d watched a world teeter on the brink of self-extinction rise to new splendiferous heights, cataloguing nature and restoring sustainable living conditions on a scale their fathers would have considered inconceivable. The success of groundwater replenishment projects alone was enough to make their ancestors want to dance in the rain. It was a beautiful time to be alive. 

And even though Tony enjoyed decking the halls with boughs of holly, what he really looked forward to was the annual Stage One Technology and Art Show that debuted _next_ year. 

It was one of four quarterly functions that he hosted that focused on bringing together art and science, each themed around a different season—Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. 

The Spring Expo, incongruously set in January, was his favorite, because the new year atmosphere was always stratospheric. Seeing previews for what was coming, projects he was funding and people he was meeting for the first time, all of it was golden.

What a time to be alive, he mused.

Lounging in a truly ergonomic chair, he instructed, “Call Steve” and waited the requisite two rings—some things never changed—before he heard an amused voice say, “ _Hello?_ ”

“Do you know what would be excellent?” Tony said without preamble. “Twelve Stages. We’d still split them up by season, but—stop laughing, I’m serious—twelve stages, one for each month. We could redefine the calendar.”

“ _Is that so?_ ”Steve asked. His voice was light as he added, “ _Why so many, Tony?_ ”

“I am a sucker for year-long debauchery,” Tony said with a modest shrug.

Steve chuckled. “ _Already got it, sweetheart_.”

“Call me greedy,” Tony said, coughing into his shoulder for a moment. “We can go to Mars, but we can’t cure the common cold.”

“ _Aw, Tony. I’m sorry_.”

“Not like _you_ gave it to me,” Tony said. He smirked at the thought. “This is why I married you, you know. I am far too beautiful to share chest colds with my beau, and you’re the only one on the market who can’t even catch ‘em.”

“ _Your beau_.”

“My beau,” Tony repeated, smiling. “My angel. My snookums. My darling dear, the apple of my eye—”

“ _Yeah, yeah_ ,” Steve interjected, but the warmth in his tone was unmistakable. “ _You be good, darling, and I’ll be home in less than an hour_.”

Tony arched his eyebrows. “Less than an hour?” Propelling himself to his feet, Tony stated, “I need at least two to become presentable, Steven, this is need-to-know knowledge.”

Another little chuckle—God, he could live off that chuckle alone—and Steve said, “ _Hey, I don’t tell ‘em how to fly their spaceships, they don’t tell me how to talk to my best guy_.”

“Be dirty if they did,” Tony said. Steve laughed, a full bray of laughter that warmed Tony to his toes.

Sauntering down the hall, shaking with the anticipation of seeing Steve again, he said, “I do expect a good picture. Something tasteful. Can’t forget the caption, either. _My thirty-seventh suborbital flight_ has a catchy ring to it, doesn’t it?”

Steve said dryly, “ _I’ll be sure to include it_.” A beat. “ _I love and miss you, you know. It’s nifty bein’ up here, but I’d rather be down there_.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Tony teased. “It’s fourteen degrees Fahrenheit outside, _and_ there’s a strong wind.”

Steve chuckled. “ _Yeah, it’s brisk here, too. Nice and cozy inside_.” Exhaling deeply, he added, “ _I’ll see ya soon, Tony. Not much longer_.”

“Next time don’t fly away on Christmas Eve,” Tony advised, stepping into the main room and settling down on the couch. “You know I like Christmas Eve.”

“ _You do. So do I. Cross my heart, won’t happen again_.”

Tony sighed, draping a hand over his eyes in mock chagrin and saying, “God, you’re so old. _Cross my heart_? How am I supposed to keep up with you, huh? I’m too young for you.”

Steve chuckled, said, “ _I gotta go, sweetheart_ ,” and added, “ _I love you. So much_.”

Heart in his throat, warm in the best way, Tony agreed, “I love and miss you, too. Can’t wait to have you home.”

Ninety-one minutes later, Steve Rogers stepped across inside the room, face wind-burned but smile radiant as he began, “Yeah, I know, I’m late.”

Tony leaned up to kiss his cheek. “Nah. I was just early.”

Steve’s smile was pure sunshine.

. o .

_Friday, December 24, 2048_.

“No matter how many times I see you,” Peter Parker began, his voice warm and smooth with middle adulthood, “I still wanna call you ‘Mr. Stark.’”

Tony Stark allowed himself to be pulled into a gentle hug, patting Peter on the back of the shoulder and assuring as they broke apart, “I accept _Your Majesty_.”

Half in the car, Steve Rogers said from behind him, “I thought it was _Your Highness_.”

Sniffing in mock dismissal, Tony said, “I am a man of many flavors.”

“Hey, Captain,” Peter greeted. “Good to see you.”

“Where’s [Nanuq](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a6/e1/81/a6e18131d8e6cd9080098f78b22359e1.jpg)?” chimed in Benjamin Parker, ten years old and leaning around the corner hopefully.

Peter advised, “Come say hello, first.”

Benjy inched forward, tentatively waving at Tony. “Where’s Nanuq?” he asked again, leaning around the door.

On cue, Steve opened the door, the heterochromatic white Husky leaped out of the car, long leashed and charging forward to meet Benjy, who crashed into him with a delighted cry of “Nanuq!”

“Sometimes,” Tony observed as Nanuq licked Benjy’s face enthusiastically, “I think we got that dog for your kids.”

Peter grinned, putting a hand on his shoulder and saying, “Yeah, but you love that dog.”

Nanuq abandoned Benjy long enough to lope over to twelve-year-old May Parker, who cooed at him, “Aw, hi, Nanuq.”

Mary Jane Parker called out, “Hi, boys.”

“Mary Jane,” Steve replied politely, holding Nanuq’s leash but smiling as he clasped Peter’s hand with his free hand. “Peter.”

The timer went off in the kitchen and Peter beamed at them, snatching Steve’s coat almost before it was off his shoulders, tossing it apologetically onto the edge of the closet door, and loping off to answer it. “I got it, I got it!”

Mary Jane sidled around the corner, looking fond, crutches under her arms. “Well,” she said, smiling at them, “aren’t you two a sight?”

“A good sight?” Tony wheedled, shucking his own outer layers deliberately. Steve stepped forward and wrapped her in a warm hug, one hand loosely clasping Nanuq’s leash as the Husky sniffed at Benjy curiously.

“Hi, Mary Jane,” he repeated softly. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too, Cap,” Mary Jane said, a smile warm on her face. “And you,” she added, a smirk in her tone as she gestured for Tony to step forward. “You sly old fox.”

Tony told Steve over her shoulder, “Did you catch that?”

“Sly old fox,” Steve agreed, unhooking Nanuq from his leash. “All right, kids, go have fun.” They loped off into the snowy front yard, May snapping the door shut behind them.

Peter returned from the kitchen, hair flustered but smile big as he said, “That’s the turkey. I hope you’re hungry because it’s a forty-pounder.”

“ _Forty-_ pounder?” Steve repeated a touch incredulously.

Peter beamed like it was already Christmas morning. “Biggest I’ve ever seen. Had to,” he added, sounding simultaneously a touch apologetic and not apologetic at all as he explained, “you know, when I heard I would be hosting Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, it was the only option.”

“I hope,” Mary Jane told them dryly, “you’re hungry for leftovers.”

“Oh,” Steve said breezily, folding his arms across his chest, his smile sincere and soft, “I think we can take it.”

And, true to his word, they did.

Well. They did save someleftovers.

. o . 

_Thursday, December 24, 2054._

At eighty-four years old, Tony Stark’s outward appearance had finally caught up to a lifetime of aging. 

His dark hair had silvered, his once proud shoulders had curved inward, and a tasteful pair of squared-off glasses had appeared to keep his eyes as sharp as his wit. He moved with a swaggering, mischievous gait, as if at any moment he was prepared to duck behind a curtain and reveal some new magic he’d been working on. His mind had remained untrammeled by time, his speech as lively and fast as ever. Time could not take him: he was still, to his core, Tony Stark. 

Despite the changes of the past half-century—and oh how the time did _fly—_ he still did the same things every morning, dragging himself out of bed and making himself presentable, feeding himself, immersing himself in the new day, but it all happened at a far more leisurely pace. Whether it was slipping on his favorite robe or falling asleep at night, it took longer than it once did, but that was all right. He’d learned patience over the years.

That trait came in handy. After a lifetime of working metal, his fingertips weren’t as sensitive as they once were, but he was still dexterous and creative. The art he made in digital spaces had come to exceed the things he sculpted with his fingertips. He liked to draw for the sake of leaving maps behind, of projects he’d let metal hands create. He could weigh the finished product in hand, marvel, create, and enjoy, but he no longer lifted the proverbial hammer to strike hot steel. That was fine by him. Hammers were heavy. His soul was light.

It was late evening, but some things never changed: putting coffee on the pot, Tony occupied the space in comfortable quiet, taking pleasure in the task. From the speakers, _It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas_ rolled out as a familiar voice mused, “My eyes deceivin’ me, or are you makin’ coffee at 10 PM?”

Tony arched his eyebrows and turned to look at Steve Rogers holding their puppy in one arm, a Karelian Bear Dog named [Apollo](https://animalsbreeds.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Karelian-Bear-Dog.jpg). Steve’s smile was warm, the crow’s feet forming at the edges of his eyes and the hints of silver stardust sprinkled in his hair the only sign of the times. He was leaner, too, less built like an ox and more like an old war horse, softened around the edges by rough handling and years of energetic living. He’d put the serum through its paces, that was for sure, surviving more ailments and injuries than Tony cared to recollect.

Patient but sizeable, Apollo squirmed in his hold. Tony abandoned his coffee to walk over and rescue him.

“Don’t worry,” he assured, holding the puppy carefully against his own thin chest. “I will protect you. You are a good dog. You are _moya_ _khoroshaya sobaka_.”

A smile crinkled at the corners of Steve’s eyes. He sidled over to the coffeemaker idly while Tony held Apollo up like a baby, a hand under each puppy arm, sizing him up. “Big strong bear dog,” he declared, utterly enchanted, grateful that he’d allowed Steve to talk him into the lunacy of adopting a dog in his middle eighties. Apollo barked and Tony set him down on the floor so he could trample over to the tree. Tony warned, “Do not pee on the tree or I will not let you have any presents.”

Apollo sniffed around benignly, barking a couple of times as he rattled branches above him. Steve mused, “He’s a ferocious animal.”

Tony agreed, “Ferocious,” and stepped up to plant a firm kiss on Steve’s cheek. “Merry Christmas Eve, Steve.”

Steve smiled, eyes shut in enjoyment before he looked at Tony, all deep ocean-blues, and replied, “Merry Christmas Eve, Tony.”

. o .

**_Sunday, December 23, 2012_.**

Blink, and it was Christmas Eve’s Eve.

Tony had tried to keep his eyes wide open throughout December, shaving off precious hours from his nights to work on his suits and other tech while disco-rock music in the lab, but he’d lost track of the days anyway, immersed in the Christmas lights and the Christmas trees and Christmas _gifts_.

In years past, he’d only had to worry about Rhodey, who was practical and gracious. Then Pepper came along, and the endeavor remained manageable. Two people weren’t difficult to keep track of in the grand scheme of things. He could wedge in a hasty present hunt as late as he wanted without drawing up short.

But then he had the _Avengers_. And he could give them each the keys to a new car, but it wasn’t a sustainable business model—even for a billionaire, handing out Audis like Halloween candy would make paying for things like utilities more difficult in the long run—and he didn’t want to toss money at their feet and walk away. That was never the point with Rhodey or Pepper and he didn’t want it to be the point with Bruce or Thor or any of the Avengers. The point of a gift was not to earn admiration. It was to bring joy.

So he mulled over what _joy_ looked like to his newfound family.

By Christmas Eve’s Eve, he felt like he had a handle on ninety percent of it. For Pepper, he’d imported a box of her favorite chocolates from Switzerland. For Rhodey, it had been a bottle of his favorite Merlot right from the source. The hardware that he’d constructed for Bruce would boost his laptop’s performance power to a level that was five years ahead of the commercial curve. The gloves that he’d modified for Clint were strong but nimble, flexible enough to wear but powerful enough to not break even when sliding down a wire rope.

Thor and Natasha had been more challenging. He’d spent the front half of December working on the some-assembly-required gifts, immersing himself in the work to distract himself from the dilemma of trying to entertain a Norse god and a Russian assassin. At last, he’d decided on novelty for Thor, souping up a paddle ball with a rope that wouldn’t snap easily. 

For Natasha, he’d concluded that a live parrot made an excellent gift because he hadn’t slept in three days and it sounded like a good idea to his hysterically tired mind. Then he fell asleep on his lab bench and awoke with the saner resolution to give her a safe box that couldn’t be broken, not even by J.A.R.V.I.S., using an encryption technique that wouldn’t hit commercial markets for maybe ten years. A quantum computer could hack it, but nothing less. He projected they wouldn’t hit the market until 2030.

Feeling accomplished, he’d settled down for some wintry relaxation, robustly well despite his spirited attempts at self-sabotage. He’d whiled away the remaining days with side projects and little excursions out on the town, either late at night or in easily defensible positions where disguises worked and prying eyes were fixed instead on personal affairs of the laptop variety. 

He’d polished up the Mark X but avoided a test flight as a blizzard pounded the city into moody submission, the raucous environment turned down but not off by blankets of snow. Ice crackled on every pane and underfoot. The sidewalks, well-trafficked as they were and amply salted, remained almost but not completely ice-free, making for some treacherous moments.

And the temperatures were searingly cold, breathtaking every time he slipped outside on a cool December morning to numb his senses and contemplate the day’s events, the week’s proceedings. He’d thought after Norilsk, where forty-below-zero was king, that he’d never feel cold in the city again, not against the comparatively balmy twenty-degree-Fahrenheit expectations. 

But he’d misjudged how quickly flesh and bone forgot their traumas and instead tared to a new normal, expressing deepest dislike for extremes, no matter how grand or humble their scale. Desert nights at a teeth-chattering sixty-five could make him wish for a winter coat. It was all relative. While he’d hoped his exposure to truly unimaginable cold would offer him lifelong immunity to lesser weather, he’d been slighted.

To be fair to Norilsk, it had been six weeks since he’d left that stellarly cold tundra. Neither Anchorage nor Whistler had felt _cold_ in the same way, cold as pain, cold as raw-nerve endurance, nothing more, nothing less. It wasn’t postcard-pretty or a snow globe city, where one could wander for hours at night without ducking inside an artificially heated structure for life-saving warmth. As long as one dressed warmly, most cold was durable. But there were places where any exposure was deadly. They existed at extremes—the top of Mount Everest, the dark interior reaches of Antarctica—and made no concessions.

There was nothing gentle about Earth, nothing tame or finished. It was all a precarious lie, built on a foundation of misplaced trust, the false belief that moment-to-moment existence was in sum peaceful. They stuck their noses into volcanoes and deep ocean trenches and wondered why they were treated like cosmic ants, crushed without remorse.

Walking in the snow in the Mark IX armor, tried and tested against the crushing cold of Norilsk, Tony stood in the empty white field and tilted his head skyward. 

One million, six-hundred-and-forty-thousand feet separated him from the exo-pause. So far, his most ambitious suits could only pick up the change, the 40K climb. The Mark VIII’s highwater mark was more than double the minimum at 87,502 feet.

The Mark IX could theoretically hover at 100k, but Norilsk had taken its toll and he didn’t trust it above 60k. That was one problem with the suits, one he’d tried to smooth out with the Mark X. It was the pinhole in a porthole problem: not one drop but an entire ocean flooded in if any part of the suit catastrophically failed. A piece the size of his thumb becoming compromised could turn the entire suit into an airless metal cocoon at 60,000 feet. Even the most superheroic humans would die about 50k.

The Mark X wasn’t one coherent suit with extras hidden in the interior: it was two interlocking suits. Any catastrophic failure in the primary skin could be replaced, in-flight, with the secondary skin. It would be a shock, but it wouldn’t kill him.

The Mark IX was one suit. The last all-or-nothing model on the line. It remained vulnerable.

Tony leaped anyway.

From thirty-six thousand feet, he looked down on the snowy Earth below and piped _White Christmas_ through the suit.

. o .

Christmas Eve fell on a Monday, and when Tony awoke, he actually considered going in to work.

At the incongruously early hour of four in the morning, he felt spry, ready to take on the world. He knew that holidays were notoriously quiet days at the office and thus good for uninterrupted thinking. There was nothing else to preoccupy him, either: he had free time and energy, the two most precious commodities in the universe.

But he didn’t want to spend Christmas Eve alone in the office. That was the kind of Christmas Eve one found practical and maybe even insightful in the short run but dreadfully lackluster and unfulfilling in the long run. He didn’t want to have regrets about this one. He refused to.

And so, he shelved that idea, rolled over, and cozied up to Steve’s back, resting his cheek against his shoulder. The soft cotton of his shirt was deliciously smooth. Tony found himself involuntarily rubbing his cheek against it, pausing only when he heard an inquisitive, semi-conscious rumble. Steve’s breathing deepened back to sleep. Tony contented himself with being quiet and still.

Quiet and slow, he amended, curling an arm around Steve’s middle carefully. Steve’s own arms were preoccupied with a pillow, but that was fine by Tony. Steve was warm and soft and good, breathing slow and deep and uninterrupted. It was a rare sight and Tony savored it, savored the opportunity, the fact that he was _given_ the opportunity. There weren’t many people who had seen Steve Rogers truly vulnerable.

It ached in his chest that he wasn’t the eighty-fifth conquest in Steve’s life but well and truly one of the first and only people he’d let this close for this long. He didn’t need to ask about Steve’s past to know that he was a one-friend kind of person who didn’t flirt like Tony did and certainly didn’t do anything romantic without some forethought. He would never kiss a person he didn’t intend to hold hands with at the dock. That required a greater emotional commitment than a one-night-stand allowed. Amid it all, there was a War going on, the background noise to Steve’s inaugural adulthood years.

Inaugural adulthood years, Tony mused, his legs pressing gently against the backs of Steve’s.

It was four-thirty when Steve finally stirred. “Hey, hon,” Tony murmured, kissing the back of his neck. “Happy almost Christmas.”

Steve hummed affirmatively, telling the pillow, “Mm. Christmas.” Yawning, he asked, “You sleep?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Good.” He shifted, getting more comfortable, before asking slowly, “Then why’re you up so early?”

“Because,” Tony replied eloquently.

Steve huffed, lingering, arms wrapped around the pillow, Tony’s wrapped around him. “Mmm.” Clicking claws approached. He exhaled deeply and said without moving an inch, “I know, I know, it’s time to get up.”

“It could be time to stay in,” Tony proposed, even though he wasn’t tired. He’d gladly stay right there for a few more hours, soak in the proverbial sunshine. He smiled to himself at the thought, letting his cheek against Steve’s shoulder. He heard sniffing nearby, Steve pawing around and settling a hand on Laika’s head.

“You know, those reporters, the, uh, the news people—paparazzi, they don’t like getting up before six,” Steve mumbled explanatorily. Tony tightened his grip on him, asserting his claim. He wrapped a leg over both of Steve’s for added insurance. Steve huffed and said, “You make it hard t’ get outta bed, you know that?”

Tony hummed. “I try,” he said, shuffling around until he was lying on top of him. “Now you can’t.” To the snuffling black nose that poked under the covers hopefully, he promised sweetly, “You can have him later. Go lay down. _Idti_ ,” he instructed. Clicking claws signaled Laika’s obedience, followed by a soft noise and a huff as she laid down on her makeshift bed. “It’s unbelievable,” Tony added to Steve, right next to his ear, “honestly, truly absurd that you get up at four in the morning. This is not a reasonable hour to be alive, Steve.”

“You’re up,” Steve grunted. “Not that crazy.”

“It’s crazy,” Tony insisted. Steve rolled flat on his belly so Tony could lie on his back, monkeyed onto him. “And now you can’t escape, I’ve captured you.”

Steve made a soft grumble of a sound that might have been a protest, but then he said, “You’re like the world’s best blanket, you know that, Tony?” and Tony was certain that his heart grew three sizes.

“Yeah,” he offered, a touch more lame than playful, too honestly pleased to pull off teasing. “I do. Thank you. It’s nice to know that you know how lucky you are.”

Steve assured with breathless sincerity, “Goddamn, don’t I know it.” He was quiet, then. Tony was happy to listen to him breathe, reveling in the quiet. 

Steve didn’t _need_ to run every morning. He could subsist on rocks and dry wit alone and still be built like a Greek god. Even so, he insisted on his morning run, because running was exercise and even redundant exercise released endorphins. It felt _good_. For Steve, it wasn’t a means to an end: it was simply the end. 

It was also routine. In a world that had been turned on its head, it was comforting to know that running hadn’t changed, that humans were nearly indistinguishable from their three-generations-removed ancestors.

Sobered, Tony was about to move aside and let him up when, concentrating, he noticed that the quality of Steve’s breathing had changed. He was asleep. 

Tony settled in, content to bask.

. o .

A Christmas by Stark standards was economical. 

The Christmas tree went up two days before the big day and came down on December 26th. The concept of _anticipation_ was foreign: instant gratification was the only gratification he had ever known and putting up the tree for weeks in advance seemed excessive, unnecessary.

Christmas decorations were similarly minimal—he’d never been one for gimmicks—but not entirely absent. He liked Christmas lights. He liked Christmas smells, peppermint and pine, gingerbread and hot chocolate. He even liked Christmas music—in moderation. 

Mostly, he liked sweater weather. He liked snow globe cities and dark, ethereal _quiet_ , places where his mind could wander more freely. There was something about the heart of winter that captured the imagination, blues and purples showing up in rare decadence, an inky-orange darkness that seemed to look back at those who perturbed it. _That_ was what Tony liked about December, the spooky, unsettling, charming darkness of October—on the rocks.

It wasn’t entirely fair to November to judge it by Norilsk, but they were alliterative and his feelings for Norilsk could best be summed up by a middle finger.

Tony hiked the sleeve up on his MIT hoodie, sparing a look for the blizzard pelting the city. The hoodie was technically Steve’s, but Steve was technically his, so by the transitiveproperty, the hoodie belonged to Tony, too. _And_ he’d bought it. He smirked, because he knew he loved it precisely because it didn’t belong to him, that it was outsized and Steve’s.

Sitting at the table, he polished off his second gingerbread cookie and looked down at his StarkPad, sifting through his to-be-continued projects folder for inspiration for the new year. It was hard to believe 2013 was right around the corner. Adventuresome 2012 had flown by, between fighting aliens and forming the Avengers and falling in love and almost dying in a frozen wasteland. Enlivening stuff.

He hoped 2013 was defined by peace and quiet. His heart warmed at the thought of it, peace and quiet, _peace of mind_. 

He would like that very much.

He had forgotten the world at large when he felt a pair of arms wrap around his shoulders loosely, a chin resting on top of his hair. “Morning, dear,” he said, moving a project labeled E38 to the D27 slot. “How was your run?”

Steve hummed. “Cold,” he decided, adding inquisitively, “What’s D27 mean?”

“Higher priority.” Steve hummed again in understanding, releasing him and stepping back. Tony pushed his own chair back, following the movement so he could wrap his arms around Steve’s waist, hugging him. “You’re cold,” he told him, fumbling for the zipper on his jacket and tugging it down, enfolding himself in the warm space underneath contentedly.

Steve huffed, amused. He wrapped his arms around Tony, cocooning him in the jacket flaps. Wryly, he observed, “Yeah, I was outside. It was snowin’.” He rested his cheek against the top of Tony’s bowed head, musing, “Can’t believe it’s December. Feels like it was September yesterday.”

“Right?” Tony muttered. “I refuse to accept the passage of time as anything other than propaganda.” He felt Steve’s soft, subvocal hum of agreement, content in the stifling heat for a moment longer, reluctantly stepping back as sweat dappled his back. “You are a furnace,” he said, reaching up to pat Steve’s cheek and add, “Don’t worry, I prefer hot to cold.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, smirking. “Me too.”

Unzipping his hoodie, Tony draped it over the back of his chair and sauntered into the kitchen, declaring, “Now, I did some soul-searching.”

“Did you?” Steve asked, sliding his own jacket onto a separate chair.

Tony nodded. “I did.” He cooed as Laika, the forgotten snowball, sauntered over, tail high, ears forward. “Hi, Laika. I missed you, too.” Brushing her cold furry head, he said, “And I asked myself, ‘Does he _deserve_ coffee?’”

Steve smiled ruefully, kneeling on one leg to undo the ties on his boots. They were mostly snow-free, stamped out at the door. The roving Roomba could sop up an entire glass of water poured directly onto the floor, it would have no trouble with melted snow. “Hard-hittin’ question,” he observed. “Can’t underestimate it.”

“That’s what I thought,” Tony said, hopping up on the counter, kicking his legs lightly. Laika looked up at him hopefully. He told her, “No, no dogs on the counter.”

“Now that’s unfair,” Steve said, kicking off his second boot and sauntering over, picking up Laika with an arm each under her front legs and rump, holding her like a teddy bear. “You’d deny her?”

Tony reached out, cupping Laika’s head and telling her, “I love you. I would die for you. But I cannot let you up here. You may have his side of the bed,” he declared magnanimously, letting her go. Steve laughed, setting her down. Tony sniffed as he looked at his nails, asking, “What? I keep my promises.”

“Uh huh.” Steve slid a hand over his knee, giving it an affectionate squeeze, before sauntering over to the coffeemaker. “So, you did some soul-searchin’,” he reminded, playing along even as he took the pot off the maker.

Tony nodded, kicking his legs lightly. “I did some soul-searching. Make me one,” he added imperiously. Steve rolled his eyes but wordlessly pulled out another mug, not bothering to ask if it was Tony’s third or fourth. It would have been cheerful, if not foolish, optimism to assume anything less. 

Besides, the heroic Finns were capable of knocking back ten cups a _day_. Many weak-hearted Americans hid their own addictions like some kind of Coffee Prohibition was in full-swing, but Tony embraced the Age of the Cocoa Bean wholeheartedly. “I thought, ‘Why should I make that heroically triangular Dorito coffee when he denied me the same for three weeks?’”

He expected a token protest along the lines of _I let you have coffee_ , because it was decaffeinated, but Steve topped off the second mug patiently, handing it off with upraised eyebrows. “And then,” Tony said triumphantly, accepting his cup, taking a sip of black coffee and closing his eyes in satisfaction. With the right beans, there was something so alluring about black coffee it felt like a sin to add sugar. And he was a cupcake addict, but he was also a man of very high coffee tastes. “Then I remembered, _It’s Christmas Eve_. So. This is a free pass. Don’t expect the good luck to continue past tomorrow,” Tony warned in mock gravity.

Steve hummed, taking a sip of his own coffee and saying, “Your generosity humbles me, Tony.”

“Good,” Tony preened, lifting his chin. “It should.”

. o .

They had their routines: Steve, ostensibly not working for S.H.I.E.L.D., usually spent at least five hours milling around S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, exchanging pleasantries, keeping the peace, quietly but surreptitiously switching from an active agent to a zero-reserve agent, which was S.H.I.E.L.D.’s appraisement for retired agents in good standing. Tony, on the other hand, was swept up on the wave of innovation, working on the latest and greatest Iron Man suit, connecting with the Sea Turtle Fund on a semi-regular basis, providing a listening ear for Pepper’s woes as the Stark Industries’ CEO, and generally making himself part of every political or scientific sphere of influence within the galactic neighborhood.

They were, in short, both very busy people, even though Steve’s late nights at the office were a thing of the past and Tony no longer drank himself into a stupor to soften the frustration of unending board meetings. To compensate for the abhorrent abundance of free time, Steve filled his time catching up on seventy years of missed time—and that was what they liked to call it, _missed time_ , because one could capture what had been missed the first go around, but lost was lost forever—and courting important people that demanded appearances from Captain America.

He seemed more harried because of it. Tony caught him prowling around late nights, lost in thought, but at least he wasn’t flying off on a suicide mission. Knowing that he would survive the day—even if it meant unstructured, borderline directionless, hours to fill—was a gift in itself.

Sitting on the floor by the fireplace, Tony mused, “What’s 2013 look like for Steve Rogers?”

Steve looked up from his book and cocked his head. He sized Tony him up without blinking. There was nothing malicious about the gesture, only intent, watchfulness. Tony had to consciously focus to avoid blinking in response. He knew it was fine to lose some contests of will, but he couldn’t help himself sometimes. Steve spared him—he blinked once and shrugged. “What’s it look like to Tony Stark?” he retorted lightly.

“That’s avoiding the question,” Tony told him, pointing with a stylus pen, his StarkPad forgotten beside him.

Steve marked his page, set his book down—a nonfiction account about the Cold War; he’d been alternating between the Space Race and the Technology Boom for most of December, eating up fiction books in the wee hours to give himself a mental break—and leaned back, arms folded over his chest. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

Tony waited patiently. Steve shrugged again, repeating, “I don’t know.” A beat. “I don’t plan more than a few days out, Tony.” An air of expectation hung around the unspoken words. _I don’t want to_. “I just . . . I wanna get through it,” he decided. If the firm set to his jawline bespoke reluctance, it was tempered by the way he reframed gently, “What do you want out of it?”

Tony looked at the windows for a moment, watching the snow drift down. He replied, “Newness.”

“Newness,” Steve repeated.

Tony nodded and looked at him. “A bold new world,” he elaborated. “New projects. New places. New milestones.” He smirked at Steve.

“Sounds nice,” Steve murmured, returning to his book.

“It will be,” Tony assured.

. o .

_Friday, December 24, 1943_.

Another year gone by. Another damn year and so much and so little had changed. His jaw hurt from gritting his teeth so hard, but if he didn’t keep it shut, he might say stuff he didn’t want to. And he couldn’t be insubordinate, couldn’t say, _This war is going to end us all_ , even though he knew it, _everybody_ knew it, they were on the clock and time was runnin’ out. He was one year in and cold to his bones and tired of watching people get blown to pieces.

“Aren’t you a sight?” a familiar voice drawled. Captain Rogers glared at Sergeant Barnes, who held up his hands as he ducked inside the tent. “It’s just me. What the fuck’s gotten into you?”

“You shouldn’t fuckin’ talk like that,” Steve growled, rubbing his jaw with a shaking hand. He ignored the hypocrisy as he added, “It ain’t right.” Clearing his throat, he amended, “It’s not right. Can’t be like that in front’a—front of everybody, Buck. Not good manners.”

“Oh, it ain’t good manners?” Bucky repeated incredulously, stepping up beside him and taking a seat on the ground, folding up neatly in his soldier’s uniform, comfortable in it because he _belonged_ in a uniform. Steve glared at him, more angry at himself than Bucky. Bucky’s drawling tone didn’t help as he said, “Hell, if I’d’ve known manners were part of a war, I would’ve kept my damn nose out of it.”

Steve didn’t smile. Bucky narrowed his eyes. “What’s goin’ on?” he asked, voice low. “The fuck’s gotten into you?” There were others outside the officers’ tent. Steve considered telling Bucky that Steve didn’t owe him a damn thing, but he gritted his teeth instead, one hand turning over a charcoal pencil. “You know you’re a shitty liar. Keepin’ quiet can’t hide that.”

Steve ignored the bait, keeping his tone as calm as possible as he said, “I don’t wanna fucking talk about it.” He turned the pencil over a few times, fingers numb but torso warm. He was glad his Army uniform was thick. The cold was spectacular; the thin tent walls did little to mitigate it.

Bucky knocked a foot against his. “If you don’t talk, it’s gonna be a long night,” he warned, getting comfortable with his hands behind him. “Just like a bandage, Rogers. Rip it off.”

Steve said in a humorless undertone, “They’re all fuckin' gonna die.”

Bucky blinked at him, looking for the first time in their lives genuinely floored, his expression smoothing from combative playfulness to empty sobriety. “Hey. None ‘a that,” he said, voice dead serious.

Steve didn’t blink. He didn’t speak. He sat very still, only the pencil moving between his fingers, slow, rhythmic. At last, he mused, too quietly for the outside world to ever hope to hear, “I can’t keep lyin’ to ‘em, Buck. Can’t tell ‘em that it’s gonna be okay when it’s _not_.”

Bucky scooted closer, like they were kids in a ratty apartment and not men in a war. He hooked a hand in Steve's shirt, forcing him to sit on the floor or rumple the uniform. He sat on the floor. Bucky couldn’t force the issue, but he didn’t need to. Steve went willingly. He only kept a hold on the pencil, steady between his trembling fingers. 

Leaning his shoulder against Steve’s, heavy enough he would’ve flattened his pre-serum self like a pancake, Bucky declared in an undertone, “Everybody is scared shitless, Steve. Something’s—something’s _wrong_ , you know? I can feel it. I know you can feel it. Something about this one, this war—there’s a sickness in the air and nobody can name it. But that’s why we gotta see it through. The best way out is always through. You know?” He squeezed Steve’s knee hard enough it would’ve hurt if Steve wasn’t built like steel, but Steve _was_ made of steel. He barely felt it at all.

“There is no going back,” Bucky reminded. There was something sobering and comforting and devastating and real about it.

He wasn’t only talking about going back to the States. No. That was the first layer of it, the stunning blow to consciousness that kept everybody up their first few weeks or so in the brave new War. It was the cold realization that you’d jumped in way too deep and couldn’t get outta the water, no matter how hard you tried. Not until the mission was over. If you tried to cut loose, you were a traitor, and traitors died. Keep swimming. That was all you could do.

But there was more to it. Steve knew it and Bucky knew it and they both accepted it at once for what it irrevocably was.

Bucky insisted, “You’re the toughest, most stubborn sonuvabitch I’ve ever met, Rogers. Don’t go gettin’ soft on me now. These boys, they all knew what they were signin’ up for. We made our choices, now we gotta live by ‘em. Live by yours,” he recommended, shifting to stand. Steve was on his feet and tugging Bucky up by a hand without hesitation. 

He clasped Steve’s shoulder and it was odd that he had to reach up to do it, odder that he had to squeeze hard to make it seem like anything at all. His reality was a step removed from Captain America’s. “You keep walkin’, I’ll do the same,” Bucky said seriously, “and so will every guy out there that tells you, sir, yes, sir. You don’t stop, none of them will. Got it? We’ll deal with the rest later. For now . . . stay with the group. Don’t get lost in your own head. Right now, we could use some of that Steve Rogers’ stubbornness.”

Steve looked him in the eye, searching for a shred of doubt, but there was nothing but heaviness, exhaustion, and war-torn sincerity. Nodding, he conceded quietly, “All right, Buck.”

Bucky gave him a shake before letting go. “Good. Now c’mon. Boys won’t crack a bottle open without their commanding officer to look down on ‘em. You can’t deny them revelry on Christmas.”

“Yeah, bet they’ll be just as happy at the morning reveille,” Steve muttered.

Bucky cuffed him on the back of the head before stepping out, insisting before the flap closed, “Don’t be late.”

“I won’t,” Steve told an empty room, reaching down to retrieve his pencil.

He set it on his little fold-up desk, next to a page with black scratches on it, places they’d been, things that meant nothing to no one.

Then he walked out of the tent, stepping into the brutal cold. Then he joined the evening revelry to great drunken fanfare and the overlapping bray of “Cap! Cap!”

. o .

_Monday, December 24, 2012_.

Tony said, “Hey, Rogers. Earth to Rogers.”

Absorbed in his reading, Steve didn’t acknowledge him. Tony shrugged mentally, launching himself to his feet and stepping closer, pausing when Laika barked once. Steve didn’t respond, looking down at the page. Tony called, “Steve?”

Steve didn’t blink, didn’t move an inch.

Edging closer, Tony glanced over as the door slid back and Pepper, bearing gifts and an exasperated air of, _Oh my God you will not believe the day I had_ , stepped through it. She said wearily, “Hi, Tony.” Laika loped over and she crouched down to pet her, setting her boxes aside and saying, “Hi, sweet girl.”

Torn, Tony waited for Steve to snap out of it at the sound of her voice, but Steve didn’t budge. Tony stepped across the room to greet Pepper, trying to stuff down a sense of dread. _Not now. Not now_. He didn’t know when a particularly _good_ time to have a—well, he didn’t even know what it was. Steve’s flashbacks weren’t exactly textbook typical.

Pepper said, “Hi, Tony,” and hugged Tony. Tony let himself be hugged, feeling Laika brush past him as she slipped away, returning to the couch and hopping up, unaware of any potential danger. He wanted to snap his fingers, tell her _down_ , back, but he didn’t want to draw attention to it, like things would be fine if he ignored them long enough.

She said, “Where’s—?” and then, “Oh, hi, Steve.”

Tony almost jumped out of his skin as Steve opened his arms, inviting a hug that Pepper gave, leaning up to kiss his cheek. He squeezed her, releasing her and letting a hand rest on the small of Tony’s back, his voice calm and warm as he greeted, “Hi, Pepper.”

Relaxing, Tony pointed at the boxes she’d set down and asked blithely, “So, how many of those are mine?”

. o . 

_Tuesday, December 24, 1991_. 

Tony Stark, twenty-one-years-old and invulnerable, lounged punch-drunk on a chair, one leg hooked over the arm. He looked up at Edwin Jarvis, who asked tolerantly, “Are you having fun, sir?”

“I am,” Tony said sweetly, lifting the bottle to his lips and drinking deeply. “I don’t have to hide from my father.” He smirked. “Thank God for a Christmas miracle.”

Jarvis said, “Would you like some company, sir?”

Tony blinked, caught off-guard by the question. Despite having a butler living in his parents’ home, he’d somehow expected Jarvis to turn out for the evening, to find a new place to live. He’d been waiting for Jarvis to walk ever since he'd gotten the phone call that his parents were dead. Jarvis hadn’t even twitched in the direction of a suitcase. He’d only stood by and said, “I am so very sorry, sir,” in that sincere British voice of his. Tony had gotten choked up for the first time since he’d heard the news. He had carefully avoided bringing the issue up since.

Nodding regally, Tony waved a hand around the lounge room. “Be my guest.”

Jarvis walked over to a chair, grabbing the arms. Tony cocked his head curiously as the man picked it up and brought it over, planting it right next to Tony. He fished around in his pocket and produced a mint, popping it in his mouth. Chewing passively, he observed, “I am terribly dry this time of year. Which one is that?”

Tony turned the bottle towards him, the words blurry to him. He didn’t care. He couldn’t name the feeling in his chest. Jarvis leaned forward to read it and sat back with a nod. “I do love a good Bordeaux,” he said. Tony proffered the bottle. Jarvis shook his head. Ruefully, he stated, “I’m afraid it interferes with my evening medication. Another time.” With the kind of earnestness that almost unsettled Tony, he asked, “How was your day?”

Tony snorted, tipping the bottle towards his lips, holding it there for a moment. He wasn’t thirsty, wasn’t dry like Jarvis. He just wanted to be dumb. He wanted to be dumb and numb and young. Two of three was a good start. “Over,” he decided shortly.

Jarvis replied, “I wouldn’t say so. It’s not midnight yet.”

Tony huffed, closing his eyes, trying to close out the world. “You should leave,” he said bluntly. “You should get out. Let me rot. You know, in the Great Depression, the wealthy couldn’t sell their homes. Nobody would pawn mansions for oranges. Too expensive. Let me pawn my oranges, Jarvis.”

“I don’t have a son,” Jarvis said. Tony blinked, turning his head to look at him. Sitting primly in his own chair, Jarvis shrugged and said, “If you want me to leave, I will. But if you’re asking my preference, I would rather stay. If you want to move out, I can help make the arrangements.”

Blinking a few times rapidly, Tony said, “Why are you good to me? My father was a bastard. He didn’t love you. He didn’t love anybody.”

Jarvis nodded in agreement and said, “He was not a very loving man. But he was gracious. Forgiving. And he allowed me to be myself, to attend to my matters in peace. He allowed me to get to know you. These things, I feel, can compensate for even severe character flaws. I understand,” he said, in an understanding tone that simultaneously made Tony want to crawl under his chair to avoid accepting it as reality and kept him riveted to his chair, “that you did not like him, but I felt no animosity towards him as an employer. And I feel it has been the proudest privilege of my entire life to watch you grow.” 

He fished in his pocket, producing a small box. He held it out. “Which is why I hope you might indulge an old man his sentiments.”

Tony stared at the box like it would bite him. He slowly straightened in his chair, reaching out. “Is it an Audi?” he asked flippantly, needing to deter some of the gravity. The room was only partially illuminated, deliberately dark. There was no Christmas tree. There was no hint that it was the night before Christmas. He curled his fingers around the box for a moment, holding it. He said seriously, “I don’t have to open this. You can give it to someone else.”

“Open it,” Jarvis invited. “Throw it out after, if you want.”

Tony looked at him, hovering on the edge of something, of walking away from kindness or walking towards it.

He opened the box.

It was an old-school Rolex Oyster. 

Tony freed the watch from its velvet bed carefully, weighing it in his palm, more impressed at its weathered, well-loved appearance than the modern Perpetuals that were sleek, shiny, and brand-new. “It was my father’s watch,” Jarvis told him calmly. “It doesn’t work. But it is a beautiful piece.”

Immediately, Tony said, “I can fix it.”

Jarvis said, “It’s yours to do with as you please.” Tony looked at the watch, his vision hazy, before looking over at Jarvis, who said simply, “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas Eve,” Tony corrected automatically, gaze drawn back to the watch, turning it over with painstaking care. “It’s—thank you. Thank you,” he repeated, feeling lame and small and far too close to tears. “This is very nice,” he added, hoping to come across as patronizing or dismissive or anything but too earnest, “you know, a broken watch is a very nice gift for the billionaire on your list.”

“I thought so,” Jarvis agreed calmly. “Perhaps next year, I’ll upgrade you to a broken eyeglass.”

Tony huffed a hint of laughter, gripping the Rolex gently in his fist. “It’s lovely,” he said flatly, and meant it.

Jarvis nodded. “It is,” he said.

“It’s really lovely,” Tony insisted, in a voice so firm it was almost angry. “It’s nice.” His hand was shaking, but he didn’t crush the watch or the bottle in his other hand. 

He set the bottle down. 

He kept the watch.

. o . 

**_Monday, December 24, 2012_.**

Lounging on the couch, legs hooked over the arm and his head resting on Steve’s thigh, Tony mused, “I’m getting soft.”

Steve hummed, stroking his thumb over Tony’s ribs where his arm rested on top of him. He drawled, “Mm. That so?”

“I’m dangerously close to becoming sappy,” Tony warned, holding his arm. “I’m going to start writing sonnets.”

“I don’t see how that’s a problem,” Steve said, with the kind of knock-your-socks-off sincerity that made Tony close his eyes.

“Pepper,” Tony entreated, calling to her in the kitchen area as she fixed up a blueberry smoothie for herself, “please remind Steve of my irredeemable qualities.”

“Ask me again in two days,” Pepper retorted. Steve smirked and gave Tony a squeeze with his arm.

“Irredeemable’s a strong word,” Steve said breezily in his drawling Brooklyn twang. “Doesn’t cut ya a lot of slack, yanno. We’ve all got our character flaws.”

“Oreo desecrator,” Tony agreed.

Steve laughed, soft and earnest. It was easily the best first gift of Christmas Tony could have asked for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Russian translations in chronological order:
> 
>  _Moya khoroshaya sobaka._ \- My good dog.  
>  _Idti._ \- Go.
> 
> In-text links, in case you missed them:  
> [K2](https://i.redd.it/9kb8irtshac21.jpg).  
> [Gannett](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/83/68/d7/8368d72c00924d51af8c8d6ed9d61e1b.png).  
> [Nanuq](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a6/e1/81/a6e18131d8e6cd9080098f78b22359e1.jpg).  
> [Apollo](https://animalsbreeds.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Karelian-Bear-Dog.jpg).


	34. CHRISTMAS DAY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 of our two-part Christmas special.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my friends. I have not forgotten you or this story. I have been sick as a dog this past week, but I still found time to write this. Cheers!

Face down on the couch, a cheesy party hat somehow secure on his head, Tony declared, “I have a Christmas hangover.”

Steve stamped snow off his boots near the door, asked, “That so?” and unclipped Laika from her leash. She shook out her coat and trotted over to Tony, sniffing his cone-shaped hat. Reaching up to pry the hat off his head, Tony pitched it aside and gave her a pat. Steve hooked his jacket on the wall, saying conversationally, “You know, half the boys in my company, they’d’ve said the same thing next morning.”

“Mama bear,” Tony grumbled.

“Wassup?” Steve asked in a tone that plainly said he’d heard it. He tracked over to the couch instead of the kitchen, leaning over to ruffle Tony’s hair. “You sleep here all night?”

“No,” Tony said. “I didn’t sleep.”

With an airy laugh, Steve said, “Awh, Tony.” He rested his palm flat between Tony’s shoulder blades, radiating warmth. He scratched gently and Tony sighed contentedly, grunting as Laika hopped up onto his legs. “No, no,” Steve told her, scooping her up. “You’re trouble,” he said, the fondness in his tone unmistakable.

Tony told the cushion, “Don’t criticize her, she’s perfect.”

Steve set her down on the floor and stepped around the couch. He crouched, knees cracking. “Yeah? Glad you like her.”

Tony turned his head to level his most unimpressed look at Steve. “I would literally die for her,” he said without a drop of sarcasm. “Now, you, on the other hand. . . .” He inhaled and dragged himself upright with the agony of a Greek statue clawing its way to its feet. “I’d have to think about it,” he concluded lightly. “Maybe, on a good day.”

Steve sat next to him, resting an arm across the back of the couch invitationally. Tony made a show of ignoring it, stretching away like he was merely considering the offer. “If you were on fire, I might douse you with one of those free waters you get at restaurants,” Tony added breezily. “But only if it was free. I’m very miserly. I have a reputation to uphold.”

Tony moved to get a better view of the windows, pressing back against Steve’s arm nonchalantly. Steve left his arm where it was, playing along rather than hauling him in for a good Christmas snuggle. Tony would like a good Christmas snuggle, but if the words ever came out of his mouth, he might have had to shave his eyebrows and move to a new continent, and he wasn’t sure his iconically hirsute reputation could survive that kind of lifestyle change.

“I would look terrible without eyebrows,” he declared suddenly. He could hear Steve trying to connect the six or so mental dots that Tony had connected to arrive at the prescient conclusion.

With a rumble that meant _sure thing, boss,_ Steve said aloud, “Sure thing, boss.” He curved his hand around Tony’s shoulder and added, “To be fair, I don’t think many people can say they look good without ‘em.”

“One day,” Tony predicted morosely, giving up on appearances so he could cuddle down into Steve’s hold like a happy Christmas badger burrowing down for the winter, “you will leave me for a beautiful young billionaire without eyebrows.”

Steve hummed dubiously. Tony could feel the vibration under his cheek. “Better watch out,” Steve said dryly. “Market’s oversaturated with ‘em.”

“No one,” Tony sighed dramatically, “believes me when I say these are the critical issues of our time. Nuclear energy? What’s an atomic bomb got to do with humanity’s future?”

Steve nosed along his hair, then said decisively, “Fuck ‘em.”

Tony tilted his head towards him. “Fuck who? Democritus?”

Steve sighed, nearly audibly rolling his eyes. He hooked an arm under Tony’s legs, bundling him into his arms securely. “Democritus?” he repeated. “He a billionaire?”

Tony nodded against his shoulder. “Ravishingly handsome,” he said seriously. “Eyebrow-less. And,” he paused to add with a sad little sigh, “he’s only forty-one.”

Steve huffed, knowing he was being played and declaring, “Too young for me.”

Tony snickered—painfully near to giggling territory; hell, if being in a steady relationship wasn’t going to soften all those sharp edges he’d honed so well—and said, “Old man. I’m going to have to buy five sets of candles this year. Five,” he added cheerfully. “They come in twenty-packs. I am going to have to buy five sets of—”

“No, you won’t,” Steve muttered, kissing the top of his head. “Don’t be stupid, you put one candle in and it’s symbolic.”

“Nice try, you are not getting out of blowing out ninety-five candles that easily.”

Steve sighed and said, “I ain’t ninety-four.” He rested his cheek on Tony’s head. Tony stayed under his chin, comfy. “I don’t care what year it is. Those years don't count.”

Tony curled a hand in Steve’s shirt, observing after a pause, “I think they do.” Before Steve could sigh in that bracing-for-a-conversation way of his, Tony added seriously, “You gave us seventy years of hope. I think you deserve some credit for that.” The quality of Steve’s breathing didn’t change, but Tony could hear the more rabbity thump of his heart, the way he sighed wistfully against Tony’s hair.

“Can’t take credit for that,” Steve said at last. “All I did was not die.”

Tony leaned back so he could look Steve in the eye, pointing out, “You know what? You did a damn good job of that.” Steve smiled ruefully, his hands steady around Tony’s waist. His eyelids slid shut for a blissful moment as Tony pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’m proud of you. Goddamn bitch of a way to spend seventy years.”

Steve said, “You got a mouth on you, you know that, Stark?” His smile was Christmas morning, though, small, sweet, secretive. Nobody would know it was there unless they were facing him. Tony was; Tony knew.

Tony purred silently in satisfaction. Looping his arms around Steve’s neck, he said, “No one has ever said that before.”

Steve arched both eyebrows. His expression, infused with soft amusement, was careful, unyielding, like someone had once told him, _keep an eye on this for me_ and never came back. 

Tony didn’t know what he was guarding or who he was guarding it for, but if there was one thing Steve Rogers was, it was loyal. He was present and polite, but he was watchful, too, perpetually waiting for something else. It was in the way eyes dark with amusement and affection could still seem a hundred miles away, like he was trying to keep track of two conversations at once and kept tuning out of one.

Tony said, “You make me think of Heisenberg,” and Steve tuned the radio dial back to his frequency, gaze focusing on him more acutely.

“The German scientist?” Steve said, forming the words carefully.

Tony nodded, sitting next to him so he could watch Steve’s face. Steve looked at Tony with the kind of quiet curiosity that only time travelers could know, a watchful intrigue characteristic of people who had caught a glimpse inside Pandora’s box and didn’t know if they dared look closer. People who didn’t want to spoil the show. 

Tony thought, _You’re never going back_ , but couldn’t say the words out loud.

Maybe another day.

Laika hopped up on the space between them and Tony curled his arms around her, resting his chin on her head. He looked Steve in the eye and said easily, “That’s the one.” He tipped his head down, kissed her cool furry forehead, then leaned back against the arm of the couch. “German scientist,” he echoed. “Wrote his papers in German. Had this theory, really bright idea—I’m gonna level with you, I’d rather meet Heisenberg than Einstein, I know goddamn nothing about the guy and that’s just—this theory about atoms,” he went on, sharpening his own focus.

Steve watched him with rapt attention. “Atoms, you know, they make up everything in the Universe,” Tony elaborated. “Me, you, her, those, that.” He pointed accordingly at the Christmas tree, the presents underneath, and the wintry blue morning visible beyond the windows. Steve flicked his gaze to each and nodded once patiently. “It’s particles all the way down,” Tony added. “Turtles stacked on turtles.” Steve squinted at him, a flicker of confusion there and gone so quickly if Tony had blinked, he would have missed it. 

Tony's eyes burned before he blinked. Reaching up to rub them absentmindedly, he mused, “Remind me never to get in a staring contest with you.”

Steve smirked. It made Tony almost angry, almost sad as it vanished behind a blink, another quick little there-and-gone gesture that was so easy to miss. Tony knew that he lingered on hundred-watt smiles and thunderous scowls because his persona was everything under the rainbow but expressionless. He wasn’t _supposed_ to be. He pressed his frown against Laika’s fur in a useless attempt to hide it, unsure why he cared, except that it was so goddamn easy to miss Steve Rogers, lurking painfully behind that cheerful, upright, unflinching Captain America veneer.

Tony lifted his head, one hand resting on Laika’s back. He declared importantly, “ _Ungenauigkeit_.”

Steve cocked his head. “‘Inexactness,’” Tony translated unnecessarily. “Werner—” the word was properly German, _Verner_ with a ‘v,’ “Heisenberg, his theory—that’s what he called it. Inexactness. _Unbestimmtheit_. ‘Undeterminedness.’ I love that,” he admitted, yet he said it with such flat bluntness that the tone might have seemed at odds with the expression, dispassionate as it was. There was something raw to it, something overpowering, like trying to name the whole Universe. Some science was too big to name, too grandiose to explain.

“I love that—he knew what he found,” Tony continued seriously. “We—we fucked up, we tried to name it in another language and we got it _wrong_ , we called it _uncertainty_.” He said it without derision, only ruefulness, a _knowingness_ that the mistranslation was one of the least offenses in the history of science. There were so goddamn many errors, coding errors and translation errors and the ever-present error of _unknowingness_. “But the idea—the idea of it, you know, was that you could never know a particle’s exact momentum and position in space.”

He propelled himself to his feet, suddenly restless. He drew in a breath, trying to condense a thousand hours of science into a spiel that made sense. It almost didn’t matter that it was Steve (but of course it did, it always would). He just needed someone to listen. Steve looked at him with unblinking patience, like he couldn’t imagine doing anything else. That— _that_ was love. Tony couldn’t give a wrong answer. It made something in his chest swell, something ecstatic and relieved. 

He paced and gesticulated haphazardly around him. “That was the idea, right? That the more refined one measurement got, the less refined the other became. Ever take a blurry photograph? Thing moves too fast, it gets smudged, we can’t tell where it is. More precisely we know how fast it’s moving, the less precisely we know its location. It’s not just momentum and position—it’s a clusterfuck of principles, really, should call it Heisenberg’s unsurety _laws—_ but the _problem_ , Steve, the problem is that—

“It’s not that _knowing_ both things is impossible. It’s just impossible for _us_ to _understand_. We can’t know both because we are illiterate cosmic monkeys and we can’t listen to two conversations at once. The information overlaps completely, the messages get ensnared. You have to choose to listen to one or the other. There is no cosmic uncertainty. There’s only a limit to what we can do.”

Steve blinked, then leaned forward, elbows on his knees, expression thoughtful, processing. Tony pointed at him and said, “That’s you. Like listening to two conversations at once.” He smiled, feeling like he’d solved a masterful jigsaw puzzle. He said, “We call it _Unschärfe_ these days. Fuzziness. Blurriness.”

Steve mused, “ _Unschärfe_.” He smiled, then told Tony, “Only you make that kind of stuff sound beautiful.” It warmed Tony to his toes; he grinned in silent satisfaction.

Laika pressed her snout against Steve’s arm, drawing his attention to her. He told her, “No, go lay down.” When she ignored him, he cupped her head and repeated, “I’m busy. Go lay down.” She licked at his face. Steve sighed tolerantly.

Tony distracted himself from a dopey smile by futzing around the Christmas tree, looking down at a rather impressive array of presents. 

“I ain’t cut out for this fatherhood thing,” Steve declared, holding Laika at bay.

“Yeah? Join the crowd,” Clint grunted, the door sliding back behind him. Laika hopped off the couch and loped over to see him. Tony reached down for a box with his name on it, grunting in surprise when he tried to pick it up. Clint crouched to brush Laika’s back, telling them, “Morning, all. Morning, dog.” After a beat, he straightened and added, “Merry Christmas. Santa come?”

“Sure did,” Tony said, picking up the box with both hands and no small amount of _oomph_. “What is this? Rocks?” He turned it over, trying to read the tag. 

Steve stood up and held out his hands to help him with it. Tony cradled the box to his chest, declaring in mock accusation, “No, you get your own.”

Steve rolled his eyes, then said, “How ‘bout I get the coffee first?” He stepped over to Clint and Laika, but he didn’t make it any farther before the door slid open and in stumbled a bleary-eyed Bruce and an alert but faintly murderous Natasha. “Clint,” Steve chided.

Clint shrugged unapologetically. “Hey,” he said, accepting Natasha’s cuff on the head with a good-humored grin. “If you wanna sleep in different apartments, then you may enjoy a Barton-free Christmas morning wake-up call.”

“Is that what that was?” Bruce asked. He whimpered as he looked over the kitchen and observed tragically, “No coffee?”

“Sorry,” Steve said, sounding genuinely apologetic. He glanced at the clock on the wall—4:49 AM—and observed, “Didn’t think anyone would be up just yet.”

Natasha stalked over to the couch, taking up Tony’s former perch and ordering regally, “No presents without coffee.”

Tony hefted his box over to an empty table, nearly putting it _through_ the table as he dropped it more than anything. “What in the world?” he muttered. He flipped over the unsigned tag and asked, “Okay, which one of you bastards is trying to kill me?”

Natasha and Clint said simultaneously, “It’s a surprise.”

Bruce whined, “Why’s there no coffee? It’s Christmas.”

“That’s why,” Tony offered nonsensically. He sauntered over and wrapped an arm around Steve’s waist, telling him, “No, make them work for it. This is a bargaining chip.”

Steve huffed softly. Bruce approached him with the supplication of a starving vassal to his pitiless liege. Grabbing hold of Steve’s t-shirt, he said plaintively, “Cap—please. I need it.”

Steve nodded assuringly, saying like the savior he was, “I know, I know. I’m on it.” He ruffled Tony’s hair, but Tony monkeyed onto him, wrapping both arms around him. Bruce kept his hold on Steve’s shirt. Steve said in mild exasperation, “I need at least one arm.”

“Do you?” Tony teased. He ordered, “Hold still.”

Steve warned, “ _Tony_ ,” but Tony was already shooing Bruce away with a none-too-gentle shove, grabbing the back of Steve’s shoulders and hopping up onto his back. Steve caught him easily with one arm, holding a bag of cocoa beans in his free hand, barely waiting for Tony to get a firm grip around his neck before wandering over to the coffeemaker.

“Anybody know when Thor’s coming?” Tony asked, resting his chin on Steve’s head. Steve hummed subvocally as he worked. It made Tony want to purr, too, but he restrained himself. He could be dignified while lemured onto his boyfriend’s back.

“He said, ‘Forthwith,’ so probably before next year,” Natasha chimed in as she flicked on the TV. She didn’t bother consulting the assembly for a poll, settling on _Elf_. “Hi, sweetheart,” she greeted, patting the couch next to her. “Up.” Laika hopped up obediently, ignoring Steve’s little sigh.

With the family assembled, they settled into a more festive variance of their usual morning routine. Bruce hovered at Steve’s shoulder like an apprentice learning the craft of alchemy from the chief wizard. Tony hung from Steve’s back like an oversized monkey, watching the proceedings with benevolent interest. Clint divided up the packages into various piles; Natasha watched the pile at her feet grow with benevolent amusement.

When Steve handed Bruce a cup of coffee, he drank it instantly, black and searing hot. Tony said in amazement, “Jesus Christ, Banner.”

Bruce held up his free hand, gulped steaming hot coffee, and finally set the empty mug down with enough force to shatter it on the counter with a relieved sigh. “Oh my God. Oh, thank God.”

“You _broke_ my _mug_ ,” Tony yelped. “That’s coming out of your presents.”

Bruce huffed, digging out another mug from the cabinet and assuring, “I’ll buy you a better one.” He let Steve refill the cup, his hands shaking, saying, “I need this. I need it.”

“And I thought _I_ was a coffee-nut,” Tony said affectionately. Steve huffed underneath him.

“Yeah, you’re the poster-child for coffee-sobriety,” Steve muttered, taking a sip of his own coffee.

Tony squeezed his neck and said, “Just for that, you get your present last.”

Steve hummed. “Waited sixty-seven years. What’s another few hours?” He kept his mug out of reach of Tony’s questing hand, adding, “No, this one’s mine.”

Tony growled, then said loudly, “Banner, put the coffee down,” as Bruce spirited away the pot remorselessly. “ _Banner_!”

. o . 

Lounging on the couch, Steve advised, “You know you don’t have to cut _every_ one open with—”

Curled up on a seat near the tree, Tony raked another box open with his new pocketknife. The knife was a gift from Clint, who in the spirit of fairness had presented each of them with a wrapped object that looked suspiciously like a folded knife. Over the sounding of tearing paper, he said, “Can’t hear you, honey, what was that?”

Sitting on the floor, Clint said in his gruffly satisfied manner, “You’re gonna give Cooper a run for his money.”

“Cooper?” Tony repeated, pausing in his present splicing to look at Clint. “Who’s Cooper?”

Clint shrugged before taking a bite of a gingerbread cookie. “That’s classified.”

Natasha said, amused, “And Lila?”

Clint closed his eyes and grinned. “You know it.”

With a disgusted sound, Tony said, “God, it’s gross that you have friends outside the Avengers. I thought we were a _family_.” He slipped his fingers under the seam, pried the ungodly heavy box open, and pulled out a pair of black leather fingerless gloves. “Hell yeah,” he said, tugging them on and flexing them. “Punk never dies. Romanoff, you know me so well.” Picking up the fifteen-pound sandbag at the bottom, he smirked and added, “Cute. Real cute.”

They were pleasantly unostentatious, unlike Natasha’s centerpiece gift. That distinction had gone to Bruce, who slouched against the windows, deeply asleep. He wore a space age gray fabric over his head that resembled a turban, except it left only mouth and nose visible. According to Natasha, it was called an Ostrich Pillow. Snoring robustly, Bruce seemed perfectly content in his Ostrich Heaven. Tony had to admit that it looked comfortable, if ridiculous.

Lifting his own present, Clint said, “I admit, I’m a little afraid to open this.” He caught Natasha’s smirk and added, “You’re a dangerous woman.”

While it was not an Ostrich Pillow, it was another as-seen-on-TV specialty. The Huggle looked exactly like the more famous Snuggie, but unlike the full-sized blanket onesie, the Huggle was only the upper half. Deep blue and lively even at rest, it even had a hood.

Clint, heroically, put it on. Laika loped over curiously, head low as she sniffed at the fabric. In the same gruff tone as before, Clint asked, “You jealous yet, Stark?”

Tony, halfway to a heart attack from suppressed laughter, managed, “You’re twice the man I’ll ever be.”

“Damn straight,” Clint agreed, patting Laika’s head. “Thanks, Nat.”

Natasha smirked at him, then looked at Steve, who was seated comfortably against the arm of the couch. “Cap?” she prompted.

Steve assured, “I can wait.” 

He seemed perfectly pleased to do so, too, but Tony waltzed over and dug through Steve's untouched pile. He handed up the correct box, insisting, “C’mon, I wanna see this. If it’s another Ostrich Pillow, I’ll cry.”

Natasha assured dryly, “It’s not.”

Tony pouted, looking at her accusingly. “Kill joy.”

Steve took the box and replaced it in the pile, promising quietly, “I’m good. Really. I can wait.”

Natasha shrugged, then picked up a box for herself. “Whatever floats your boat, Cap.” She dug in carefully and Tony found himself trying not to notice her reaction, failing as he shifted from foot to foot.

Once the safe-box was visible, he couldn’t help himself. “Okay, so, it’s a lockbox,” he explained anxiously, “but I made it unbreakable. I had J.A.R.V.I.S. try to hack it—didn’t even come close, three days of the best in AI couldn’t unlock that. You can put anything you want in it, never has to see the light of day again. It can be a place for all your super-secret spy stuff,” he added. 

He rocked on his heels, wondering if he hadn’t misjudged what a good Christmas gift for someone who wasn’t Pepper or Rhodey. He babbled, “It’s technically nonrefundable, but I could trade it in for, do you like chocolate-covered strawberries? I know the best place to get them, there’s this really wonderful chocolatier—”

“Stark.” Tony clamped his mouth shut and sat down next to Steve restlessly, watching Natasha turn the box over. It was about the same width and length as a typewriter but as shallow as a shoebox, making for easy storage. She punched in six zeroes on the keypad before pressing her thumb against the little _sign here_ box. The lid popped open smoothly. 

Tony relaxed, relieved that it worked. He affectionately referred to its first-and-final impression system as a duckling protocol. The safe-box would imprint immutably on one person’s fingerprint, period. Even during construction, he’d been careful never to touch it barehanded, paranoid that he might set it up wrong. He watched her study it, expression hard to read but shoulders soft. When she closed the lid and looked at him, there was a wry sort of pleasure in her gaze. “Thank you.”

Tony shrugged halfheartedly and looked down at his new gloves, flexing his fingers. “Uh-huh. Glad you—glad that’s squared off.”

Bruce snored loudly. Tony admitted, “Nothing I give will ever live up to the Ostrich Pillow.”

“Can’t all be winners,” Natasha said, setting her safe-box near Clint’s pile. “There’s always next year, Stark.”

Raising his chin with a haughty little sniff, Tony said, “I can’t win with you losers.”

Steve chided, “Tony,” but he shrugged unapologetically.

Using his own pocketknife, Clint sawed open his own Stark-patented gift. Tony smirked. “You know what they say—when you lie with the dogs,” Clint said philosophically. He patted Laika’s head once, observing, “Except you would never carry fleas.” He opened his box without fanfare, efficient, no wasted movements. He popped the gloves from their hold. Without dropping the pocketknife, he finagled them on. Without asking, he pressed the blade to the center of the glove and dragged it down hard.

It didn’t tear. “Nice,” he rumbled, repeating the exercise with the back of the opposite hand. “Romanoff, you wanna try it?” he asked, chucking her his own knife.

“At least let me record it,” Tony said, pawing around for his phone. Steve put it in his palm. “I wanna see Barton reenact _Monty Python_.”

“Thanks,” Clint said, voice dry but smile toothy, amused.

Recording them, Tony declared, “This is where it all went wrong.”

Tragically, that was _not_ where it all went wrong. Natasha balanced Clint’s hand between her hip and arm, sawing at the various seams with growing amusement. “Not even a tickle,” Clint announced. She squeezed his hand one last time and let go. Clint yelped when she deliberately nicked the skin on his forearm, snatching the blade back. Tony laughed and cut the footage. Clint grumbled, “You damn _kids_ need to get off my _lawn_.”

Wisely, Tony elected not to repeat the experiment with his own gloves, holding his hands up and insisting, “I respect art.”

Natasha smirked, Buddy the Elf sang, _I’m in a store and I’m singing!_ and somehow it really did feel like Christmas morning.

. o . 

Tony nudged Bruce with his foot. Bruce snored loudly, head cocooned in soft gray matter and resting on the windowpane. “Hey, Bruce,” Tony said, nudging his leg again. “Bruce. Wake up.”

Bruce snored. Tony rolled his eyes and glanced over at Steve, who was currently fulfilling the role of Trash Dad, which meant holding up a big plastic trash bag as Clint and Natasha chucked crumpled wrapping paper at him. With their stellar aim, it could only be choice that nearly half of the paper balls bounced off Steve instead of the bag. Intrigued by the proceedings, Laika sniffed around hopefully and snatched the first ball to miss the bag, loping off. “I don’t remember this being a tradition,” Steve observed dryly, picking up another fumbled toss.

“Yeah, well, it is,” Clint assured with a degree of knowing that Tony knew meant he’d been Trash Dad in years prior.

Tony kicked Bruce’s leg and Bruce finally stopped snoring. “What?” he asked plaintively, looking for all the world like a gray alien. “It’s too early.”

“It’s never too early for Christmas,” Tony told him. “And it’s seven AM, you coward.”

Bruce sighed before he accepted the box Tony pushed into his hands. Feeling along the seam, he asked, “Is it alive?”

Tony deadpanned, “Yes.”

Bruce nodded, head bobbing forward ponderously. He muttered, “Good. I was afraid it was dead.” He put the corner to his teeth, prying it loose and adding, “Is this the last one?”

Tony glanced at the tree bedecked with gifts and said, “Sure.”

Bruce sighed in the tone of someone who could not imagine the emotional burden of unwrapping two whole presents, but he dutifully opened his present. He popped open the box, feeling blindly at the three flat hard drive-like objects inside it. Even hidden behind the absurd Ostrich Pillow, Bruce’s expression lit up. “Oh, this is cool. What is this?”

Tony declared, “Nope, you’ve used up your Christmas questions.”

Bruce whined, “I thought I got twenty.”

Tony said, “It’s a cold world,” and walked away, leaving Bruce to pry the gray fabric from his head and blink owlishly at the well-lit interior. He squinted down at the objects, expression warm with surprise, delight. Tony did not preen. He did not look back, because he was suave and cool and untouchable.

“Oh,” Bruce marveled, sifting through the drives. Tony flopped down unceremoniously beside Steve, resting heavily against his side. “Oh, this is cool, Tony,” Bruce repeated in the same tone of a kindergarten teacher receiving their first _world’s best teacher_ mug. “Aw. Tony. This is really nice.”

Tony yawned audibly and drawled, “Sure thing, Ostrich Man.”

“No, it is,” Bruce insisted, reading the fine print, his tone infused with quiet wonder. “Six-point-eight gigahertz? Are you serious?”

Tony shrugged modestly, slouched into Steve’s side, and dragged one arm around himself. “Did I fucking stutter?” he asked. He bit Steve’s palm when it covered his mouth, then added uninterrupted, “With a processing speed that high, you can easily open a thousand tabs without crashing the system.”

Bruce chuckled and said, “God, that’s awful.” His voice was amused, touched, as he added, “Thanks, Tony.”

Tony flicked a salute over the back of the couch, cheek smushed against Steve’s side. “I need one of those pillows,” Tony declared, head beginning to throb from sleeplessness. He lifted Steve’s outermost shirt and rested his cheek against his undershirt. “This is acceptable.”

Steve said in a tolerant Brooklyn twang, “If it makes you happy.”

Wound up as he was on three cups of black coffee, Tony didn’t think he could fall asleep, but he awoke with a start to the sound of a knock on the door. For a few confused seconds, he struggled blindly to free himself. Then pop-goes-the-weasel, it was just Steve. He had both arms around Tony, not restraining, just grounding. Clint and Natasha were gone, off to shower or get in a knife-fight. Bruce was asleep in his corner, but Steve was right there and Tony relaxed.

“Don’t scare me like that,” Tony muttered incongruously. He stumbled to his feet as the door slid open, admitting—well, for a brief moment, he thought it would be Agent Coulson. Coulson would always bring with him a small tin can full of tiny Christmas sugar cookies, smiling in that small, _thanks for inviting me to the party_ way. His warm amusement at the invitation had never faded over the course of a four-year friendship.

But it was Pepper, who remarked dryly at his crestfallen expression, “Don’t look so happy to see me.”

Tony reached up to flatten his hair, aware that he looked sleep-rumpled and a touch discombobulated but smiling, anyway. “Hey, Pep,” he said. He consciously didn’t ask, _When’s Coulson coming?_

It bothered him, suddenly and seriously, that he’d never asked for Coulson's Christmas cookie recipe, sinfully good, _irreplicably_ good. _That_ was what stuck in his throat, the reality that he’d never asked and now would never know. He had assumed that stupid, kind and genuinely hopeful Phil Coulson would be around to report that the Earth had stopped spinning and things were okay.

Pepper hugged him and he hugged her back limply. “You okay?” she asked quietly, sensing his mood.

He nodded and squeezed her more warmly. “Mm-hm. It’s Christmas.” He pulled back to look at her, then gestured expansively at the space around them. “If you can ignore the vermin, we actually have great coffee.”

Bruce snored. Steve said nearby, “I wouldn’t call ‘em _vermin_.”

“Quiet, mole,” Tony told him with playful sharpness.

Pepper said sweetly, “Hi, Steve,” and stepped into the fold of his arms, hugging him back warmly. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” Steve echoed. When Pepper held on a moment too long—Steve’s hugs were delicious and absolutely contained a fountain-of-youth property—Tony seized the day and latched onto them both. “Can’t get enough, can ya?” Steve asked Tony, kissing his temple and releasing one arm to curl it around Tony. “S’why I got two arms.”

“Sap,” Tony muttered.

Pepper teased, “If you don’t keep this one, I just might.”

Tony huffed and released Steve as the door slid open a second time, crowing gleefully, “ _Rhodey_!”

Rhodey said, “Nope, nuh-uh, I will walk—” and made a show of turning around before Tony tackled him to the wall. He grunted and scowled as Tony pressed an exaggerated kiss to his cheek. “I just want my Merlot, that’s all I want,” he pleaded, trying to hold Tony at arm’s length.

“Who said anything about a Merlot?” Tony asked, letting him go. Tony made a show of looking over his shoulder at Steve, who looked suddenly out-of-place, neither advancing to say hello nor retreating to do something productive. There was already plenty of coffee—cowards might decree _too much—_ and the rest of the presents weren’t unwrapped yet. There was nothing that needed his attention.

“Tony, you’ve gotten me a Merlot for the past twenty-two years,” Rhodey said patiently, interrupting his thoughts.

Tony made a noncommittal noise. “Maybe.”

“I want my Merlot,” Rhodey insisted.

Tony looked at the clock on the wall. “Alcoholic,” he said fondly. It wasn’t even noon. “What if I didn’t get you a Merlot? Hm?”

Rhodey leveled an unimpressed look at him. Tony shrugged, then said, “Okay, I might have—”

Rhodey dragged the black bag from around his own shoulder and unzipped it. He handed Tony a familiar silver-colored bag. “There’s more where that came from,” he said. Tony beamed, popping the bag open and telling Steve and Pepper, “See, this is a man of refined tastes.” He tossed a blueberry into his mouth, asking between bites, “Why do these always hit the spot?”

“They’re blueberries,” Rhodey said. He extended a hand and clasped Steve’s. “Hey, Cap.”

“Hey, Jim,” Steve replied, shaking his hand warmly. “How was your flight?”

Rhodey shook his head and huffed, “Oh, I didn’t tell you? Lemme tell you.” He clasped Steve on the shoulder, steering him towards the kitchen and adding, “First, tell me where he hid the Merlot.”

Tony caught Steve’s little grin as he shrugged and said, “Your guess is as good as mine, Jim.” He leaned into him conspiratorially as Rhodey said something Tony couldn’t make out. Then Rhodey announced, “So the landing gear was stuck. Down, thankfully. But we had to circle back and land in ice, fifty minutes behind schedule, and _then_ my transfer got grounded in Detroit.”

Tony called out, “This is why I never fly commercial.”

Rhodey huffed and admitted, “Don’t push me, Stark, or I’ll say yes to that private jet offer. Know what really says _happy holidays_? Broken landing gear.”

He went on about the kid next to him, an eight-year-old aspiring astronaut who happened to see the slip in Rhodey’s wallet, a business card from a NASA aeronaut who’d been in flight school with Rhodey. “Kids are sweet,” Rhodey said, watching hopefully as Steve flitted around in the higher cabinets, dutifully searching for the Merlot Tony had tucked away into a safe-box behind a discreet painting on the wall. “They love space. Kid asked me if I’d been to space.”

“Did you tell him yes?” Tony asked.

Rhodey huffed. “No. But I know a couple astronauts. He thought that was cool.” He made a disappointed sound as Steve opened the last cabinet, conspicuously free of Merlot. Refusing to give up his secret hidey-hole, Tony shrugged when Rhodey looked over at him, looking innocently at the ceiling. “Tony,” he warned.

“This is an intervention,” Tony said airily. Pepper was crouching and rubbing Laika down, content to wait. “You should take a leaf from her book,” he added, nodding at Pepper. “Patience is key.” He popped another blueberry in his mouth.

Rhodey said, “Is it on the fridge?” He nudged Steve, who didn’t budge. Tony frowned, watching Steve deliberately close the cabinet door, turning away and walking over to the windows like Rhodey wasn’t there. Rhodey said, “Okay, I’ll look.” He grabbed the edge of the fridge. 

Tony rebuked, “Rhodes, get off my fridge.”

Ignoring him, Rhodey hopped up, peering over the top curiously. “I know it’s here somewhere, Anthony.”

Scrunching up his nose, Tony repeated, “Get off of my fridge.” He walked over to pry Rhodey off, gaze scarcely straying from Steve, looking out the window. Rhodey hopped down. Tony said, “Check behind the steam engine painting.”

Rhodey looked over at the painting on the wall, waltzing over and futzing with it hopefully. Tony ignored him, approaching Steve. He couldn’t obstruct his view—he was nearly nose-to-nose with the window—so he aired on the side of incaution. He reached out and brushed his fingertips against Steve’s.

Steve didn’t flinch, but he didn’t try to latch onto Tony’s hand, either. Encouraged, Tony intertwined their fingers before clasping his hand firmly, throwing caution to the wind. He gave his hand a tug, very aware that leather gloves or no, Steve could crush it like a spindly bird’s foot. He trusted. 

Steve gripped his hand, not tightly. Then he blinked looked over at Tony, squeezing his hand, not making a sound. He could feel the apology radiating off Steve, but he squeezed his hand one more time, _It’s okay_. Tony tugged on it. _C’mon_.

Steve nodded, barely perceptibly. Rhodey said warmly, “Now that’s a beautiful bottle of wine.”

Tony said, “Merry Christmas.” He kept his eyes on Steve and knew that the other conversation never really went away.

 _Unschärfe_. Blurriness.

He leaned up and cupped Steve’s face, kissing him firmly in what amounted to plain view, but Rhodey was busy with his present and Pepper with Laika. Neither of them acknowledged it, because it already existed in plain view.

It sat warm in his chest, even if there were still hints of ice in Steve’s.

. o . 

“ _I seek the finest and the bravest knights in the land to join me in my court at Camelot_.” There was a weighted pause. The Black Knight didn’t say a word. At last, King Arthur declared, “ _You have proven yourself worthy!_ ”

Steve laughed, that helpless little giggle that made Tony fall in love all over again.

Picking over his bag of blueberries, Tony sat on the bean bag and said dryly, “I can’t believe this movie wasn’t included in the debriefing files.”

Lying on the floor, arms folded over his chest but back to the bean bag near Tony’s feet, Steve said, “Maybe it was. I didn’t read ‘em.”

Tony made a little _huh_ sound, watching in familiar amusement as King Arthur and the Black Knight squared off. He knew it was somewhat bad form to bail on his guests, especially on Christmas, but he’d been itching in his own skin. It was an easy excuse to say, “Have you ever seen _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_?” and counter Steve’s somewhat dubious, _That a Christmas movie?_ with a staunch, “Yes.” Pepper and Rhodey were both used to him reneging on things, anyway. It was his signature move: bail before the party was over to get wasted alone.

This was a much better way to spend the time, he decided, watching the arm- and leg-less Black Knight decree, “ _All right! We’ll call it a draw_.”

At least Pepper and Rhodey had been chill with his declaration that it was a great morning for raspberry pancakes. Tony had been eighty percent sure the restaurant would be closed, because it was Christmas Day, but they had been good at taking a hint. 

When his phone vibrated in his pocket, he fished it out and pouted at the sinful sight of a mound of pancakes topped with enough whipped cream to convert a Saint and a dash of raspberries. 

_I hate you_ , he texted back.

Rhodey texted another picture, this one Pepper smiling cheerfully, her own forkful of blueberry pancakes making his stomach growl. Steve tilted his head to look at him. Tony flipped the screen around. “Mm,” Steve said sympathetically. Flicking his gaze back to Tony’s, he added, “That where they were off to in such a hurry?”

“Something like,” Tony replied. To Rhodey: _Stop tempting me_.

Rhodey texted him a picture of a side plate of bacon and eggs. Drooling was undignified. Tony let out a pouty sound that was not a whimper instead.

Steve said mildly, “You can do the recording thing, can’t ya?” When Tony blinked at him, he looked at Tony and explained, “You know, like with the soap. You can record this.” He nodded at the holographic screen. “Finish it later.” He smiled, shark-toothed, and added, “I dunno about you, but I could stand a bite to eat.”

Tony considered telling him the obvious— _oh, no, I own this, we can pick it up any time, recording’s not an issue—_ and instead said with an amused smirk, “Modern man.”

. o . 

Tony flicked the blade on his pocketknife, even as Steve sighed audibly into a glass of water across from him, Pepper patting his shoulder consolingly between stolen bites of pancake, unembellished but for a dabble of maple syrup. It was the principle of the thing, Tony thought, amused, as he used the knife to slip open the padded envelope Rhodey had handed him. “It’s not a live animal, is it?” he asked teasingly.

Rhodey said, “If it was, it’s not alive anymore.”

“Morbid,” Tony muttered, beaming despite himself as a black ballpoint pen rolled into his waiting hand. “I see we broke tradition this year,” he added, brushing a thumb over the sleek gold _MIT_ tab on it.

He had twenty-two of them, one for every year they’d waged the great Christmas Standoff. It was a pact of genius: they never worried about what to get each other because Tony always got him a bottle of his favorite Merlot and Rhodey always got him a fancy ballpoint MIT pen. Rhodey always drank the bottle in a matter of days but kept each one tucked away, like Tony’s defunct pens.

When $100,000 had the same spending power as a crisp ten-dollar-bill, it was worthwhile to put a cap on presents. Even a good bottle of Merlot was around a hundred bucks, barely a _penny_ by Tony’s extraordinary standards. He made a point of forcing his lavish lifestyle on his friends year-round, but any attempts to outdo himself were soundly rejected by Pepper and Rhodey. 

(They really were marvels. The wrong kind of people would drug his drink to get him to sign a million dollar check. Luckily, he’d only fallen for that trick twice and only lost a couple mil and his dignity for it. Ever since, Happy had been his personal bartender, vetting absolutely every drink that came his way with a firm, _Mr. Stark doesn’t like being handed things_.)

He would gladly buy Rhodey and Pepper’s perpetual friendship, if only because he’d rather be dead-broke than alone, but they had insisted that he stick to wine and truffles, respectively.

“I followed your lead,” Rhodey said dryly, interrupting his thoughts. Tony smirked and clicked the pen, testing its weight in hand. Then he yanked a napkin from the pile on the table and sketched in his familiar loping script:

 _Tony Stark_.

He beamed, clicking the pen and passing the napkin to Steve. “Here you go, the—what, twelfth? Fifteenth? I have no idea, it’s the gift of Christmas.”

Steve huffed, patiently accepting the napkin and folding it neatly into an even smaller square, tucking it into a pocket. “Kind of you.” He made a point of ignoring another bite of pancake Pepper snatched from his plate. Tony idly wondered if the waiter thought Pepper and he were together, given how cozy their little table for two-plus-two was. 

Hell, he was one step away from being in Rhodey’s lap, not that Rhodey cared, suffering his proximity with the occasional, “Hands off the bacon.”

“I’ll buy you more,” Tony echoed Bruce, smirking and yelping when Rhodey elbowed him. “Attacked by my own blood?”

Rhodey sighed, said, “Could’ve been in Malibu, but you know where I am? Freezing my ass off in New York.”

Tony frowned, shooing him with too much force, nearly pushing him out of his chair. “ _Go_ to Malibu, you jackass.”

“I’m flying out for New Year’s,” Rhodey chimed in, making a spirited attempt to stay in his chair as Tony put his back into it, claiming both chairs. “Jackass,” he echoed affectionately, yelping as he dropped off the chair onto the floor.

Tony laughed helplessly as Pepper chimed in, “ _Tony_ ,” refusing to give an inch as Rhodey huffed and picked himself up. Steve’s solicitous hands were there, picking him up with the kind of brusque ease that made Tony think of a soldier tripping over his own laces, only to be rescued by his superhuman commanding officer. He was actually jealous. Exasperated that he was jealous, he contemplated sliding out of his chair on purpose, because Steve made him want to do stupid stuff like that.

Rhodey said, “All right, musical chairs it is,” and sat next to Pepper. 

Tony thought Steve wouldn’t rise to the challenge, would pull up a fifth chair as some sort of absurdly polite concession to the Universe, but he was Captain Rogers, too. He just said, “Don’t think I won’t.”

Tony put the pen between his teeth, looking up at Steve, sprawled in that _paint me like one of your favorite billionaires,_ utterly unmoved.

Steve said, “All right.”

One moment Tony was lying, a touch awkwardly, across two chairs at a diner that was miraculously open on Christmas Day: the next, he was slung over Captain America’s shoulder, pen between his teeth, trying to logic how he had gone from horizontal to semi-vertical in less than two moves. Steve hooked a foot around one of the chairs, pulling it out to give himself room to deposit Tony into it before settling into the seat next to it.

“Yup, he can handle you,” Rhodey declared sagely, pointing his fork at Tony as Tony set his pen down. Steve shrugged modestly.

Tony listed against his shoulder, but unlike poor Jim, who was roughly equal to Tony’s average-height stature, Steve was a Greek statue. He didn’t move. Tony was reasonably sure, sitting still, his atoms repelled Tony’s more energetically, forcing him back without making a move. It was absurd but also kind of funny. That super-soldier obstinacy was fun to push against.

Tony bit his shoulder gently, shirt and all. Steve asked, “What’s in Malibu?” with a patient pat to the side of Tony’s head that was more affectionate than dismissive.

“Surprised you don’t know,” Rhodey replied, looking at Tony, who affected his most innocent expression with his teeth around Steve’s shirt.

“You’re gonna ruin the fabric,” Steve muttered patiently. Nodding at Rhodey, he added, “Nice place, ain’t it?” He took a sip of his own drink, then reiterated, “It’s real nice.” He patted Tony’s head again. Tony released him, feeling satisfied, picking up his pen and twirling it between his fingers. “That Happy’s a real treat.” He said it without meanness, only a hint of guarded amusement.

“You got the Hogan greeting?” Pepper asked dryly. She flicked her gaze to Tony, who shrugged and speared a piece of Steve’s pancakes, taking a bite. He had his own, but everything tasted better when it was stolen. “How’d that go?”

“Well,” Steve said articulately, taking a sip of his drink again.

“No one got hurt,” Tony added cheerfully. “I wanted to see a showdown, but they kissed and made up first.”

Steve squinted, doubt in his expression as he set down his empty glass and said, “I wouldn’t say—”

Tony paused in his pen-twirling to kiss his cheek, easy as anything. “Figure of speech.”

Steve ducked his head a little, as close to bashful as he got in public, before saying, “Yeah.”

Pepper warned, “Tony,” and he pouted but relented, settling for curling one of his hands around Steve’s under the table. Steve let him, squeezing it back. That little affirmation made Tony feel good, _welcome_ , like he wasn’t here to briefly affect others but to actually change their lives. He wasn’t ephemeral. He was lasting.

He turned over his pen in his free hand, amazed that he possessed twenty-two others like it. He wondered if he’d ever been luckier than the days he met the people sitting with him, holding Pepper and Rhodey’s gazes like they would vanish in a dream, very aware of Steve’s hand in his own.

. o .

Thor said cheerfully, “And, you know, my memory being quite good, I recall that you had mentioned, Stark, that you would be interested in acquiring these for your collection.”

Sitting near the fireplace and mid-way through unwrapping the box in his hands, Tony paused warily. 

Sitting on a nearby couch with Laika curled up next to him, Steve drawled, “Can’t chicken out now, Tony.”

Thor chuckled merrily, sifting through his massive bag and assuring, “No, no fowls. A fine guess!” He emerged with another square box and passed it off to Steve. “I asked my friend Darcy what might suit an elder of your race. That was what she recommended. I hope it is acceptable.”

It was Tony’s turn to laugh as Steve said with admirably straight-faced gravity, “Thank you, Thor.”

Clint cackled like a hyena, yelping in alarm as he opened his own box and a small pointy roundish object dropped into his hands. “Oh hell, oh _hell_ ,” he said, cupped hands cradling a—

“Is that a _hedgehog_?” Tony asked incredulously, abandoning his partially open present to scramble forward. It was: even though it was curled into a protective ball, the hedgehog was unmistakable, its spines curved down unthreateningly.

“’Twas the last in their collection,” Thor declared proudly, folding his arms across his metal-plated chest. “The face,” he added, gesturing at his own as he schooled his expression into a scowl, “reminded me of you, Barton.”

Clint stared expressionlessly at the hedgehog for so long that Tony thought he’d had a heart attack. Then, slowly, the prickly ball unfurled into a recognizable shape and Clint repeated dryly, “Oh, hell.” There wasn’t anger in his tone, only surprise, amusement. “Oh, Thor.” He lifted it to his face, the tiny black nose sniffing hopefully in his direction. “Oh, buddy.”

Beaming, Thor said, “I knew your bond would be true.”

Stifling a snicker—he still hadn’t unwrapped his _own_ potentially-a-hedgehog gift—Tony said seriously, “I can see the resemblance.”

Clint scowled at him, informing, “I know where you sleep.”

Tony waggled his eyebrows and heard Steve sigh. _Tony, I swear to God_ , was on the tip of his tongue, but he held it as Tony added, “What’re you gonna name it? I vote Vincent.”

“Vincent?” Clint repeated, scowling. “No.”

“Herbert,” Tony offered. “Reginald.”

Thoroughly ignoring him, Clint held the hedgehog at eye level and muttered to it, “What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?” The hedgehog returned to its ball as he shifted on the chair, holding it in one hand to his chest and looking at Thor with a serious expression. “Thanks. This is—really something.” He was, fortuitously, wearing the indestructible gloves Tony had given him as the hedgehog rolled in his palms.

Thor nearly danced. “I knew you would like it! His name is Halvard.”

“Solves that problem,” Clint said, nodding in appreciation. “All right, Halvard. Hope you like driving ‘cause we gotta go.” He looked at Thor, who seemed crestfallen. He explained, “I’ve got—friends. In other places.”

Nodding in understanding, Thor held out a hand and clasped Clint’s, bringing him to his feet. He kept a careful hold on Halvard. “Enjoy!” Thor said.

Absentmindedly, Clint held Halvard in one hand and picked up a pocketknife-shape present from the floor, passing it to Thor and saying, “That’s for you. Open with care.”

Tony said, “I wanna see the hedgehog,” and Clint walked over obligingly as Thor, with excruciating care, began peeling back the wrapping like it was strung up to a live bomb. “Hi, Hellfire,” he said, cupping his own hands. Clint picked the hedgehog up with one gloved hand and set it down in Tony’s hands like an apple. It remained curled up in its ball. He had to hold his hands out of reach as Laika sniffed near them hopefully. “No, no, you can’t have this, it’s not a toy,” he told her, marveling at the little spines under his fingertips, careful to keep the bulk of the hedgehog on his own gloves. “You better bring this back,” he ordered Clint, who nodded absentmindedly, holding it in one hand.

Thor gasped delightedly, “It’s a _knife!_ ” as he flicked the switch on the blade. “You know, this reminds me,” he said, swinging it around and accepting a candy cane, comically undersized in his big palm, “there was this one time, my brother, Loki—you’ve all met him—he transformed himself, into a snake, and he knows I love snakes—”

Clint muttered, “Oh, this’ll end well,” and clapped him on the shoulder, saluting to the rest of them, Halvard in hand. 

“Thus, I picked the snake up, you see, to admire it, and as I picked it up, Loki transformed himself and went, BLEAGH, IT’S ME, and then he _stabbed_ me.” He gestured forward sharply with the knife, laughing buoyantly. “We were quite young at the time. It was a rather good jest. I do not believe I have bested him.”

“He stabbed you,” Steve repeated slowly, his own box conspicuously sitting nearby, Laika sniffing at it hopefully until he gently put a hand on her chest, pushing her back, “in _jest_.”

“That’s what the man said,” Tony agreed, happily filching a third candy cane from the communal jar as it made its way around again. He crunched it hard to make Bruce go:

“Tony, please, you’re gonna crack a tooth.”

“If I crack a tooth, I will get a gold replacement and look like a badass,” Tony said, crunching on it. “Don’t harsh my mellow.” He picked up his own box, asking, “Can I shake it?”

Thor said, “I would not advise it,” and Tony gulped audibly.

“Great. Hey, honey, you want it?” Tony asked, holding the gift out to Steve.

Steve tipped his head down, eyebrows arched. He reminded, “It’s your present, Tony.”

Tony sighed in resignation, said, “If it bites me, it’s going back,” and carefully peeled the paper away. Laika hopped up to join him on the ledge and he slung an arm around her, telling her, “Yes, good, protect me.” 

Forsaking his present-opening knife, he freed the little—kit? Hamster cage? It vaguely resembled a hamster cage, if a hamster cage was one-dimensional, but there was clearly no way a hamster could fit in in. There was also a tube. He stared at the dozen or so—“Ants? It’s an ant farm?” Helpfully, there was a booklet with a giant ant on it, titled _ANTS: For Kids_.

“I felt the instructional manual would be useful,” Thor said, nodding at the booklet as Tony alternated between staring incredulously at the _live ants_ , the introductory guide for children, and the empty ant cage. Then he looked at the sandbag on the floor and scowled at Natasha, who smiled the littlest bit. “ _You knew_.”

She said, “Multipurpose.”

Her box contained an empty box with the words, _It’s Escaped!_ written on the lid. “And may it never be found,” Natasha said with a genuine smile as Thor beamed.

“Darcy helped me with that one. She is very well-versed in Midgard’s culture.” He accepted a hug, adding delightedly, “I knew you were one of great wit.”

Natasha smirked, adding, “I sense a theme,” as she rested the empty box on top of the safe-box Tony had given her.

Tony sniffed in mock disapproval, saying, “I gave you mine _first_ , so if anyone’s copying ideas—” He looked at Steve’s box curiously, asking, “Think it’s dead, alive, or escaped?”

Steve shrugged, sucking on a candy cane and shooing the box off to the rest of his unopened pile. “Hopefully none of the above,” he decided.

Carefully balancing his gifts, Tony advised Thor, “Hey, you have a couple gifts under there.”

Thor looked at the tree, surprised. “Do I?”

“Mm-hm,” Tony said, taking a bite of his candy cane. “The canes are Cap’s contribution,” he added. Thor looked down at his own and popped it into his mouth _whole_ , chewing loudly.

“Oh, geez, Thor,” Steve began, but Thor shook his head and assured:

“No, it’s quite good. Very enlivening.” He selected a box, noting, “This one is unsigned.”

“Guess you’ll have to guess who it’s from,” Tony said, glancing pointedly at Natasha, who was too busy toying with the UV light and UV marker to notice his implicit accusation. Bruce had given it to her sometime between Rhodey and Pepper descending on their own respective quarters to settle in a bit and Steve and Clint checking in on the Christmas turkey J.A.R.V.I.S. had been monitoring all day. She shuffled over to Steve’s side, grabbed his arm without preamble, and wrote something on it. Steve looked down at his skin curiously, but there was no mark. She flashed the light. _H_ _ello_ jumped out in cursive.

Smiling, he took the marker and brushed out two letters near her wrist, small, unobtrusive, also cursive _hi_.

Thor plucked the item from the box and held it up, a colorful looking hand-sized telescope. Natasha advised, “Hold it to your eye,” and then, “Other way.”

Thor obliged, saying, “Oh, it’s—” He accidentally turned his hand to get a better view, rotating the cylinder in silent amazement. “Magnificent,” he decided. “Wondrous. What is this?”

“Kaleidoscope,” Natasha said. 

“It’s wondrous,” Thor declared, rotating it slowly. “I did not know you possessed magic such as this.”

Natasha drew a heart on Steve’s forearm. Steve accepted the mark and the marker and drew a star above his own silent greeting.

Thor lowered the kaleidoscope and told her gravely, “This is a magic I have never seen before.”

Natasha sketched a spider on Steve’s cheek. Tony did not growl audibly, but it was a near thing. Again, Steve replied modestly, adding another invisible star near the first. Thor offered helpfully, “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome,” Natasha murmured, sketching out a tic-tac-toe board on Steve’s arm, marking down an x.

Steve played along. Tony finally gave up on indifference, setting his arm farm constituents aside and sauntering over, conspicuously sliding into the nonexistent space between them with a conversational, “What fun is this?”

Natasha wrote, _Fe_ on his wrist, then filled in another x on Steve’s arm. Steve murmured, “You win.”

The whole couch dipped as Thor sat on Natasha’s opposite side. “Might I join?”

Without missing a beat, Natasha sketched a tic-tac-toe board on his arm, flashing the UV light on it and instructing, “Put one circle in a box. Try to make a line.” She flashed Steve’s arm, drawing her pointer finger across the line. Thor nodded gravely.

“I do love a bit of witchcraft,” he admitted, sotto voce. Tony must have been sulking more audibly than he thought, because Steve wrapped his arms—covered in invisible ink; Tony wanted to tell him off, _no, you’re hers_ , because that was the _what are you, ten?_ thing to do—wrapped his arms around Tony, hauling him onto his lap, holding him close.

Tony pretended to sulk for a few more moments, keeping his hands to himself, before realizing he was one with Halvard in spirit. He opted instead to wrap his arms around Steve’s back. He wasn’t a hedgehog. He wasn’t.

Maybe an armadillo. Armored. Not dangerous.

Steve was dangerous. Steve was a hedgehog.

Porcupine, Tony decided, hiding under his chin. Big scary porcupine. 

Nobody fucked with a porcupine.

Snickering, he declined to share his thoughts with the class, even as Thor declared, “I would like to try again.”

If it took a while for him to get to Tony’s gift, that was fine by Tony. He was content to curl up in Steve’s arms, the safest place on planet Earth, on Christmas Day.

. o . 

To no one’s surprise, Thor _loved_ the paddleball.

. o . 

Rhodey and Pepper emerged as middle-evening approached to help with the final preparations of the Christmas feast, ignoring Tony’s idle threats that he wouldn’t let stragglers eat any turkey and Steve’s assurances that there was more than enough to go around. Tony let them have their fun, pulling Pepper aside into an adjacent hallway and holding out her wrapped box of chocolates. “Happy Christmas, Pepper.”

“Happy Christmas, Tony,” she replied dryly, her smile warm as she took the box. “You seem very happy.”

Tony tilted his head, asking a touch absurdly, “Why?”

“Can’t have everything you want,” Pepper said, carefully tearing the wrapping paper open. “But I’d say you’re pretty close, Tony.” She smirked, a small but deeply amused gesture, her eyes closing in that fond little _Tony, what did you do_ way in the best way. “This is really sweet,” she told him honestly. He beamed, standing a bit straighter, flashing a toothy smile as she said, “Stay,” and disappeared through the door, returning ten seconds later with a box in hand.

The birthday party hat had been her contribution the previous night—he loved a good hat, the cheesier the better; the paper cone was brilliant—but he took the box with surprise, looking at her and warning, “Pepper, I only got you one gift.”

She huffed in amusement. “A two-dollar party hat does not count as a gift.”

Touched, Tony said, “It was two dollars? You’re spoiling me.” He held it in his hands for a long moment, gloves on, pocketknife tucked away, ant family temporarily stored out of Laika’s reach in the adjacent room. 

Rhodey’s pen had a safe space in his lapel, and he felt like a million bucks, adorned in his family’s gifts. He hadn’t expected it, but he was touched by it. He had a family. Sure, he’d spent three weeks working on gifts, but he hadn’t honestly expected reciprocity and had spent no small amount of his first ten minutes alone with the presents and the tree overwhelmed with joy, with good humor.

He held Pepper’s box in his hands, that same tight-chested, overjoyed feeling threatening to unsteady him. He asked, “Can we take a walk first? I don’t wanna have a panic attack on Christmas.”

Pepper frowned, then allowed, “Sure. Just leave it. No one’s gonna steal it,” she added, setting her own chocolates on top of the unopened box for safe keeping. “If they do, I’ll know,” she added sagely.

Thankfully, it was Christmas, so he could lie to himself and say he held her hand in the elevator because he felt the Christmas spirit and not because he was terrified to his bones that it would fail. It didn’t. They reached the lobby, donned some coats from storage, and stepped into the spectacular city cold, the early darkness, the unfathomable quiet of one of the louder places on Earth.

They talked about everything: the company, Pepper’s cousins—she, like Tony, was without close blood relatives, but Rhodey had family on both coasts that he made a point of visiting often—the cold, the new year. He listened for a full hour as she sketched out the idea for a quarterly exposition, the Stark Art and Technology Show, designed to help focus their efforts on philanthropy instead of humanitarian aims.

He said, “Why not the Potts Art and Technology Show?”

She paused, reaching up with a gloved hand to feel his forehead. He batted it away, assuring, “I’m serious.”

She cocked her head at him, beautiful in the snow-white city-light. She observed, “You know, when you called it the _Avengers_ Tower, I thought you were being facetious. But that’s not it.”

Tony shook his head. He smiled ruefully. “Call me crazy, but I’d like to. . . .” He paused, walking and holding her hand in his own, deciding at last, “I’d like to leave something worth leaving behind. And maybe that’s not my name.”

Pepper squeezed his hand. “Not planning on checking out, are you?”

Tony huffed a cloud of white. “When have I _ever_ done anything to put myself in danger? I can’t think of a single instance in the last eight weeks alone that would bring you to that conclusion.”

Pepper blew out her breath, alighting beside him as they waited for a streetlight, sluggish Christmas traffic crawling through barely-plowed snow. “Has it been eight weeks?” she asked, sounding both tired and relieved.

He nodded. They walked across the packed snow. “Mm-hm. Seven weeks, give or take a day.”

“How’s your head?”

Tony entreated, “Pepper, I love you, but Steve asks me that twice a day. If I hear it again, I might scream.”

Pepper drew alongside him at another intersection. “You know, I actually think he’s good for you.”

He looked at her, not bothering to hide his incredulity. “You really doubted America’s sweetheart would be _good_ for me?”

Pepper shrugged. She didn’t balk from the question, looking him in the eye and saying seriously, “There were days. Moments. You’re allowed to have your own life, Tony,” she added. 

They walked when the crosswalk sign told them to. “You’re supposed to. I love being part of it, but there are things about you I don’t know. There are things about me you don’t know. And what _I_ see—is that he’s what you said. He’s dangerous.” Tony bristled. She said in her dry soothing manner, “I don’t mean he’s bad for you. I’m just saying I need you to be careful. Don’t leap blind.”

Tony nodded, conceding, “It’s like he said, Pep. He’s done with S.H.I.E.L.D. It’s not gonna be the same.” _It’s gonna be better_. It felt too much like a cosmic dare to say it out loud, but he believed it. It felt like a Christmas miracle, all on its own. “And I don’t know about you, but I’m freezing my tail off.”

She gave him a gentle push but dutifully angled with him back towards the Tower. “ _You_ were the one who wanted to walk in subzero temperatures.”

“I was, wasn’t I?” Tony mused, draping his arm around her shoulders instead, huddling as they walked. “I promise I’ll be good. And he is good. To me. He’s good, you know?”

“I do. And I—I want both of you to be around. Okay? That’s all.”

Nodding, Tony told her, “That’s a promise.”

The ride up the elevator was a bit easier and a bit harder: it still had the swooping sensation, but it was warm and cozy after the brisk air.

He unwrapped his gift and sashayed back into the room in his cerulean blue aviators, declaring, “Officially, none of you are as cool as me, so you can stop trying.”

Rhodey said, “Yeup, toldja they’d go to his head.”

“I can’t hear you over how badass I look,” Tony said, looking at his reflection in the black glassy window and smirking. “I’m never taking these off. I hope,” he added, pointing at Steve regally, who cocked his head at him, curious and good-humored, “you like me with blue eyes because these aren’t going away.”

“They look sharp,” Steve assured. It took a lot of energy to keep the childlike beam off Tony’s face.

. o . 

Lying in the middle of the balcony room floor in a near catatonic turkey-stupor, Tony groaned, “Oh, no, Laika, honey, not right now, I’m dying.” His dog-daughter obligingly set up camp over by Natasha, who gladly let her rest her head on her knee. One hand resting protectively over his belly, Tony declared, “I’m never eating again.”

“Lots of _nevers_ tonight,” Steve mused, lounging on a couch and sucking on a candy cane. “Better be careful or you’ll make a promise you can’t keep.”

Tony flipped him off, sunglasses in place, listening more than watching _It’s a Wonderful Life_. He heard Bruce curse—Steve muttered rebukingly, _Bruce—_ but then Bruce said aloud, “Sorry, I just—I almost forgot.”

Tony didn’t bother turning to see what he forget, looking over as a box alighted next to him. Bruce said, “Merry Christmas, Tony.”

Tony said, “My business hours are—” but trailed off as he reached for the box anyway. He debated pulling out his pocketknife, decided the risks outweighed the benefits, and pried it open with his fingers.

At last, he freed the cowboy hat, a classic Stetson, before draping it over his eyes, sunglasses and all. “Thank you, Bruce.”

“You’re very welcome,” Bruce said, sounding relieved. “I would’ve kicked myself if I forgot.”

“I would’ve kicked you, too,” Tony assured.

He drifted to the sound of the movie, must’ve been snoring audibly as he awoke mid-gargle to the sound of a different movie altogether. He noticed Rhodey’s conspicuous absence in his favorite chair and caught the movie on holo-screen. _A Christmas Story_. “Oh, did they get the crate?” he asked, struggling up onto one elbow.

“Crate?” Steve repeated skeptically, tidying up in the kitchen, looking over and saying, “Nah, ain’t seen a—haven’t seen a crate yet.”

“Tell me when there’s a crate,” Tony advised, replacing his hat over his face and settling back down.

Thor bellowed, “STARK!” and Tony awoke clutching his chest, halfway to his feet, hat forgotten and sunglasses askew as Thor pointed at the screen and urged, “Make haste, make haste, the crate has arrived!”

Scrambling to recover his hat and hopping up on the couch next to Thor, not even eliciting a grunt of surprise—he yelped when Laika jumped on his feet promptly—he muttered wildly, “Knew I could count on you, Thor, ol’ buddy o’ mine.” Yawning, he beamed as father-of-the-year, The Old Man himself, presided over his oversized crate, which contained the iconic leg lamp reward.

“That’s some statue,” Steve concurred from the kitchen. Tony flashed a thumbs up over the back of the couch that made him laugh, that happy little giggle that never failed to make Tony want to shout from every rooftop that _he_ was Steve Rogers’ boyfriend.

Energized by the thought, he barely noticed the eleventh hour pass, only noticed, in fact, that it was late evening. 

Bruce conceded, “All right, I’m wiped. G’night, kids.” It took no small amount of coordination to gather his Ostrich Pillow, newly-enhanced laptop, pocketknife, and an Etch-a-Sketch that could only have been Thor’s inexplicable contribution.

“Night, Bruce,” Steve called.

Pepper folded next, ruffling Tony’s hair, her chocolates balanced in hand. Clint, long gone, was either asleep or near to it. Tony idly wondered what it must be like for a master assassin to walk around, carrying such incongruous gifts as a pair of unbreakable gloves and a live hedgehog. At least, Tony thought wryly, he had a Huggle with pockets. One for the hedgehog; one for the extra-tough stress ball Bruce had gotten him. The latter had elicited a cackle as Clint chucked it, full-tilt, back at Bruce’s unsuspecting back, earning a rebuke from Steve and Tony’s decree of “I call next.”

It was half past eleven when Natasha abandoned her perch with a, “Merry Christmas, boys.” She tucked her fake-box inside her real safe-box, pocketknife and UV supplies secure, swiping one last candy cane for the road.

(Later, Tony would hear tell that she’d found, sitting in front of her room, a long toy snake, thankfully stuffed and not even remotely dead or alive.)

And then there were three, Tony thought, cozied up to Thor. The guy was an oversized teddy bear outside the armor. A huge, Valentine’s day teddy bear, one of those eight-feet-tall teddy bears that still boggled Tony’s mind, _how_ the fuck—? And he was perfectly content to drool on his shoulder as Thor alternated between watching the film and flicking through his kaleidoscope. Tony heard the faintest little hiss, followed by a loud _whuff_ from Laika. He nearly lost his seat as he startled in response to it. Steve said, “Geez, what was that?”

Thor said, “More magic,” as he blew the dog whistle again—Bruce’s contribution, Tony deduced absentmindedly. Laika tilted her head back and _awooooed_. Thor laughed in delight. “She recognizes the song!”

Steve said, “I think it’s past the singin’ hour, Thor.” He waltzed over, evidently done with whatever tidying up he’d been tidying—scrubbing the oven, he was nothing if not military-rigorous about a clean ship—and sliding onto the floor in front of their couch, settling an arm over Laika’s back as she hopped down and sprawled over his legs. “Yeah, I gotcha, don’t worry,” he told her, kissing her head between her black and white ears.

They finished _A Christmas Story_ , got as far as watching the credits, before Tony asked, “All Christmas’ed out?”

Thor mused, “I could retire.” He looked at Steve and added a touch hopefully, “Or perhaps a Christmas bout?”

Steve huffed, more amused than anything. “How about tomorrow?”

Thor nodded and stood up. Tony made a small noise of disappointment as he settled into the newly vacated space. Watching Thor gather his toys—and they were toys; Tony smiled at the thought, that everyone had had the exact same idea; hell, even Steve’s group candy cane gift qualified as childlike wonder—was an exercise in staying alert against all odds, as a warm stupor descended over Tony, crackling fire, quiet room, the shuffle of kaleidoscope, pocketknife, paddleball, dog whistle, and candy cane. “Until the morrow,” he told them.

Tony grunted affirmatively. Steve said, “Merry Christmas, Thor.”

“Merry Christmas, Steven, Anthony.”

The screen went dark and vanished. The room went quiet and warm and Tony was very tempted to fall asleep, but he’d rather sleep in his own bed. “Hey, Steve?” he asked without lifting his head. 

“Yeah?” Steve asked, content to linger.

“You think they had a good Christmas?”

Steve mused quietly, “That’s my question.” Then, scooting up so he was sitting on the couch, he rested a hand on Tony’s ankle and added agreeably, “I do. I think they had fun. Thought Barton was gonna drop when he saw that—the hedgehog. Can you believe it?”

Tony sighed and set his crooked sunglasses aside, sitting up and shuffling around so he could flop onto Steve’s lap instead, arms folded underneath him, head tucked against a cushion. Steve alighted his hat for him. He muttered, “Thanks.” Then he sighed contentedly as Steve brushed a hand down his back, long, even strokes, down, up. “Mm. You can do that forever.”

Steve chuckled and allowed, “Sure. But first, kinda wanted to give my best guy his Christmas gift.”

Tony told the cushion, “I ate four candy canes.”

Steve hummed, admitting, “I’m glad those were—you know, that’s kind of what we did. Sweets, maybe a letter from a sweetheart back home. Things that kept morale up.” Quietly, he added, “Guess it’s not the same without a war, huh?”

“No,” Tony agreed, forcing himself to sit up so he could sit back on his heels and look at him, eyes so very earnest and so very blue. “No, but it’s kind of the same. Christmas is what you make it. Maybe it’s the hedgehogs,” he tapped the side of Steve’s nose, making it scrunch up, “we found along the way.”

Steve admitted, “If you get me one’a those, I’m adoptin’ it out. I can’t handle two kids.”

“Sure you could,” Tony said breezily, rolling his eyes and pressing a kiss to Steve’s mouth when he opened it to argue. “No, nuh-uh. You are so goddamn confrontational, you know that?”

Steve smirked, reaching up to cradle the back of Tony’s head, resting his forehead against his. It was the easiest thing in the world to close his eyes, breathe in their little space. “I get it from the people around me,” he said sweetly.

“Uh huh, sure,” Tony muttered, sighing as Steve kissed him. He was peppermint-sweet, undemanding but deeply present, like he’d gladly do it for nine hours. Tony hoped he would, letting out a sad little sigh as Steve broke apart, kissing along his jaw, humming in contentment as he kissed under his ear, warm breath fanning over it, making Tony shiver. 

“Mm. Mm. Boy, you know me so well.” He knitted his own fingers in Steve’s hair, could not believe himself for actually gently tugging him away, but he had to. Because: “We’re on the clock. I still have to give you your present.” Looking at the little pile Steve had discreetly kept tucked near a chair, he leaned his forehead on Steve’s shoulder for strength. “What did I tell you about present-opening time?”

Steve raked his hands gently up and down Tony’s back. “He can have ‘em,” he said agreeably, sounding not the least bit bothered. “I don’t need ‘em. I don’t need anything.” He tilted his head and kissed Tony’s temple. “I’ve got you.”

Well, if Tony’s heart didn’t swell three sizes that day, The Grinch was a myth. And everyone knew _The Grinch Who Stole Christmas_ was historically accurate. 

Tony pulled back and said suddenly, “You’ve never seen _The Grinch Who Stole Christmas_.”

Steve cocked his head. “What on God’s green Earth,” he drawled, “is a _grinch_?”

“It’s not a _what_ , it’s a _who_ ,” Tony said, already scrambling to his feet. “Although—you know what, it’ll make more sense to watch it.” He patted Steve’s shoulder, assuring, “It’s not even half an hour. You’ll survive.”

Shrugging mildly, Steve said, “You know I’ve seen more TV in the last twenty-four hours than I had in the first twenty-seven years of my life?”

Tony blinked at him, then said, “Yes, which is why you need to see _The Grinch Who Stole Christmas_. C’mon,” he puffed, tucking his hands under Steve’s arms, tugging on him. “Quit draggin’ your feet, we’re burnin’ daylight.”

“I’m up, I’m up,” Steve assured. Laika trotted over hopefully. “Aw. I’m sorry. We keepin’ you up too late?”

“Would a candy cane make you feel better?” Tony asked Laika, maintaining a grip on Steve’s shirt. 

“No,” Steve vetoed.

Tony said, “Kill joy.”

He waited with more patience than he felt as Steve did one last loop around, making sure things were tidy and no unwanted creatures had escaped their presents prematurely. He would have turned off the lamps if Tony had them, but everything was too automated for such a simple gesture. Even the fire could douse itself. He checked under the empty tree for stragglers, nodding in satisfaction. Glancing at his own little pile, he shrugged in defeat as he picked it up.

With less than ten minutes to midnight, they didn’t stand a chance of catching _The Grinch_ on the same day, so Tony said, “You know what? It’s ten PM somewhere” and enjoyed Steve’s little smile as Tony pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “We got time.”

They took it, too. It was one o’clock, the day after Christmas, when Steve finally opened his first gift. Freshly showered and, per Tony’s suggestion, wearing that delightfully cozy MIT hoodie of his, he leaned back against the headboard, one arm wrapped around Tony, who sported the classic NYU hoodie, and unwrapped Thor’s gift first. 

He was methodical about it, like someone would want to reuse the paper, but Tony declined to tease him about it, listening to the soft strains of Christmas piano piping through, more to fill the air than anything.

It took him a full minute, not because he couldn’t put on his uniform in less time than it took Tony to recite the first verse of the Pledge of Allegiance, but because he kept pausing, brushing his fingers over the box like he couldn’t believe it was there, like it was for _him_. 

He understood, suddenly, why Steve hadn’t wanted to open presents in front of everybody, in front of the whole world, as far as he was concerned. He was unruffled Captain America to them, even when he was just Steve Rogers, but here, he dared to savor the newness of it.

Tony didn’t ask what Christmas was like, back in good ol’ 1937, or ’41, or fateful ’44, that last year before he went on ice for the next seven decades. He could tell Steve could hear it, in the pauses, tuning out of one conversation, tuning into another, and choosing to not linger there, in the twenties or the thirties or even the early forties. No, he peeled open the box and smiled with genuine amusement and pleasant at a double pair of plain gray socks.

Tony waited patiently, giving him an opportunity to have the first words, before saying at last, “It is a very old person gift.”

Steve chuckled, that little _heh heh_ of a giggle that made Tony want to tickle him, if only Steve wouldn’t catapult him through the ceiling or not react at all, he hadn’t decided. “Yeah,” he agreed, freeing them from their hold and dutifully sliding them on. He flexed his feet and observed warmly, “Nice socks. Very nice.”

Tony rested his bare foot against Steve’s. “Now my feet are cold.”

“Aw,” Steve simpered. He freed the other set, handing them to him. “There. A gift to share.”

And so, wearing socks presented by none other than the God of Thunder himself, they went through the rest of the presents.

Bruce had opted for a well-worn copy of _The Hobbit_. Steve turned it over and dutifully read the summary, seemed fully prepared to sink into the cushions and start reading, before realizing that he had three presents to go, smiling as he marked off page-one for later. “I’d heard about this,” he said, warmth evident in his voice. “Wasn’t much for readin’, back then. I know, you’d think you’d have time, laid up in bed, but. . . .” He shrugged, setting the book aside, close by. Laika snoozed on her makeshift bed, also close by.

Clint’s gift was shaped exactly like the others had been, but Steve still unwrapped it with care and made an amused, delighted sound over the sight of the pocketknife. “I used to have a, you know, a Swiss Awh-mee knife,” he said, not bothering to correct himself. He weighed it in hand, testing the single blade, and set it down again. “He’s a good guy. You know? Equality. I respect that.”

“Captain Candy Cane,” Tony agreed. Steve sighed, nudging him in fake remonstrance, before picking up Natasha’s gift.

It was a box of Triscuit crackers. Tony cocked his head, amused, while Steve popped the top. Steve opened the plastic roll, fished out a cracker, and offered it to Tony. “If it’s poisoned, you have the greatest chance of surviving it,” Tony reminded him.

Steve rolled his eyes but took a bite of it anyway. He closed his eyes, chewing for a long time. Tony fished a cracker for himself, curious.

It was nothing euphoric—a plain, shredded wheat cracker—but Steve’s voice was full of affection as he said, “Now that’s a Christmas cracker.”

Tony said idly, “I prefer mine with cheese,” and Steve hummed, taking another small bite, very careful not to get crumbs on the sheets.

Tony put on _The Grinch Who Stole Christmas_ , sinking into a pleasant little indent in the pillows while Steve munched his way through three crackers, explaining at last, “Tastes like home. You know? Just like home.”

Later, Tony would Google it, find out that they’d been kicking around since _1903_ , but right then, Tony just said, “Good.” And he meant it, with every fiber of his being, grateful that _home_ was still a good place to remember.

The Grinch slunk around the town of Whoville to his theme song, stealing Christmas presents. Delicately, Steve folded up the box, settling down to watch the screen.

Tony, though, barely waited for the final chords of the film to announce quietly, “Can’t forget. Best for last.” He sat up and reached for the little box on his bedside drawer, wrapped in plain brown paper, unsigned.

He handed it to Steve, feigning indifference as he added, “If you love it, great, if you hate it—”

Steve kissed his cheek, “I already love it.”

Tony actually blushed. He blamed it on Christmas. And candy canes. 

“I love it because it’s you,” Steve assured him. He didn’t dally as much, thankfully, realizing in that helpfully perceptive way of his that Tony might spontaneously dissolve into a pile of acid if it took him more than thirty seconds to unravel it. Besides, it was small, fit easy in the size of his palm, and—

Afraid to imply, Tony had removed it from its original velvet bed, leaving it on a cushioned little piece of cotton. Steve lifted the watch carefully, so carefully, like his touch might break it.

It wasn’t Jarv’s old watch, not that wonderful little Perpetual he kept locked up snug in its own box, but a 1945 Jubilee model, a Datejust. It was as old as Steve and just as golden, just as vibrant, thanks to a little restoration magic.

Steve cleared his throat, then again. Finally, he said, “Oh, Tony.” He smudged a single teardrop away with the back of his hand, holding it carefully in hand and pressing a kiss to Tony’s cheek that felt like Christmas Day, after all. “It’s beautiful.”

Tony nodded, a little too fast, a touch anxious, because when _wouldn’t_ he be anxious about Steve’s approval? But Steve chuckled softly, said, “God, it’s okay. Hey, c’mere. No, I’m serious.” He set the watch down very gently so he could bundle Tony into his arms. Tony loved that he fit that, that he could feel Steve’s deep warm breaths as he said, “I’ll say it till I’m blue in the face, but you’ve got a heart of gold, Tony. You really do.”

Tony said, voice a touch small but salvaged by proximity, “Sounds unhealthy.”

Steve sighed, affection in his voice as he added, “A risk I’m willin’ to take.” He leaned against the headboard, holding Tony in his arms. Tony rested his cheek against Steve’s shoulder, legs draped over his side. He listened to Steve's heartbeat, reassuringly firm, faster than average but average to Tony. _N_ _ormal_ to Tony. He found his own breathing calm as he listened to it.

“See, now you won’t be the man out of time,” Tony told his collarbone. “No more excuses. I know you. You are a zealot for excuses.”

Steve hummed, saying over his head, “I love you. And only you. And all the ways that you are.”

Tony exhaled, managing, “If you could just, say that maybe a thousand more times, I’ll see if I can’t ingrain it permanently.”

“I will,” Steve promised. “Every day.”

Tony said, “Oh, well, I knew I was dating an underachiever, Steven, but—”

Steve laughed again, happy and close. Tony wished he could purr to share the tangible joy, before he untangled himself reluctantly. Steve held out his hand. Tony didn’t say, _It’s so late, big guy_. He just picked up the watch with fingers that only trembled a little and slid it on, adjusting the fit until it was perfect.

Perfect.

Steve said again, “Beautiful,” and he wasn’t just talking about the watch. Tony hummed in agreement.

They watched time tick by, Tony holding onto Steve’s hand, until with a sigh Steve admitted, “You know, mine’s not as practical.”

Tony blinked, said, “I love impractical gifts.”

Steve smiled and squeezed his hand. “Yeah, well.” He let go and shuffled back, reaching under the bed and pulling out a box, also wrapped in plain paper. He hesitated long enough to say, “I remember what you said.”

On that cryptic note, he handed it over. Tony took it, feeling sober and wide awake. The box weighed nearly nothing.

He opened it and felt his heart skip a beat. Slowly, a touch unsteadily, he picked up the dog tags.

He looked at Steve, who met his gaze and said slowly, “I’m done fighting someone else’s war.”

Tony held onto the metal, cool against his skin, because Steve hadn’t been wearing it. He didn’t know how long he hadn’t been wearing it, but it seemed to weigh a very great deal in his hands, almost too much.

Finally, finally, he curled his fingers around it, the indentations warm against his palm.

_Rogers, Steven G  
O-832456 T41 O_

Unlike the watch, it was very clear that time had taken its toll. He knew it more from memorizing the file than reading the barely legible print, but it was the real deal, the metal tags that sat against Steve’s skin, that would let a would-be healer or mortician decide who they’d found unresponsive on the field.

O meant he was an Officer. 832456 was just a six-digit number, as arbitrary as they came, meant to help distinguish among the far-too-many bodies. T41—that was the true hallmark of an age without computers, where it was meaningful to know when a soldier’s last tetanus shot was. He thumbed the last O, denoting blood type.

Universal donor, he mused. O blood types didn’t produce the same antigen that their A-B companions did, which meant that every human on Earth could receive O positive or O negative blood. O types, though, could only receive O blood. It was a strange sword to carry, able to help anyone, restricted in accepting that same kind of help.

Steve said softly, “Tony?” and Tony drew in a breath, letting it out slowly. He didn’t feel panicked. He felt oddly calm, holding onto the tags.

If Steve had handed him his beating heart, it could scarcely have felt more personal. And for a man with fewer positions to his name than letters in the full assortment, it was a testament to his commitment, to his utter and unflinching resolve.

The tags had been cold in Tony’s hand. He hadn’t been wearing it. Maybe he wore it yesterday. Metal cooled down fast. Or maybe he only wore it the day before. A week before. A month. Maybe he had never worn it, not since coming out of the ice.

But it was still his. Tony held it, the sacred trust of it. He looked at Steve, who stared back at him.

At last, he said, “Peace of mind.”

Steve nodded once. He picked up Tony’s hand, still closed around the tags, and kissed the back of it. “I know it’s not . . . not really a _gift_ ,” he murmured, resting his forehead against Tony’s hand, holding it. “But I want you to have it. To keep it.” He let go, eased back. There was no remorse in his expression.

Tony drew in a shallow breath and let it go, admitting, “I think that’s exactly what a gift is.” He shuffled forward, crowding closer, looping his arms in their overlong sleeves around Steve’s neck, kneeling up so he could bury his face in the juncture between neck and shoulder. “God. I love you so much.”

Steve relaxed underneath him, sliding his own arms around Tony’s back, the gold watch pressing in gently. Tarnished aluminum. Brilliant gold. 

_More precious than palladium_.

They didn’t speak, an oasis in the city-darkness, in the humble-quiet of their own living space. Tony held onto the tags in his closed fist, pressed against Steve’s shoulder, and Steve held onto him.

“I love you,” Steve said, a hush of breath, “I love you, Tony. And I’m startin’ to think that, you know, maybe it’s—maybe it’s how things were meant to be, after all. I just had to be patient to meet you.”

Tony tightened his grip gently. “Seventy years of hope. We’re never gonna be able to repay that.”

“I don’t want you to,” Steve murmured against his shoulder.

“I know.” Tony scruffed his hair gently. “I know, big guy.”

. o .

The morning after Christmas was always strange, more peaceful than the other three-hundred-and-sixty-odd days in a year. 

He knew, logically, that it was impossible to wake up the next morning in bed with the Christmas gifts neatly arranged on tables, the dog tags still curled around his fingers, like Steve hadn’t even tried to take it away from him, too scared or simply trusting, he didn’t know—but that was precisely what happened. At some indeterminate hour, he’d been freed from his hoodie, leaving him in sleep pants and an undershirt, tucked into bed, his stuff taken care of, his dog curled up like a wolf on her bed.

He knew at once that Steve was still asleep, that it was ungodly early. He gripped the tags more tightly, shuffling up to Steve’s back more. He draped an arm and a leg over him, determined to hold onto him. As long as Steve would let him.

As long as he possibly could.


	35. MAN OUT OF TIME

Tony Stark danced like somebody _was_ watching.

He threw himself into the music, using the same verve that he did everything, crashing to his knees, thrusting his arms ecstatically skyward, back arched and fingers splayed so he could bedeck the ceiling in white-blue constellations, hair awry, eyes aglow.

He launched himself back to his feet using his palms and a touch of repulsive thrust power, effortless and weightless. He felt like he could leap up, grab, and dangle from the ceiling of the world, like a daredevil cliff-diver who refused to let go. Keeping his feet on the ground, he spun on his heel, scattering white-blue light all around him. In the pitch-darkness of the lab, the effect was luminescent, spectacular.

He moved in total free-form, shifting from song-to-song with reckless abandon.

Even taking a _break_ , there was a liveliness to Tony’s joy, like there were only twelve hours left on the universal clock and he intended to enjoy every last second, an end-of-the-world party that only he was invited to. He danced like he was born to put on a show, like he was being paid for it. He moved like he couldn’t make a mistake; when he scuffed his boot on the floor, it could only be intentional.

He zigged and zagged and shimmied around with only an ounce of rhythm but a bucket full of heart, enjoying himself completely.

It didn’t matter that he didn’t know _how_ to dance. Deaf and blind people shimmied, swayed, and sashayed to the rhythm. It was a wordless language of pure enjoyment, a frequency that humans resonated with, the best kind of virus, first spawned two thousand millennia ago. It was part of the work-up of a thirtieth-century man born one millennium ahead of his time.

At least he’d been born in time to witness the rise of rock music, Tony thought charitably, resting on his knees, hands limp at his sides and lighting up the floor like twin Suns, white dwarfs. The era of rock music was something his thirtieth century peers would sigh over someday, eating their dehydrated space chowder. He felt pity for them: he loved the way the music throbbed in his hands, his feet, his chest, the urge to move irrepressible.

No one was watching. No one but J.A.R.V.I.S., who could only process rhythm in consistent trails of ones and zeroes, ones and zeroes, ones and zeroes.

He had no shame about his skill or lack thereof. He’d grown out of shyness right around age four: that was when he’d realized that just because he was the smallest person in the room, didn’t mean he had to be frightened by it. The adults thought he was cute, aware as he was, attentive as he was, like he was supposed to be dim and dumb as a puppy-dog, something that was fun to pat on the head and then put aside with a chew-toy, not a person who might have something worth saying.

The idea that kids didn’t have anything meaningful to say was one of the earliest lessons his father had taught him. According to Howard Stark, children were distractions from reality, living in made-up worlds and trying to solve made-up problems, useless to adults. They were a means to an end, successors to be reared as quickly as possible into self-sustaining individuals. They didn’t, in short, matter much at all—and adulthood was still very far away to the hyperaware four-year-old who knew he would have to do _something_ to be seen as anything but a proto-version of his future greatness.

And so, Tony Stark, age four, picked up the most intimidating real world book he could find in his father’s library. Then he sat down with it and treated it like his own Rosetta stone. He blitzed through most of it, lingering on the words he knew. The validation of those little victories overshadowed the tension of ignorance whenever he stumbled. 

He’d been a blank chalkboard, lacking the mental schema to understand even basic abstract analogies, steaming silently as the author spoke to an adult audience in a way that escaped even Tony’s limited understanding. He hadn’t had time to build those mental maps and shortcuts, lacked literal experiences to make certain inherent concepts graspable. But he didn’t give up: no, he built them as quickly as he could, living different lives through the page. Sometimes he lingered over a single captioned drawing, trying to make the wires click in his mind, to make the sparks _happen_.

When, after reading it all, he’d approached his father and admitted, “I don’t understand the Monotone Convergence Theorem,” he’d expected to be pushed aside with an _I’m busy, Anthony_. He hadn’t expected his father to turn slowly in his chair—and though his mind was not puppy-dog slow, the world was still outsized to tiny Tony Stark, almost nightmarishly so—and loomed over Tony for a moment in silence.

Then he warned, _It will keep you up at night_ , before he grabbed a notepad of yellow paper from his desk and took his mighty silver pen and explained the Monotone Convergence Theorem to his four-year-old son.

The words themselves were a dull radio static at the back of Tony’s mind now. As much as he’d internalized the meaning of them, understood completely the complexities of the concept, he’d been far more raptly focused on the way his father’s hand glossed over the page, not discussing a thing he wasn’t supposed to be a part of but a thing that he shared only with Anthony. 

It was a metal-plate memory, etched permanently in his mind, his father hunched over in that chair, scratching equations, scribbling words, his voice sharp and quick, his eyes bright with dark energy, like storm-clouds. They fixed on Tony with such velociraptor intentness that it was earnest and frightening and joyful all at once.

It was an achievement to keep Howard Stark’s attention for a minute. He gave Tony thirteen of them. Then he ripped off the page and declared, _Come back when you’ve solved that_.

It was clever of him, buying time like that, Tony reflected ruefully.

He could still picture his father’s eyes, dark, watchful, like black-hole headlights, pulling by-passers in and never letting them go. It was dangerous to be in his spotlight; it crowded out the sense of self, as if there was only Howard Stark’s brilliance and a small world beneath him. When Howard Stark paused to look at you, it wasn’t a reward: it was its own kind of punishment, the realization that whatever love had once resided behind those dark eyes had been cored out of him.

It was as if he had realized that love was not worth it. That he would focus on the immortal and real over the fleeting fancies of emotion. That he would rise above animal instinct to pursue tangible immortality. 

Howard Stark had only ever loved two people—Edwin Jarvis and Maria Carbonell—and disdained all the rest, without exception. He had barely tolerated those who had come to occupy his orbit, presiding as king like a moody Jupiter, ready to cast out anyone who wasn’t useful to him.

It wasn’t until Tony was eight-years-old and postulating his own theorems that he’d realized he was a threat to his father. He was no longer a benevolent oddity, a harmless child. He was sixteen, he was twenty-four, he was a multiple of his real-time age that reflected a phenomenal growth rate. That phenomenal growth that damned him. He was no longer a nonissue: he was a _challenger_. 

With nearly the same energy as before, his father had torn apart Tony’s first theorem with those velociraptor hands, shredding the page with red ink. 

When it was done, Tony couldn’t stand the sight of red ink. He took back the crumpled page, holed himself up in his room, and screamed into a pillow until he lost his voice. Then he felt better, his anger dark but diminished. With exhausted acceptance in his heart, he sat down with the theorem that bled arterially over the page and fixed it. Then he stuffed the corrected version into a notebook and never again showed a theorem to his father, more afraid to be right than to wrong.

He smirked unpleasantly at the memory, hands flexing in their metal cages like he could take back that page and crumple it, flinging it in Howard’s unflinching face. He was painfully aware that his smirk was his father’s smirk. He’d had a fifty-fifty chance of inheriting his mother’s features, varying probabilities of inheriting a mixture that might blend out the sharpness. But no. He had taken fully and ineradicably after his dear, dead _father_.

He felt his chest swell with anger at the memory of the man who had hated his only son. He, who had looked down at his heir apparent and seen only a _challenger_ , someone who would be _better_. Tony hadn’t backed down, refusing to be humbled. He’d been arrogant at eight, even more so at twelve. Sixteen—that was a year after he met Rhodey. He'd still burned hot. Four years later, he had ascended to the throne upon his parent’s deaths.

Opening his eyes, Tony looked around the dark lab, pushing himself to his feet carefully. The suit was only partially complete, but it didn’t need to be full to act competently: it gave and asked nothing in return. He shook his arms out, shook his legs out, bounced up and down a few times to get the blood flowing. He found his center of gravity again as the Mark XI held him up, kept him steady.

And he danced anew, more slowly but no less deliberately, raking beams of light across the walls, twisting and turning and seeing just what the suit could _do_. It wasn’t exactly a scientific way of testing a new suit’s dexterity, but it was fun. 

He loved playing rock music at a volume a hearing aid company might have stamped “ripe-for-business” while careening around the lab like there was no tomorrow. He pranced around until all thoughts of his father were ash. He slid across the floor on knee pads that took his weight like they’d been sculpted from his own bone-and-sinew and knew nobody could force him to them, nobody could take away who he was, make him smaller than his ambition.

He had beaten his father at every game they’d ever played, including this one, the race to create the greatest form of transportation _ever_. His father had made a flying car, but Tony Stark had made a flying armored suit with no strings attached, no parachutes needed. It wasn’t falling when Tony Stark did it: it was _flying_. It was flying the way humans had always wanted to, no clumsy wings, no bulky jetpacks, just a second skin that happened to have rocket-power in the soles and palms.

According to his solar construction system, the Mark XI was still Earth-bound: it consisted of little more than the boots and gauntlets. It lacked the framework for the next stage, the torso and upper leg plating that defined the Martian phase. Admittedly, Mars was a bit of a mismatched time, Iron Man’s equivalent of adolescence, where the body of the suit came together.

Once he was done with that, it was the Jovian helmet, the suit’s crowning achievement, before he had the full suit. But it wasn’t done there: Jupiter was the body, but Saturn was the lifeblood. A Jupiter-worthy suit could fly, but it was blind and lacked any artificial help. No temperature regulation, no carbon dioxide monitors, no elevation readouts—and no proprioception compensators, his handy-dandy PCs. Saturn was a vital upgrade for PCs alone.

Without them, his sense in space was solely instinctive. While he _could_ fly the blind suits—hell, past Venus, all suits were flight worthy; only the boots and gauntlets were needed for full flight capabilities, the rest was a bonus—he wasn’t particularly good at overriding two million years of ground-based evolution.

One example of ground-based evolution colliding with airborne strategies resulted in a phenomenon he’d delightfully labeled _catastrophic somersaulting_. It was caused by leaning forward too much: once an invisible angle of repose was crossed, the heels arched up, the thrusters pressed at the right angle, and he was promptly pitched forward in a lively and unstoppable roll until he hit a literal wall.

Its root cause was the unconscious lean pattern that humans had evolved to compensate for winds. With solid earth underfoot, it was rarely a problem, because it was subtle and small. But any quirks in the suit, however subtle and small, could become problematic in the air. Like a piece of spacecraft, one loose screw could put the whole thing in flames. It was a sobering thought.

Fearlessly, Tony leaped upwards.

He triggered enough thrust to land not on the ground but on a warm bed of air. Floating euphorically, he hovered, trembled, balanced until he found his equilibrium. Laughter bubbled out of his chest; he held out his hands and declared in a riotous howl, “Goddamn, Mark XI! Flight one!”

It was amazing every time. He hoped he’d die before he stopped loving the way it felt to hover in space, free and untethered, breathless and weightless.

J.A.R.V.I.S. offered in symphonic accord, “Congratulations, sir.”

Beaming, Tony levitated. In the dark, empty room, he could picture his younger selves, watching him. His wide-eyed four-year-old self would stand in a corner, trying so hard not to intrude but so hard to be _present_ , marveling at the stranger that he would become in almost four decades. His eight-year-old self would stand there, tears in his eyes, because he had _made_ this, he had figured it out for the first time in human history—and he’d done it all in less than a year. His twelve-year-old self would simmer, watching him stoically and wanting so badly to be him, impatient and bitter as hell; he would walk away and stew for hours in searing resentment at the sight of Tony, jealous of him even knowing that it _was_ him. His sixteen-year-old self, tempered by Rhodey’s equalizing presence in his life, would have laughed along with him.

As for twenty-year-old Tony Stark, his present day successor did not have time to discern his reaction, as with a howl of surprise, he pitched forward like a trapeze artist into a familiarly catastrophic roll and collided with the far wall like a bowling ball.

Slumped upside-down with his back against the wall, he groaned, “J.A.R.V.I.S., cut the music,” and the lab fell mercifully quiet, his head still ringing faintly like a gong. “How many is that?”

J.A.R.V.I.S.’ voice was patient and good-natured. “Thirty-four, sir.”

Tony huffed, lingering in his awkward upside-down pile of self-pity for a moment, before rolling onto his side. “Yeup, that’s what I thought.” He grimaced as he crawled to his hands and knees, getting to his feet gingerly, one gloved hand on the wall. “Hoo, that doesn’t get old.” Squinting around the dark lab, he added, “Okay, I think that’s enough test flights for now.” The lights came on brighter. Tony blinked owlishly, reaching up to cover his eyes with a metal hand.

Limping over to Dum-E, stationed in a corner, he moved gingerly, careful not to lift his feet too high and trip the thrusters. Throwing a steadying arm around the metal arm, wielding an unused fire extinguisher, he observed, “See, that was good. That was real—”

With the exact same timing as an overexcited five-year-old dropping an entire plate of food onto the floor, Dum-E sprayed him with a faceful of fire-extinguisher foam.

Sputtering, Tony yanked the extinguisher out of the robot’s arm and ground out, “ _Dum-E_.”

Unlike J.A.R.V.I.S., Dum-E lacked a relay-response program: it was about as sentient as a potted plant, responding to Tony’s movements more than his words. He—it; but it was a he, in Tony’s mind, _my firstborn—_ sank in admonished humility. Tony flicked a handful of white foam on him. “That’s what you deserve. God, you got it in my _mouth_.” Dum-E whirred around, returning with a box of tissues. Tony snapped, “Oh, that’s cute, you think you’re _real_ funny, don’t you?” He snatched the box from the robot, then sighed and used a tissue to wipe of the metal arm, muttering, “Yeah, fine, you are cute, all right? Just, for once, don’t do that. That thing you do when I am _not_ on fire? Don’t do that.”

Dum-E took a tissue from the box and patted it clumsily against Tony’s cheek. Sighing, Tony snatched another for himself and cleaned himself up properly. Giving Dum-E another conciliatory pat, he assured, “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.” A beat. Then, with a disgusted little sigh, he turned and walked away. “Don’t make me a stereotype.” 

Smearing the back of his sleeve across the spiky taste of fire extinguishing foam in his mouth, he fumbled the boots off and unclipped the gauntlets. He pitched them both carelessly near a lab bench. An elephant could trample them and they’d barely flex; a hint of coarseness had no effect on them.

Sauntering out of the lab, he drew in a deep breath of the Avengers’ Tower ambient air, the softer smell braced against the electrifyingly metallic taste of the lab. The scent was vaguely woodsy, in the literal sense: next to the space age scents of rocket fuel and freshly soldered metal, the rest of the Tower seemed earthier, grounded, like a piece of plywood with a dusting of human foot-traffic. It was different on the first levels, where winter crept in, indomitable, replenishing whenever the doors swung open to admit a visitor or disgorge a satisfied customer. Up here, the space wasn’t flooded with regular dousings of the city. It was warm and quiet, uninhabited but for a handful of esteemed visitors who had permanent visas.

 _Roommates_ , he thought wryly, loping up the first of four staircases.

The habit kept him in shape, zipping up the steps like a first-year intern late for an important interview, no wasted movement, no pause to consider the elevator nearby that could still outrun him. Even _Steve’s_ spirited parkour approach wasn’t any faster on the ascent. The whole exercise was unapologetically slower. For a man of Tony’s caliber, seconds were dollars. It was silly to waste them. Longstanding habit made him efficient: he moved with characteristic briskness, not because he needed to chase the carrot, but because he needed to stay in _motion_.

Sharks didn’t sleep and neither did he.

And it was good for him, he mused. Steve’s thirty-mile jogs might actually kill him, but a few flights of stairs every morning was healthy.

That was exactly how he justified it, ignoring pesky thoughts of Siberia whenever the elevator doors slid back invitingly, like jaws of death. He was not afraid of elevators; he was not even afraid of the abstract concept of death. He was just very aware of both. He could bear the exasperated look of the Grim Reaper as he stepped away from an elevator that almost couldn’t fall if it wanted to, choosing to hoof it instead.

Besides, he was in _radiant_ shape for a man with a chronic heart condition. He should be on the cover of a fitness magazine, he thought, pushing the door to the fourth floor open without a hint of breathlessness.

Steve sat at the kitchen table, papers spread around him, pausing deliberately when Tony entered the room. Tony said, “I’m putting Dum-E on eBay.” He expected a chuckle, maybe a protest, but Steve didn’t make a sound, frozen like a statue, one hand flat on a sheet of paper.

“Really,” he said at last, the processing delay and deeper-than-normal voice unexpected but not unsurprising. It was, what, four AM? Tony knew he would crash by noon, but he hadn’t been able to put down the Mark XI. Just when he’d finished the work, he’d kicked up the music and danced to his heart’s content.

“You should be grateful,” Tony told him, lighter than air as he waltzed over, draping his arms around Steve’s neck and resting his chin on his hair. It was damp with sweat. Tony scrunched up his nose, pointing out, “Animal. You go for your run?”

Steve didn’t move, didn’t respond for a long moment. Then he said, “Yeah.” He didn’t sound particularly convincing. “Yeah,” he repeated, reaching up to brush Tony’s arm with his fingers, soft, reverent touch. “Yeah,” he said a third time, quieter than the first two. “Went for a run.”

Tony hummed and kissed the top of his head, gagging as it made the sharp, spiky taste of fire-extinguisher foam return. “Ugh. I’m selling him,” he reiterated, stepping away so he could wash out his mouth. “What’s a good asking price? Five dollars, ninety-nine cents?”

Steve didn’t respond. Tony finished spraying his mouth out with the detachable sink head before looking over at a nonexistent pot of coffee. With a shrug, he walked over, got it set up, and almost missed the quiet sound of a chair scraping back. Turning, he saw Steve freeze, quickly looking away, but Tony blinked once, twice. Then he abandoned the coffee to walk over.

Voice softer than before, Tony asked, “What’s going on?” 

Steve shook his head, walking over to the windows and looking out at the dark, twilight city. “Nothing,” he said, voice deep in his chest. “I just—stuff on my mind. Don’t you have work?”

Tony hummed, following him but keeping his distance. Steve wasn’t usually very interactive in the middle of a flashback, scarcely veering from silence or a short script containing indecipherable phrases from another time, like he had to finish what he’d started and couldn’t rest until he did. The question-response relay was too cognizant. 

Shaking his head to clear it— _he’s not a robot—_ Tony said, “I mean, I _do_. But one of us has to be a procrastinator.”

Steve didn’t laugh. Tony’s frown deepened. “What’s going on?” he repeated, as firmly as he could muster. “You sick?”

“I don’t get sick,” Steve said reflexively, still looking out the window. “Haven’t been sick in a—long time,” he added, grasping at a different answer. Tony ambled over, almost able to feel the wave of distraught uncertainty that swept over cool blue eyes. “It’s a miracle, you know,” Steve mused, like he couldn’t help himself, voice warm and tired. “The serum.” Tony said, _To hell with distance_. He wrapped both arms around Steve from behind, resting his forehead against the back of his right shoulder. Steve stroked Tony’s arm. His hand was shaking, a barely-there tremor. “I gotta go,” he said quietly.

Tony didn’t move an inch. “Why?”

Steve said, “I have to, Tony.” He swallowed hard. “I shouldn’t have—” He paused, then turned, wrapping his arms around Tony. Tony experienced only a moment of surprise before being happily bundled into his arms, ducking his head so Steve could rest his chin on it. Normally, Tony Stark bowed for no one, but there was something so comforting and safe about being held in Steve Rogers’ arms, like nothing and no one could hurt him.

Steve held him, big arms curled around him. There was a strange smell, almost like ozone, clinging to him, as if he’d been up top on his own, but that was impossible. Rhodey was back home and the other Iron Man suits were all safely stored in Tony’s lab. The Mark X bracelets were curved around his wrists, ready to summon that suit at a moment’s notice. He noticed, suddenly and almost heart-breakingly, the absence of metal around Steve’s wrist.

 _He doesn’t sleep in it_ , he reminded himself, but Steve wasn’t fresh-out-of-bed, he was alert, he was dressed and ready for the day. There was no watch. Steve breathed deeply, the same warm rumble that lulled Tony to sleep on his feet, but he stayed conscious, gripping Steve’s shirt tightly, holding onto him like he’d slip away.

Steve said quietly, “I love you.”

Tony closed his eyes, overwhelmed for a moment with raw affection. Before he could respond, Steve had slipped out of his hold and walked five steps away. Tony hurried to catch his sleeve, suddenly, irrationally afraid to let him go. _Let him go_ , he chided himself. _He’s a free man_.

But something was wrong. He didn’t want Steve to run. “Hey,” he said, as comforting and consoling as possible, reeling on his sleeve, but Steve didn’t budge. “Hey, I love you,” he added reassuringly. Steve kept his back to him, far, far away, tethered by the narrow edge of the sleeve caught in Tony’s hold. 

The fabric was strange, soft but thread-less. His inner scientist wanted to examine it more closely, ask where he’d found it, but it was a plain black jacket, nothing outwardly startling. His khaki pants were strikingly low on his hips, dispensing with the almost comically high-seated fad of the forties. Tony added lightly, “Look at you, finally shedding the grandpa pants. I’m very proud. This is what progress looks like, Steve.”

He hoped for a chuckle, a warm shared moment, but Steve didn’t laugh. He didn’t run, either; that was progress. He seemed tense as hell but not in the ready-to-strike way that Tony proceeded with caution around. More in the dangling-on-a-precipice way.

He grasped Tony’s hand in his own for a moment. Then Tony found himself grasping empty air as Steve slipped neatly out of his hold. Blinking in surprise, he stared down at his empty hand for a moment, then looked up in time to see Steve slipping out the door. Without thinking, he bolted after him. Steve moved phenomenally quickly; he didn’t need to hurry to put distance between them. Tony had to run just to catch the door before it snapped shut.

Emerging in the stairwell seconds behind him, Tony leaned over the railing incredulously, frowning down at empty space below. _Gone_.

Then he looked up in time to see Steve duck underneath an overhead railing, hiding a moment too late. Gratified, Tony thumbed the Mark X summons, resisting the urge to tap his foot impatiently. Knowing that the ruse was up, Steve abandoned his hiding place and straightened, boldly putting himself in plain view. He looked down at Tony with somber eyes, but his jaw was set in challenge, not a trace of fear or apology in his posture. Afraid he would slip away again, Tony didn’t dare blink, even though his eyes began to burn as the contest dragged on. Then, with fearless calm, Steve balanced on the railing in front of him and launched himself up to the next highest level, grasping the edge and hauling himself up neatly.

“This your new parkour?” Tony grumbled after him, resisting the urge to tap his foot impatiently as the Mark X finally floated up to him. He all but jumped into it, leaping up onto the railing and grasping for the right wrist of the suit, instantly cocooned in marvelous metallic warmth, power flowing through iron veins. “Parkour is yesterday’s extreme sport,” he declared, floating up to the last level he’d seen Steve on. “This is how the cool kids play.” He frowned at the emptiness, asking J.A.R.V.I.S., “Where is he?”

“Who, sir?”

Tony sighed as he heard a door clank shut above him, cutting off, “Never mind, I got him.” He zipped along, floating through the door. Tony scanned the hall with infrared, found the heat signature on the _outside_ of the window, yelping involuntarily in horror. “ _Rogers!_ ” he barked furiously, ducking clumsily underneath the same awning that Steve had. Steve glanced up at him, clinging to the wall with confident fingertips, leaning back widely and saying above the ten feet separating them:

“Don’t know when to quit, do you, Stark?”

Tony sunk down a foot and Steve provocatively let go, holding on with one hand, both feet planted against the wall. Grinding his teeth—he could absolutely catch him before he hit the ground, but that didn’t mean he _wanted_ Steve to fall—Tony ordered in his sternest, Iron-laden tone, “Get your hand back on the fucking wall.”

Steve loosened his free hand, sliding down the wall casually, reminding Tony of nothing more than those construction workers who built New York’s skyscrapers, dangling on impossibly narrow, lethally high summits. One memorable picture showcased two well-dressed waiters carrying trays of fine wine-and-dining to a pair of construction workers seated on a beam hundreds of feet off the ground, not a safety line among them.

He floated down to meet Steve, whose feet bumped gently to a halt against the structural bar, using both hands to inch down and grab it.

Tony didn’t let him, grabbing him under the arms and prying him off easily. He leaned back, the exact counter-move to catastrophic somersaulting. The fully-functional, Neptunian Mark X compensated automatically, supporting his weight under a warm cushion of air. It gave him better stability than a sheer-vertical hold. More importantly, it cut out the crucifixion effect, which he’d mistakenly caused the first time he’d intercepted his flying squirrel.

Grumbling, he narrated, “I have a _heart condition_ , Steve, you can’t keep doing this to me, I’m going to have a heart attack and then where will we be, huh?” He sighed and it crackled over the comm. He said lightly, “And I told you, if you wanted to fly with me, you just had to ask.” He hovered in space, though, not flying—too cold down here, even colder up top—but holding Steve tightly. “I gotcha,” he said, speaking almost nonsensically, because God, he wanted to throttle him and kiss him, Steve really did keep him young, putting his fragile iron heart through its paces. “I’ll never drop you, you hear me? Never.”

Steve shifted and Tony leaned back, a movement guided by his own shoulders easing and the suit following, until he was almost horizontal, letting Steve turn in his hold until they were chest-to-iron-chest. “Winghead,” Tony told him affectionately, freeing up his hands to spike Steve’s hair with his metal gauntlets. “You gotta be patient with me,” he added, feeling secure with Steve’s arms wrapped around his chest, warmed as if he could feel the heat of them. “I know you want a fancy new flying suit, but I want a functional Millennium Falcon. I’ve heard delayed gratification is very hip with the kids.” He waited patiently, but Steve didn’t respond, cheek pillowed on a metal shoulder, eyes closed. “Steve?” he tried, sliding his arms around him. “Earth to Rogers?”

Steve said in a voice Tony wasn’t meant to hear: “I shouldn’t have come.”

Heart twisting up unpleasantly in his chest, Tony didn’t respond, aware that he wasn’t supposed to, but then he couldn’t help himself: “I mean, that’s—you know, other fish in the sea,” he fumbled, uncharacteristically unsettled by the notion that Steve—that underneath it all, Steve _regretted_ it, any of it; he wasn’t wearing the watch, was he? “Want me to put you down? I’ll put you down.” He couldn’t make himself move, though, holding onto Steve like he could recapture equilibrium if he stayed hovering in predawn space, hopeful and aching. “I swear, I’ll—”

Steve said, “Tony,” and Tony shut up. Tony shifted upright, nearly but not quite vertical, Steve’s feet on top of his, but before he could float upwards and land on the balcony, Steve said huskily, “Inverted Möbius strip.”

Tony blinked, aware that the mask didn’t reflect it—wondered, inanely, if he should incorporate that, Iron Man with facial expressions, wouldn’t _that_ be a laugh?—and so saying aloud, “What, you took up advanced spatial geometry in your spare time?”

Steve smiled against the armor. “Delayed gratification,” he muttered in reply.

Humming through his nose, Tony said, “Okay, Captain Cryptic.” He floated them upwards, past the partially open window—he could slide it down with a word, like magic—and onto a small platform above it. “Touchdown,” he announced, babbling. He kept Iron arms wrapped around Steve. “Hey, buddy, what’s so interesting about Möbius, hm?” he asked, his nonchalant words clashing with the earnest tone. Steve let him go and Tony reciprocated, cocking his head at him. Steve looked at him with unreadable eyes, tired smile crooking the corner of his lips.

Curling his fingers in an Iron hand, casual as anything, he said, “Mark X. Right?” He intertwined their fingers, either oblivious to or ignoring the sharp cold of the metal suit. “S’beautiful. I loved this one.”

Tony blinked once, twice, opened his mouth, then closed his mouth. He tapped the mask with his free hand to lower it. His exhale shivered out of him in the cold, but he barely paused, saying lowly, “Don’t bullshit me. I don’t like pranks.”

Steve shrugged, miming sealing his lips with his free hand, huddling closer to Tony after a moment, planting his forehead against the shoulder. A tear slipped down his face, nearly freezing on the way down. Tony froze, alarmed and confused and no small amount unsettled, using his free hand to cup the back of Steve’s head. “What’s going on?” he asked a third time, voice nearly as husky as Steve’s.

Steve grimaced, pulling back and looking at him, breath misting in front of him. Then he shook his head, turning suddenly. He rasped, “I gotta—I gotta go.” He paused at the door, looking back at Tony, blinking dumbly at him. Steve sighed, running a hand over his face. “Shit,” he muttered.

“Language,” Tony offered.

Dropping his hand, Steve smiled a little, like he was trying to hide it. “Mouthy,” he murmured affectionately, even though he was the one cursing. Nodding to himself, he gestured at the door. “Come with me.”

Tony did. They stood in the hallway for a few moments in silence, Steve pacing, Tony folding metal arms over his chest expectantly. Then, with only a flimsy little shrug, like he was apologizing to no one, Steve reached up, ruffling his hair energetically. Gold dust scattered around him and Tony saw hints of white in his hair emerge. Steve smoothed his hair down gingerly. With a rueful little smile, he admitted, “Itches. I don’t think the serum likes stuff like that.”

Tony opened and closed his mouth, held up his hand warningly, then scowled sternly. Finally, he covered his face with both hands and groaned. “Oh, God, Steve,” he said, more exasperated than angry. “Don’t you know the first fucking rule of time travel?”

Steve made a noise of agreement, then said, “Don’t talk about time travel?”

“ _Don’t talk about time travel_ ,” Tony echoed, borderline talking over him, lowering his hands and scowling, then smoothing out his expression, then shaking his head incredulously. He allowed a hint of hysterical laughter to bubble out of him. “Great. Great.” He poked Steve in the chest with a metal finger, saying with a scowl, “Steven Grant Rogers, you goddamn sonuvabitch.”

Steve tilted his head down, looking at him with those familiarly endearing puppy eyes. Tony sighed, covering his face with metal hands again so he didn’t have to look at Steve. Then he held a hand in front of Steve’s face, telling him, “I can’t see you. I didn’t see you.” Steve smiled, even though Tony could almost feel the guilt and worry radiating off him. Sliding his arm around Steve’s shoulders, he hauled him in for a slightly bone-crushing hug, muttering against his shoulder, “Goddammit, Steve.”

Steve curled a hand around the back of his head, holding him gently. Tony closed his eyes. He still _felt_ like Steve, but the differences were clear. He did seem very tired. Almost sick. The shiny optimism was gone—there was something fragile about his words, like he didn’t dare say them. “I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry.”

“Damn right you shouldn’t have,” Tony grumbled, but he didn’t let go. Steve was shaking. No: _he_ was shaking, hard enough it was painfully obvious even with the suit. He stepped back and stepped out of the suit. Tony surged forward almost desperately to hold onto him, ordering, “Don’t say a word. Got it? No talking.”

“Tony,” Steve murmured against his hair.

Tony sighed, pushing him until there was nowhere to go, the wall gentle but unyielding against his pressing hands. Steve said nothing. Tony told him, “Go home.”

Steve nodded, but Tony didn’t let him go. “You’re gonna go home,” Tony said. “I’m gonna go downstairs, and we’re not gonna talk about this. I’m not gonna talk about this, you’re not gonna talk about this, everything’s gonna be sunshine and rainbows. Got it?”

Steve made a sound like he’d argue, but Tony insisted sharply, “No. Shush. Quiet, worm.” Steve huffed a breathless sound that might have been a laugh. He slouched and Tony gripped him more tightly, surprised, alarmed. “Go home,” he entreated, wanting to sprinkle some of that gold back into his hair, to make him feel strong and steady again. “Okay? Just like you said. Go home. This didn’t happen. I shouldn’t have—fuck.” He bit Steve’s shoulder gently through his shirt, muttering around the fabric, “We have terrible timing.”

Steve scratched between his shoulders gently. Tony melted. “Congrats on evolving past grandpa pants,” he muttered, releasing his mouthful and pulling back to look at Steve. He smiled ruefully, then reached up to dust his hair. “What’s so interesting about 2013, hm?” He covered Steve’s mouth with a hand before he could answer, adding, “Rhetorical. Don’t answer that. Jesus Christ, Steve.” Sighing, he released him but didn’t step back, Steve’s arms holding him up, holding him close. “Fess up. Why are you here?”

Steve was silent. Tony pulled back to look at him. With a wave of his hand, Tony insisted, “You didn’t come for a social visit, so—why?”

Steve mimed zipping his lips shut again. This time he kept his word, smiling. Tony growled, saying, “Nuh-uh, you don’t get to pull that card. You already broke the first rule. The second rule of time travel is sharing how badass it is with insiders. I am an insider. You did this to yourself. You initiated me into the honorary time travelers’ coterie. Are we a coterie?” he added, a touch excitedly. “Is there a secret handshake?”

Steve smiled patiently at him. Tony pinched his nose. Steve said in a slightly nasally tone, “ _Tony_.” Releasing him, Tony stepped back, throwing his hands in the air.

“I’m the humble village idiot here, you’re the Starfleet commando about to get his ass handed to him for breaking the Prime Directive,” he pointed out. Steve stared at him, mute. Tony arched his eyebrows. “Really? You don’t know _Star Trek_? God, that’s disappointing. Did I slack off? Where did we go astray? Are we still—wait, no, don’t answer that.”

Steve said slowly, “Maybe we should sit down.”

Tony laughed and ran a hand through his hair. He said, “Great, _now_ he has good timing. Sure thing, Evel Knievel.” When Steve blinked uncomprehendingly, Tony groaned and ordered, “If you don’t know, act like you do. Comprende? Did literally no one teach you proper time travel etiquette? Isn’t there like, a board of advisors for this shit? Don’t tell me,” he added, poking him in the chest again. He was still built like a brick house, at least. It almost amused Tony to realize that the only way he ever pushed Steve around was when he _wanted_ to follow. Otherwise, he was immobile. “Goddammit, Steve.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said. He sounded it, too. “I. . . .” He paused. Tony sobered at the look in his eyes, dark and sad. “I made a mistake,” he said at last, very carefully. “And I can’t—” With a frustrated noise, he reached up to rub the back of his neck. “I can’t—tell you,” he fumbled. He breathed in deeply, then said, “Let’s—sit. I can’t stay long, or I really will—muck things up.”

Tony nodded, then reached out, intertwining their fingers, leaving the brilliant, shiny-new Mark X where it was. “Well, you know what they say.

“No time like the present.”

. o .

Tony lounged on the bean bag in the dimly-lit lab, ignoring the half-finished Mark XI on the table. He’d ordered J.A.R.V.I.S. not to let the twenty-seven-year-old Steve into the lab under any circumstances and sat down with the older Steve and a box of crackers, a pair of water bottles in easy reach. Steve sat on the floor, leaning against his legs, eyelids half-mast.

“You look tired,” Tony preluded, offering Steve the box of crackers when he made no move to touch them. “Spunk up. Eat.”

“Not why I’m tired,” Steve said, but he fished one out and tossed it into his mouth anyway. He chewed methodically.

Nodding to himself, Tony scribbled on his tablet, musing, “Is it the serum?”

“Hm?” Steve swallowed, then asked, “What do you mean?”

“Is it . . . ?” Tony paused, then scratched _serum_ off the list. He realized that he didn’t want to know, afraid of the answer to the damning question: _Is it wearing off?_ “Never mind.”

Steve smiled and sipped his water like he knew exactly what Tony wasn’t asking. Trying to be lighthearted, Tony remarked, “You look good, you know. Like a silver fox. Less polished. Silver badger?”

Steve’s flat-browed incredulity was certainly badger-like. “All badgers are silver, Tony,” he reminded patiently.

“Spoken like a true silver badger,” Tony said, nodding to himself and jotting down _badger_ , to hear Steve sigh. “So. Badger.” Steve looked at him sternly and took another cracker to keep himself occupied. “You here to spoil the ending?”

Steve shrugged, chewing with the same methodical slowness like he had all the time in the world. “Implies an ending,” Steve pointed out.

Tony nudged his side lightly with a foot. “Cute. Very semantic of you.”

Steve tipped an invisible hat. He took another cracker. “I _can_ say that you age incredibly well.”

Tony couldn’t describe the emotion that welled in his chest. Clearing his throat, he said, “Well.” Then, taking a cracker for himself, he tried again, “Hell, Steve.”

Steve shrugged modestly. “Not really a surprise, is it?” he challenged, an edge of quiet uncertainty in his voice. Tony understood perfectly: he felt the same quiet fear, that they had said too much, that every second trickling by was dangerous, tempting fate. “You know,” Steve said suddenly, amused, “I’m actually—” Then he cut himself off, reaching for one of the water bottles, cracking the lid and taking a long gulp. His brow was still furrowed like he wanted to share the joy but didn’t dare say it.

Tony got it: “You’re older than me.”

Steve didn’t even slow down, setting the bottle aside and looking at Tony with a surprisingly steady poker-face. “Mm,” he said, pleasantly noncommittally, but there was amusement in his eyes. That gave Tony a ballpark, at least—sixteen years older put the minimum starting point in the late 2020s. Tony blew out a breath at that, feeling suddenly dizzy, the idea that this Steve was from the late 2020s, _beyond_.

He swiped another cracker from the box, chasing away the taste of fire extinguisher as Dum-E, disarmed, stood at the ready nearby. Steve said suddenly, “Wish I could see her.” When Tony cocked his head, Steve just smiled and held up his fist to his mouth, not bothering to complete the zipped-lip gesture. There was sadness and warmth in his eyes. Tony wasn’t sure who he was referring to, who _she_ was, a sudden sick feeling curdling in his stomach. Sensing Tony’s unease, Steve added quietly, “Don’t worry about it. Not who you’re thinking of.”

That didn’t make Tony feel much better, despite the soothing cadence to Steve’s tone. The fact that this Steve was _from the future_ felt like a lie, an impossibility. He had to stifle another hysterical laugh at the thought, that he was sitting with his favorite time-traveling moron trying not to break the future. “I wanna ask you everything,” Tony admitted. “I wanna ask how. . . .” He paused, almost added a name, any name, but he didn’t fill it in. Leaning on his elbows, he leaned forward and admitted, “I won’t. But I want to.”

Steve nodded in acknowledgment. “I’d tell you,” he said quietly. Shrugging, he repeated, “I’d. . . .” He frowned, reaching up to rub his throat. “Haven’t been this nervous in a long time,” he mused, tugging at his collar. “Can’t tell you, Tony. Can’t tell you anything.” He bit his lip, almost hard enough to bleed. He rasped, “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

Tony assured, “I know.” 

Steve exhaled deeply, then dropped his hand and added, “Can’t even ask you, smartest guy I’ve ever known, what the right move is.” He smirked. “I like to believe in—you know, cosmic karma. Things workin’ out.” He fished out another cracker. “So, you know, I like to think that—me, bein’ here, runnin’ into you, that was meant to happen. Right?” He asked it a touch helplessly, like he was trying to sketch an equation that made sense on the board, chewing on his cracker to distract himself.

Tony shrugged, slumping further into the bean bag, relishing the simple things, Steve’s weight against his legs, the methodical way he ate crackers. Simple things. Familiar things. The ease between them was comforting and familiar. He didn’t ask Steve about their future, didn’t ask why he looked tired. Lost. _Lonely_.

Sliding off the bean bag onto the floor next to Steve, he leaned against his shoulder. Resting his closed mouth against it, he asked after a long moment, “What’s wrong, big guy?” 

He framed it rhetorically, knowing Steve wouldn’t, couldn’t answer.

Steve rested his cheek against the top of Tony’s head and admitted, “I mucked it all up. I don’t even know if I—I don’t think I have a home anymore. Once you start, you know, it’s hard to stop. To stay in one place.” Shifting, he added, “I think it’s—” He paused, then explained slowly, “I think it’s makin’ me age faster, but I can’t stop.”

Tony was quiet, speechless. “So stop running,” he advised.

Steve shook his head a little, but a little was more than enough. “You don’t—you _can’t_ understand,” he said, voice cracking. Swallowing, he drew in a steadying breath. Tony curled his arms around his waist, holding on. “There are fourteen million possible—” He paused, cut himself off. “And only nine ways to win,” he finished dully.

Tony offered, “Sounds like pretty good odds to me.”

Steve curled around, holding him, pressing his face to Tony’s shoulder, jacket on a chair nearby. His white shirt was very soft. Tony wanted to ask what the fabric was, but he didn’t want to spoil it, either. Cradling Steve’s head in both hands, holding him, he said nothing as Steve shivered against him.

“I—I have to _believe_ ,” he said slowly, “that it’s gonna work, you know, this time. But I—” He paused, bit his lip. Then, almost restlessly, he sat up. Tony cupped his face as Steve lifted trembling hands, resting them both on the arc reactor, nearly occluding its glow. Another tear snuck down his cheek. Tony swiped it away wordlessly.

“I don’t think I can—can’t do it, one more time,” Steve said, awkwardly. “Know what the worst part is, Tony?” He smiled malevolently, self-hatred in his eyes. “Maybe it would’ve worked out. If I’d done nothin’. Nothing at all. I should’ve stayed, but I couldn’t—couldn’t live with that.”

He curled up closer, tucking his head under Tony’s chin. Tony wrapped his arms around him carefully, stroking his hands up and down his back, comforting, quiet. “You know, we sat down with—worked it, for a long time, worked out the math. I’m good at math now.” He said it almost ruefully, his arms low around Tony’s waist, his shoulders crumpled inward, like he couldn’t bear to withhold the knowledge. “Wish I could show you all the ways you’re gonna run circles around me. So fuckin’ smart. Ain’t ‘till I get smart, you know, math-smart, that I could really appre—”

J.A.R.V.I.S. interrupted gently, “Captain Rogers is at the door.”

Steve sucked in a breath, sitting up suddenly, ready to bolt, but Tony held on, ordering calmly, “Don’t let him in. Nobody. Got it?”

“As you wish, sir.”

He felt bad, suddenly, because Steve— _his_ Steve, but it was impossible to splice the two down the middle so neatly, to look into Steve’s fathomless blue eyes and imagine him on the other side of the door, two different worlds. Quietly, almost conspiratorially, Tony pressed, “Why here? Why now?”

Steve didn’t flinch. “Because,” he said slowly, “as soon as the resignation paperwork goes through, they’ll put out the kill order.”

Tony flinched.

Steve pulled back. Tony let him, watched him stand, surreal, a messenger, a bearer of bad news. Steve held out a hand benignly; Tony took it, letting him pull him upright. It was the only tether between them, Steve’s slightly clammy hand around his own. “I don’t—I don’t know what the right approach is, here, Tony,” he admitted, anxiety making his words a blur. “I need you to understand that, I’m not tellin’ you a course-of-action, I’m just sayin’ as soon as they know, soon as that notice goes through, they’re not gonna stop, and it’ll, it—” 

He cut himself off, then bulled ahead, grasping Tony’s shoulders and saying seriously, “Hey, you and me? We’re goddamn invincible. So don’t. . . .” He squeezed Tony’s hand gently. “Don’t worry. It’s gonna be okay. Got it?” He smiled. It was tired but hopeful. Tony knew that Steve would run through all fourteen million options if that was what it took to find one of those sacred nine. He couldn’t swallow the lump in his throat, only able to imagine what kind of catastrophe would inspire _that_ level of dedication. “It’s gonna be okay, I promise. I’ll—I’ll make it okay.

“Just—go with your gut,” Steve went on, his voice a rumble, deep in his chest. “That’s your—friendly, neighborhood time traveler’s warning.” He stepped back and reached for his left sleeve, rolling it back, revealing a band with a little red vial attached. He smiled at Tony as he grasped the bottle, retrieving his jacket and shaking it out until it was white and red and futuristic. “Shielding,” he explained, almost an inside joke as he slid it on. “Neat stuff, y’know.” Tony watched him, curious, amazed, humbled by the sight of him. Steve drew in a steadying breath, an island in time. Tony couldn’t stop himself, rushing forward and grabbing him by the edges of the space age uniform, leaning up and kissing him firmly.

Steve froze and Tony wondered if he’d miscalculated. Then Steve relaxed. Steve was bolder, then, kissing Tony back like he already knew the stakes couldn’t be higher. Tony closed his eyes in helpless enjoyment, tangling his fingers in silver-gold hair and holding on. 

Breathing against Steve’s mouth, he raked his hands down Steve’s space age suit, pulling him close, as close as he possibly could. It still didn’t feel close enough. He wanted, suddenly and unbearably, to keep him, the notion that his Steve was waiting for him, that Steve wasn’t _really_ leaving—the whole idea of it did nothing to soothe the shivering tangibility of Steve under his fingertips. It felt almost forbidden, to have them both, but two were one and one were two and maybe fourteen million. He could feel a headache throbbing at the back of his head, a headache Steve cradled in big warm palms until it shied into the shadows again.

He knew Steve didn’t have time, knew that he didn’t have time, that the longer they lingered the more catastrophic the consequences would be, but he couldn’t pull away. Steve didn’t, either. Tony felt love-drunk and invincible and alone all at once. Alone with their terrible little secret.

Tony ached with the knowledge, grasping at straws, fingers curling around Steve’s utility belt, but it wasn’t there. There was only the smooth jacket bleeding into space-age white pants. He looked more like an astronaut than a soldier, a star-jumper, someone who flitted around not in space but _time_. He didn’t know the passage of time, the urgency of _R_ _un and never return_ , as he kissed along Steve’s jaw, sucking the underside, teething at the corner, the softest kisses. Steve sighed and shivered and promised love with every breath, every second he gave Tony.

He didn’t know how long they lingered, how long he held onto Steve, but he knew the moment Steve slipped gently away, one final kiss pressed beneath Tony’s right eye, _I’ll be waiting_. Then—he was gone. Tony didn’t need to open his eyes to confirm it, a tear slipping down his own cheek at the realization. Steve was gone, and it broke his heart. It made him want to scream with frustration and wail with unbridled anguish. Tony stood trembling in place until he felt like reality wouldn’t shatter if he opened his eyes.

The lab was empty again. It was almost, he reflected numbly, a dream. His head hurt where he’d hit it against the wall. He was cold and tired, too. An island unto himself. A man with forbidden knowledge.

He memorized it, repeating it until it echoed in his mind.

_Once the resignation goes through, they’ll send out the kill order._

_Once the resignation goes through, they’ll send out the kill order._

That was the first domino, he knew. It wasn’t the endgame. Steve wouldn’t have come back to the beginning and risked altering everything if there was a later starting point that would work. It was an unstoppable chain reaction, Tony surmised. Once the kill order was sent out, that was the beginning the end, the beginning of nine-to-fourteen-million odds.

He swallowed hard, unsure which thought daunted him more: acting, or doing absolutely nothing.

_Know what the worst part is, Tony?_

_Maybe it would’ve worked out. If I’d done nothin’. Nothing at all_.

Inhaling shakily, he heard J.A.R.V.I.S. reiterate, “Captain Rogers is back.”

“Let him in,” Tony rasped.

. o . 

Flip a cosmic coin. Do nothing. Do something.

Tony looked up as Steve walked into the room, face younger, noticeably younger. Tony could only blame hitting his head on the wall and the general delirium of four AM on his mistaken identity. He ducked his head like he was bracing for an apology for a crime he did not commit. It made something well up in Tony’s throat, even though he didn’t know, _couldn’t_ know.

He said, “Tony?” And his voice was lighter, higher, not that _let me down slowly_ voice the older Steve Rogers had.

Tony stepped up and slung his arms around his waist, warm and solid, hips a touch narrower, belt still exasperatingly high. The threads of his shirt felt almost scratchy in comparison. His breath fanned softly against Tony’s back, one hand settling gently between his shoulders, scratching lightly. In a murmur, he said, “Didn’t mean to—you know, intrude.”

“You don’t,” Tony assured, holding on, kissing the underside of his jaw in the place that made him melt into his arms.

And the words, _He was here_ never once passed his lips.

. o . 

Divine, euphoric, lovely—these were the only words to describe the feeling of Steve’s warm palms sweeping over Tony’s back. Tony lied facedown on their bed, head buried in folded arms, luxuriating in the attention. He noticed the little nuances between without sight, the press of his hands, the shuffle of Steve’s weight as he shifted from one knee to the other. His palms provided a blissful steady pressure against tired muscles, legs on either side of Tony’s hips, careful to keep his weight off Tony.

 _You won’t break me, tough guy_ , Tony wanted to tell him, but he didn’t want to interrupt Steve’s rhythm. He might be a spindly hundred-and-eighty pounds to Steve’s two-forty, but he was still confident that he would not break if Steve straddled him properly. And if he _did_ , he had assured, he would assume full responsibility for his hubris and not sue Steve out of spite.

Steve had huffed vaguely in amusement and kept stroking lines of healing pressure up and down Tony’s back until Tony nearly forgot his own name, dropping the issue altogether.

Letting out a sultry purr of a sound, he squirmed, restless with his enjoyment as Steve dug his thumbs in steady circles against doughy muscles. Misunderstanding Tony’s pleasure, Steve paused to ask, “Y’okay?”

“Babycakes,” Tony said, and he could picture Steve scrunching up his nose as he continued, “honeybear, my sweet slice of apple pie, you can do that _forever_.”

Steve didn’t resume immediately, as if the excess of pet names was an encoded distress message. Thankfully, he leaned into trust and resumed with only a soft mutter of: “’f you say so.”

“I do,” Tony assured, voice muffled by his own arms but audible to Steve, who relaxed and leaned some of his weight on Tony. “Mm, I love you.”

Pinned underneath Steve—trapped in the best way, deliciously warm, almost unimaginably comfortable, safe to his bones—Tony felt like the luckiest man alive. He wondered, idly and absentmindedly, if silver foxy Steve would move with the same or less confidence, surer of himself but less sure of his place in this strange location. He banished the thought gently, ushering it out the door with only a wistful hope to one day see it again. He liked Steve now, _loved_ Steve now. There was something so tender and certain about it that it made him want to cry.

Hiding in his folded arms, he debated telling Steve how very well he was doing—and interrogate him on his sources, which must have been impressive and maybe even Pepper; if they _were_ Pepper, he would have to send her a very nice thank-you basket—before deciding to enjoy the moment, enjoy everything he was given.

Steve was truly an outlier, a rarer-than-rare find. His hands were as perfect as the rest of him. Unscarred, unblemished, unmarked, soft and strong as marble. Even ordinary hands were highly sensitized, but Steve’s super-serum-enhanced fingers were in another class altogether. Like a master pianist, they glided from one chord of muscle to the next easily, pulling and pushing and soothing symphonically.

Lying there, Tony felt Steve’s love as he gave it, as a verb.

He hadn’t expected Steve to ask him, a touch bashfully, if he could help relieve some of Tony’s tension, gesturing at his own reddened neck as if the mere suggestion was far too suggestive.

Tony had almost pointed out, _Sweetheart, we have been sleeping in the same bed for three months_. 

Instead, with characteristic gravitas, he’d waggled his eyebrows.

That had earned him a pout. He hadn’t given Steve’s response time to settle, choosing boldness or cowardice as he grabbed and hopped up onto Steve’s back. Caving instantly, Steve hooked his hands under Tony’s legs, sighing deeply but humoring him. For all his _awh, God, Tony_ exasperation, Tony knew that Steve enjoyed the game of it: his shoulders stayed loose and limber, his entire demeanor soft with pleasure as he marched out of the lab, charge in tow.

Steve hadn’t been wrong in his assessment, either. Tony’s back had hurt, surprisingly intense, as soon as he’d lied down. But Steve’s hands were gentle and Tony trusted him completely. And that trust was rewarded: the knots loosened, the pain eased away. Even the hint of a headache disintegrated, choosing to fade into the darkness along with his worries.

Melting into the mattress, Tony savored the smooth glide of Steve’s hands, eased by the coconut oil Tony had presciently offered beforehand. Steve needed no input from him. For a time, Tony allowed himself to be pleasantly useless, letting Steve take care of everything. 

He didn’t know if Steve had somehow become a masseur in his free time—he wouldn’t put it past him; Steve was as much of an insomniac as he was and he didn’t even pay the price for it, unlike Tony, who could have used those precious hours to rest—or if he had a feel for it. Either way, he was magnificent. “You’re amazing, darling,” he told him, voice warm with affection. Steve gently squeezed his shoulders in a way that made him want to give up his best suit to keep experiencing it.

Steve had long-since worked out the actual problem areas, taking his time with the knots, equal parts confident and careful. Someone, Tony decided, a touch murkily, had at least given him pointers on that. He was grateful for them, whoever they were. He wondered if Steve had been bashful then, too. He smiled to himself at the thought, shifting to feel the pleasant buzz under his skin. 

After a long, welcome period, Steve smoothed his hands up Tony’s back in a final sort of way. Tony stifled a disappointed noise as Steve shifted off him.

“C’mon,” Steve murmured. Reluctantly, Tony shuffled upright, leaning into the hand Steve settled on the middle of his back. Listing towards him, Tony buried his face between Steve's neck and shoulder, nuzzling over his t-shirt, breathing him in, fresh and warm and smelling vaguely like Tony’s soap, which made his heart flutter. Tony wanted to tease that Steve was bad for his heart, but that made him sad. So, he caught a gentle mouthful of t-shirt and flesh, barely pressing the indent of his teeth against it, before curling his arms around him, leaning against him heavily. Steve huffed a soundless chuckle, letting Tony pull him down to the mattress, arms curved around Steve’s back, releasing his mouthful to rest his cheek against Steve’s shoulder.

“I love you,” he repeated. Steve slid a hand up his back, squeezed his nape, thumb brushing below his hairline affectionately. Tony closed his eyes and listened to his heartbeat, exhausted and content and so happy he wanted to cry, because he did not deserve this, the world did not deserve Steve Rogers. Still he was right there, powerfully real.

He tugged at the edges of Steve’s shirt, not quite impatiently but pointedly. Steve shimmied around, sitting up, taking Tony with him. He chuckled softly, pressing a quick little kiss to Tony’s cheek that encouraged him to unwind his arms long enough for Steve to shuck his shirt off. He shuffled back; Tony followed him, resting against his bare chest, strong and alive and radiating peace. The arc reactor pressed against Steve’s skin, glowing white-blue in the darkness.

It was safe there, Tony knew, closing his eyes as Steve curved a hand around the back of his head. He scratched softly, just the pads of his fingers brushing through his hair slowly, achingly slowly. “I love you,” Tony whispered.

Steve kissed the top of his head, lingering, Tony splayed on top of him, equal parts protective and protected. “I love you,” Steve rumbled in reply, words deep in his chest, no hint of a veneer, not even his Captain America voice, just earnest, close to home. He could _feel_ in that moment the other Steve, the future Steve. He held onto his Steve that much more tightly, hoping he could feel it, too.

It was a beautiful life, he mused. A wonderful life.

As he dozed off, Laika’s clicking claws and huffed breath as she settled on her impromptu nest, Steve’s hand still brushing softly up and down his back, he thought, _We won’t lose_.

Come what may, they were invincible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my dear friends. If I may intrude, I wanted to say that this is the beginning of a new and exciting arc, one that will take us on a high-stakes journey where even one wrong outcome leads to that 14,000,000:9 lose:win outcome.
> 
> At this point, none of the dominos have fallen. So things are stable, but as soon as that first domino is tipped, we hurtle headlong towards victory or catastrophe.
> 
> Future Steve is the messenger, delivering perhaps the only cosmic salvation, the a priori knowledge of bad things about to happen, urging Tony to keep his wits about him. Maybe inaction is the right course. Or maybe Tony must use the knowledge and act to achieve that Happy Ending.
> 
> What happens next? Stay tuned.
> 
> Yours affectionately,  
> Captain Panda


	36. SICILIAN DEFENSE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The Sicilian Defense is the most popular defense against white's opening 1.e4 and is used extensively at top level play. It is a very aggressive defense and immediately stakes claim at the center, denying white the double pawns on e4 and d4."
> 
> —[The Chess Website](https://www.thechesswebsite.com/sicilian-defense/).

Two-thirty-one-AM.

Steve Rogers stared at the ceiling, listening to Laika breathe in her corner and Tony snore against his chest.

Unprompted, Tony shuffled closer, cuddling. Steve squeezed him gently, _I’m here_. Tony settled, one leg tossed over both of Steve’s, like Steve was his own life raft. He slept uninterrupted. Steve was grateful for that. He was grateful Tony could sleep at night.

Tucking his cheek against the top of Tony’s head, soaking in his warmth and vitality and trust, Steve lingered in the warm happy space for a long time. 

He didn’t like to dream. Reality was so sweet; the darkness was so full. Only ghosts lived in his dreams. He couldn’t help the dead.

Sometimes he found the soldier with the missing eye, bleeding everywhere and stumbling towards him, crying out to him. He stepped back in alarm, in abject horror, utterly unable to stop himself. In reality, the man was already dead—the bullet tore his face open; Steve had never known death’s untouchable agony until that day—but in his dreams, the dead were alive. The one-eyed man chased him until he ran away. He awoke exhausted.

Other times it was the soldier holding his guts in both hands, weeping with terror and despair. It would have been a mercy to kill him, to take the shot and end it quick, but Steve could not raise the gun at his side. It was empty, anyway. He could only watch in dread as it dragged on forever, standing over the dying man until he could not bear the sound, covering his ears, one hand free, the other holding the gun to his head. He awoke in a cold sweat on those occasions, afraid someone would _know_ , would understandwhat he had done in that realm, because they wouldn’t understand that he was just trying to block out the noise. He would never pull the trigger. In life, he hadn’t needed to; the man was dead in minutes that felt like years. He’d made himself endure the seconds before moving on.

In life and in death, he was their captain. In his dreams, he found them again. He found them feverish and sick and crying, broken down by months of war, disintegrating under the weight of a winning battle. He let them bleed on his uniform as he sat next to them and clasped clammy hands, assured them again and again that everything would be okay. He awoke on his own cot to the sounds of a heated argument, interrupting the fight before it could become a fight. They clung to his sleeves, crowded until he couldn’t draw breath, until he awoke torn between clawing his way free and grasping at invisible hands, promising to hold on.

He found them at wit’s end, roaming the camp late at night, laughing, shouting, turning on him when he called out to them, pummeling him with whatever they could find, _words_ if nothing else, ugly words about who he was and who he had been. He was always fast enough to catch their hands, calm enough to slow their words. He always talked them down. 

Then he gave them a firm shove in the direction of the barracks, wondering if their parents would curse his name as he told the same lie, over and over again: _It’s gonna be fine, go lay down, get some rest_. Some of them were beyond kind words and authoritative voices; they were taken away, never to be seen again. It didn’t matter in the long-run: there were always three more enlistees waiting to be transferred, whether or not there was room for them in their quarters or their Captain’s tired heart.

Gathering Tony in his arms, fingertips cold, Steve held him as tightly as he dared, willing himself not to start shaking. He didn’t have the shakes, not like some of the boys he’d seen, _convulsing_ on their feet, dead-eyed and out of their minds. It was an ugly sickness, shellshock, it was a horrible incurable plague and if you caught it, you weren’t coming back from it. 

Burying his face in Tony’s hair, Steve did not shake. The little tremble that chattered in clenched teeth (loosen his jaw—no sound) and clung to his tensed up shoulders, he could lie and say it was the cold. It was cold outside. And in the war, everybody was shaky around the edges, even the toughest coldest bastards at the top sometimes trembled when you shook their hands. They were all scared. They were all just trying to get to tomorrow, sane.

That was the worst death. Insanity. When reality was too much, when the idea of it all collapsed inward and left an empty husk behind. He was lucky to escape with his sanity intact. He was lucky to escape whole, but he hated that he’d run when they’d needed him. He’d always planned to come back. Hijacking the plane, that was just—that was a step. He’d always planned to come back, to finish the war, no matter how much he hated it, no matter that he couldn’t get the taste of copper out of his mouth and the idea of tomorrow settled like ice in his chest, terrible and unwanted. Today was long enough. Tomorrow was unfathomable.

Tony stirred. Steve loosened his grip, but Tony didn’t wake. It was two-thirty in the morning. Nobody got up at two-thirty. Early-risers, night-owls—everybody was sound asleep, because the day began at five. Everybody wanted at least three hours of shut-eye before they had to face it.

Steve loved and hated two AM. He loved it because it was the quietest hour of the day. He hated it because it was the quietest hour of the day.

Resisting the urge to do something unconscionable, like disturb Tony’s sleep or steal food from his own pantry, he shut his eyes, trying to rest without dreaming.

Even in the untouchable safety of dreams, he dreaded returning to camp. He felt lost, out-of-place, helpless at best and guilty at worst.

Every time he awoke in a familiar station of war, he felt the lump in his throat, the dread curling in his stomach. His hands clenched into fists even as he tried to stay calm, stay calm. Play out whatever narrative happened.

They weren’t all bad. Sometimes, they were mundane, peaceful. He’d spend a night playing cards with a handful of soldiers. A night watching Peggy Carter and Howard Stark get in a lengthy and good-natured argument as they sketched on a chalkboard, talking circles around him while he sat nearby and polished his silver shield. A night on the hardwood floor in Brooklyn, listening to the noisy city-scape, bony and small and wondering if he’d ever make anything of himself or just pass quietly into obscurity at some indeterminate hour.

Sometimes, Bucky was there, in his own sergeant’s uniform, talking about anything and everything, occasionally touching on the simple stuff, the joy of close-toed boots and the appeal of a hunk of cold bread slathered in cold butter.

(On those nights Steve would wake up with his stomach growling, convinced that there was no food anywhere beyond rations, rations, rations. And even once he’d accepted that there was an abundance of food just a few floors down, that he had permission to take from their precious stockpile, he could not make himself get up and spirit away any of it. If he did, there would be less. And they might need it more later.)

Steve's mouth watered at the thought of cold bread slathered in cold butter. He tamped down the urge to get up and steal food, because he wasn’t supposed to.

But it wasn’t stealing now, because this was home. Tony was home. Steve sank deeper into the marshmallow mattress—and he knew Tony would get a laugh out of that, but Steve didn’t bring it up, because he didn’t like to talk about the war, afraid it was contagious—and held onto the good in his life.

His feet were warm and dry. That was good. 

There was a lot to love about being warm and dry and not permanently on call. 

He’d still leap at the first summons, but nowadays, he could retire without the _expectation_. There weren’t the same kind of nightly emergencies that were commonplace in the camps, calls-to-action that stole his sleep long before the gruesome phantoms demanded their toll. An emergency could be a raid or a riot or just a rebel without a cause trying to stir up trouble. One way or another, it demanded. 

He responded. He always responded.

Captain America stepping in, not wearing his flashy comic-book uniform but his crisp Army greens, was enough to settle the water instantly. Nobody barked at him because they knew he had a hell of a bite. They didn’t know he would never hurt them—they just didn’t want to find out.

And that was his life. For three years—twelve hundred and ninety-two days—he spent every hour surrounded by the War, the great and terrible War. Three years wasn’t a long time in peace-time, but it was endless in the heat of it all, one thousand, two hundred, and ninety-two days and nights and goddamn years crushed into twenty-four hour cycles that brought no peace. Each cycle felt longer than the last, accented by the sharp bite of distant artillery fire, rat-a-tat-a-tat on loop.

Tony shivered. Steve reached for the blanket, pulling it tighter around them. The shivering didn’t stop. Steve urged softly, “Shhhh.” Tony twitched, jerked in his hold, before pressing his forehead against Steve’s shoulder hard, like he was trying to hide there. Steve cupped the back of his neck and murmured, “Shh, s’okay, I gotcha.”

Tony gasped, inaudible to anyone but a super-soldier: “No, God, no. Please.”

Terrible privilege, Steve thought, his own eyes shut as he listened to it, the slurred, barely audible little entreaties. Tony choked and Steve’s heart cracked. It hurt a lot more listening to Tony have a nightmare than it did seeing the one-eyed man spit blood at him, accusing and afraid and desperate all at once, _Help me, **help me!**_

“Tony,” Steve said, as firmly as he could without raising his voice. “Hey. C’mere. I’ll keep you safe, I always do. Just stay here. Stay with me.”

Tony let out a thin, reedy noise and implored, again in that chopped whisper, “No, no, please, I’m begging you, please, help me, hel—” He gasped again, then twitched. Steve shuffled upright, back to the headboard, strong enough to pull Tony with him easily, holding him in his lap. “Help me, help me, help me,” he whimpered into the column of Steve’s throat. “Please.”

Steve swallowed, said, “I gotcha.” He knew it wasn’t his words that could reach through the dream, but he held Tony tightly as he shivered and panicked and fought a battle he could not be part of, insisting gently, “S’okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

It only took a minute, maybe two, to finally pull him away from the nightmare, gasping awake and lurching against Steve, nearly falling out of bed. Steve was ready for it, loosening his grip but keep Tony steady, assuring, “Take it easy, you’re all right, I’m right here.” 

He stroked Tony’s heaving flanks over the shirt, the muffled blue-white light from his arc reactor glowing between them, illuminating the sheen of sweat on Tony’s face. Tony looked at him, then jerked his head to the side, eyes wide but not quite seeing, the arc reactor’s ghostly blue light disorienting. Steve said softly, “S’okay. You’re all right.”

“I—I, what’s—?” He curled up underneath Steve’s chin, shaking like a leaf.

Steve stroked his back, long and leisurely, assuring, “I’m here.”

Tony nodded rapidly, hair brushing Steve’s chin, sinking his fingers into Steve’s shirt, trembling hard. “Stay. Please. Just—”

Steve nodded gently, brushing his cheek against sweat-dappled hair. “Right here, sweetheart. Not goin’ anywhere.”

Tony let out a ragged noise that might have been a laugh but was mostly a gasp, desperate and breathless. He wrung Steve’s shirt in his hands and admitted, “I can’t breathe. I can’t—”

“Easy,” Steve soothed. “Easy, tough guy. You’re doin’ fine.” He exaggerated his own breathing, drawing in a deep breath that lifted his chest with Tony clinging to it, followed by a steady exhale. It helped to center himself, and he knew Tony could feel it, even where he trembled against him. Experience had taught him that people mirrored each other a lot and the presence of calm in a room full of turmoil could work wonders. “You’re okay. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

Speaking slowly, rhythmically, he added, “Got too much depending on you bein’ around to risk anything happening. I won’t risk that, won’t risk you. It’s okay now. Doesn’t feel like it, I know.” He sighed, curling around Tony more, cocooned in his embrace, shivering against his chest. “But I won’t let anything bad happen to you. So just hang on to me and keep breathing. That’s all you gotta do. I’ll take care’a the rest.”

Tony sniffed, still gulping down air. Steve kept talking, leaning back against the headboard snugly and narrating as softly and calmly as he could, “You know, I never liked coffee before I met you? Ma and I, growin’ up, we weren’t poor, not like—well, some folks, all they had was themselves, you know, not much more than the skin on their backs—but Ma and I, we had everything we needed to get by, a roof over our heads, some food on the table—you know, we used to boil everything.” 

He ran his hand slowly up and down Tony’s back, his other arm slung around his waist, holding him close where he trembled. “We had coffee back home, but it was bland, nothin’ special, like—cough syrup, maybe. Real appetizin’. And overseas, they gave us these tin cans, kept a couple days’ worth of rations, crackers, some cheese, a piece of hard candy, and powder coffee. Tasted like—like salvation on an empty stomach, even dry—but add water and it was coffee as coffee can be. Your life, literally, was that tin can. As long as you had food left, you’d be all right.

“But these days, there’s just—there’s coffee everywhere. It’s crazy, Tony. Where’d all the cocoa beans come from? If we had this much coffee back home, we woulda had a coffeeshop on every corner. I don’t know if we had less coffee beans or less coffee makers back then, but it wasn’t—wasn’t everywhere, like today. It’s nice, you know, that things like coffee don’t go extinct in the future, they get more prevalent.”

Tony was still shivering against him, but his gasps had diminished to unsteady inhales through his nose, ragged exhales through his mouth. He still held Steve’s shirt tightly but not as desperately. His cheek against Steve’s shoulder wasn’t grinding down like he could sink into him but resting there, chest rising and falling unsteadily.

Holding onto him loosely, Steve breezed on, “One of the first things I ever ate—drank, I s’pose, but it felt like a meal at the time—was a cup a’ coffee. S.H.I.E.L.D.’s finest, so probably bland compared to most everywhere, but it was coffee. It was kind of electrifyin’. I was scared, you know, that the serum had made me too sensitive, that coffee back home was all right but coffee here was too strong. 

“And then I moved in with you, and it smelled like . . . it smelled like joy. Like a puppy you get on Christmas, but every morning. Or like—sunshine. Something nice. Something you wanna keep around. So, I had a cup, and it was like falling in love. I don’t think the boys back home would be able to drink their coffee if they knew what it could taste like. 

“It’s real sweet, you know, real—real flavorful. Everythin’s full of flavor these days, but the coffee—the coffee, it’s better.” He settled his palms flat on Tony’s back, his own breathing still deep and even—he hadn’t had a true asthma attack in four years, and it was beautiful and hard to grasp at once, that he had ever had trouble doing something so intrinsic to survival—and stayed quiet, sensing that it was okay to be quiet again.

“Steve?” Tony asked at last.

“Mm?”

Tony was quiet for a long moment. Steve was patient.

“How old are you?”

Steve cocked his head, then said, “Be twenty-eight this July.”

Tony nodded, gripping and releasing his shirt. “That’s what I like to hear,” he added inexplicably, exhaling deeply. “Sorry. I’m a mess.”

Steve shrugged. “Don’t apologize.”

“I wake you up?”

Steve smiled against the top of his head. “No.” A beat. Seriously, he added, “Don’t worry about it.”

“You need your beauty sleep, too,” Tony muttered against his collarbone. “How else are you gonna become a beautiful silver badger, huh?”

Steve squinted, then pointed out, “All badgers are silver, Tony.”

Tony shifted out of his hold. Steve let him, sitting back patiently as Tony sat cross-legged in front of him. “Don’t bullshit me, Rogers,” he grumbled. “I don’t like pranks.”

He watched Steve with an intensity that bordered on unsettling, like he was waiting for Steve to break character, to laugh or sneer or _something_ , anything other than the apparently unsatisfying quiet curiosity, quiet hopefulness and fear.

“You okay?” he dared to ask.

Tony rubbed his eyes. “Yes.” He lowered his hands, looked at Steve, then admitted, “No.” He leaned over, pawed around, then flicked the lamp on. Steve squinted. Rocking back onto his haunches, Tony kneeled in the middle of the bed and looked at him. Steve sat against the headboard, legs akimbo in front of him, shirt ruffled and head cocked to one side. “Yes,” Tony decided at last, reaching out to ruffle his hair, a touch more enthusiastically than normal. Steve scrunched up his nose; Tony kissed the tip of it. “Sorry. Humor me.”

Steve shrugged placidly, reaching up to cup Tony’s face and kiss him. Steve was stiff for a moment, unresponsive. Steve let him go, frowning. “Sure,” he said belatedly. Clearing his throat, he added, “Humor away.”

Tony closed his eyes, the hints of an exhausted smile twitching at the corners of his lips. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

Steve hesitated, then shook his head. 

Honesty worked: Tony relaxed.

Then he reached up to rub his eyes, saying, “I have a headache just thinking about it, so why don’t we deal with it in. . . .” He squinted at the clock and groaned. “God, it’s so early.” Reaching over to flick off the lamp again—Steve heard Laika huff and rest her head on her bed again, deciding the fun was over—Tony shuffled back under the covers, yawning and saying, “I’ll tell you later. Maybe. Don’t count on it. Or do.” He reached out blindly, found Steve’s t-shirt, gave it a tug. “C’mere. Teddy bear.”

Steve huffed but obligingly shuffled down, holding up an arm that Tony ducked under, sighing against his collarbone. “Do me a favor,” Tony said around a yawn. “Sleep on it for me. Decide whether or not I should—unveil the secrets of the universe to you.” He snuggled closer, out in seconds, snoring softly again. Steve closed his own eyes and tried to decide what on earth Tony was talking about.

He fell asleep before he figured it out.

. o .

Steve slept like an angel. 

Lying on his side, cheek smushed against a pillow, the tension in his back and shoulders absent, only his soft breathing in the space—he was beautiful. But Steve was always beautiful, young or old, known or new.

Tony leaned forward, bumping his nose against Steve’s, his warm, steady breath reassuring to Tony. _Alive and well_ , he thought, unhappiness unfurling in his stomach at his future alter ego’s dire warnings. _Alive and well_ , he insisted, pressing a kiss to his cheek, under his right eye. Steve’s eyelashes fluttered, eyes opening to slits of hazy blue. Tony leaned up, pressed a kiss to his forehead. Steve hummed, closing his eyes again. Tony greeted lightly, “G’morning, sleepyhead.”

Steve hummed again, a noncommittal sound, then rumbled, “Mornin', Tony.”

Love thudded in Tony’s chest. He held onto the feeling as tightly as he could. Suddenly, irresistibly, he announced, “I made up my mind.”

“Hm?” Steve opened his eyes again, regarding Tony with watchful blue eyes.

“Fuck 'em,” Tony said. Steve frowned, not understanding. Tony went on, “Can’t put a fire out from inside the house, right?”

Steve blinked again, then said, “Yeah, you can.” His voice was still pleasantly husky from sleep, the furrow in his brow making him seem older. Tony stared at him, trying to reconcile the two, two-is-one and one-is-two. “S’long as it isn’t a conflagration.”

“Conflagration,” Tony mused, pressing a kiss to his closed eyelid. “I don’t think that’s how the quote goes.”

“Can’t put a conflagration out from inside the house,” Steve murmured. “Little fire—you can. Should. Can’t let it spread.” He didn’t bother opening his eyes as Tony kissed his other eyelid, then a firm kiss to his cheek, savoring the satisfied little hum Steve breathed out. “Where’s the fire?” he mumbled.

Tony pulled back, shook his head even though Steve couldn’t see it, and deflected, “Nowhere. Yet.” He sounded crazy. He couldn’t blame Steve’s confused frown.

“But you. . . .” Steve blinked slowly at Tony. “Smell smoke?” he tried. He started to shuffle upright, but he was slow enough about it that Tony could curl an arm around his neck, cradling his head and holding him in place, pressing a placating kiss to his forehead. “Hm,” he said agreeably. “Thought you weren’t a metaphor guy.”

“I love metaphors,” Tony murmured. Brushing a kiss to Steve’s cheek, he worked his way across his jawline slowly, bittersweet-slow, self-aware-slow. Steve relaxed under his arm, and Tony couldn’t tell him. Couldn’t take away what might be the last easy days. 

He felt a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, because knowledge—not mere speculation but real, raw, in-your-face _awareness—_ of the future was a rare curse.

The whole thing was supposed to be a mystery. It was supposed to be a pleasant surprise when it all worked out well—that was what Tony had always believed, that things would work out if he followed the path that made the most sense.

But his cosmic messenger had already warned him that it _didn’t_ work out well if the path of least resistance played out. It wouldn’t end well unless they beat fourteen-million-to-nine odds.

Lowering his arm to Steve’s upper back and sliding down to bury his face against Steve’s shoulder, Tony hesitated. Steve slid his hand into his hair and scraped gently at the nape. That helped him think, helped him define what he _really_ wanted.

He didn’t want to say _I know the future_ to his Steve. He wanted to take the future Steve by the shoulders and give him a firm shake, a _what-have-you-done?_ shake that might have made him understand what a goddamn nightmare it was to live with catastrophic certainty.

 _He already does_ , Tony knew. He knew that if he’d had the older, silver-fox-haired Steve in front of him, he might have missed his mark entirely and gently grabbed his face instead, shaking it back and forth a couple times, trying to convey, _I love you so fucking much_ and _what are you doing to me?_ at once.

It occurred to him, suddenly, irrationally, that maybe the only chance they had was to part ways. Maybe there was no way to come through it together. If he sent Steve away, if he turned and put as much distance between them as he could spare—maybe that was one of the unthinkable nine solutions.

But it didn’t feel like a solution. 

Future Steve hadn’t kissed him like someone who _wanted_ to walk away.

Guilt twisted in Tony’s chest at the memory, even though he knew it wasn’t, technically, dishonoring his relationship with present Steve. Present Steve was future Steve, and vice-versa, when taken as a cohesive whole. The differences were profound and real, but future Steve was very much still this Steve, underneath years of triumph—and failure.

He swallowed, pressing as close to present Steve as he could. Steve held him close, patient, understanding without a lick of knowledge. He couldn’t know Tony’s guilt for sending his future self to _go_ when he could see in those dark, tired eyes that he’d wanted to _stay_. 

Future Steve hadn’t wanted to run. He could have vanished at any moment and Tony would have been left turning in circles wondering how the hell his Steve was on the ground floor with Laika when, less than a second before, the future version of him had been on the ninety-seventh floor, looking down at him.

There was a metaphor there, he mused, that reality was downstairs and the warped truth he was never meant to see was looking down at him, watching him, waiting for him to make a move. But for all his righteous evasive maneuvers, future Steve could have escaped easily—hell, as soon as he’d passed through the doors first set of doors, he’d been scot-free.

Instead, he’d run, issuing a challenge, _catch me if you can_. And the reward, Tony reflected bitterly, was knowledge. _Answers_.

Future Steve hadn’t wanted to leave. He’d wanted to shake out a niche for himself, to settle down, to stop trying to fix the goddamn _timeline_. 

The sheer monumental nature of that task was breathtaking. Leave it to Steve goddamn Rogers, Tony thought ruefully—hiding under his chin, real and solid and unbearably warm, heart beating steadily, and he lived at least to the late twenty-twenties, and that was something he refused to compromise—to take on the entire fucking _Universe._

Steve wouldn’t lose. He might die, but he’d never surrender.

Tony wondered, absentmindedly and horrifically, just how many times future Steve had already tried.

It felt like betrayal, leaving him to his own strange devices, even though Tony knew, in some cosmic way, he wasn’t _really_ abandoning Steve. That Steve was probably home right now, getting told off six ways from Sunday for fucking with the timeline by his own Avengers. Tony refused to entertain anything less, wishing idly that he could be there to witness the dressing-down. 

They wouldn’t be old, not in fifteen years, not _senior-citizen_ old—Tony shuddered in mock horror at the thought; Steve held him tighter, breathing steadily but wide awake, aware—but they wouldn’t be kids anymore, either. Hell, there was a spiritedness to the present Clint, the oldest of their strange clan, that made him seem ten years younger than he was, tossing the occasional Team Dad joke in Tony’s direction that made Tony flip him off while drinking down a cup of coffee. They were all fresh and golden, now, shiny and new. Tony wanted to see what they looked like when they were older and silver and _more_.

Future Clint would be such a bastard; future Natasha, delightful, as always. Clint would be a crochety old man that they’d all jab playfully at, but Natasha and Tony, they’d age like fine wine. Future Steve had said as much: Tony Stark aged incredibly well. That was comforting, in its own ephemeral way. Like hearing that fall leaves changing colors was spectacular in the middle of summer. It felt like a distant, improbable thing, as if the seasons might not change this time.

Future Bruce would be the same in temper but bedecked with a big, scraggly beard. Future Thor and present Thor would be nearly indistinguishable: he was 1,500 goddamn years old. What was five, twenty, a hundred more?

Tony felt a pang of sorrow for the future Thor, because he _would_ outlive them all, by a long-shot, assuming future Steve didn’t somehow pull off a miracle with the serum and live interminably. Steve was an awfully stubborn bastard, Tony mused. He’d be the kind of person who refused to die if the dishes weren’t washed. Tony wished cosmic dishes for days upon his poor silver fox, who would probably look at him with disapproval and amusement, like he could see Tony’s foolproof logic.

Yes, the future was beautiful. It was kindness that he’d shooed future Steve back to his present timeline. He wished _he_ could see what brave new world created a Steve Rogers who knew what a goddamn _Möbius strip_ was. An _inverted_ Möbius strip. Math was never simple: the difference between a right-side-up and inside-out strip wasn’t insubstantial. It was world-changing.

It was, just maybe, the key to something too grand to name.

But that distinction belonged to them, Tony decided. That of all the constants in the Universe, there was one that stuck:

 _You and me? We’re goddamn invincible_.

He had to believe that. He had to trust that, the one promise future Steve was willing to make.

Not _follow this path_. Not _it’ll end well_.

Just _we’re invincible_.

Tony said suddenly, “I have to tell you something.”

Patient, Steve smoothed his thumb across Tony’s nape and rumbled, “What?”

Tony’s phone buzzed.

He shuffled back to answer it, more out of paranoia that it was another sign from the Universe than a sudden desire to give every solicitor the time of day.

It was Rhodey: _Wish you were here?_

Attached was a picture of a gorgeous white-sand beach. Tony sighed in relief and annoyance as he tapped back, _Fuck you, Rhodes._

Rhodey responded with a smiley face that did not mirror Tony’s scowl as he chucked the phone aside carelessly, confident it wouldn’t break as it hit the floor, startling Laika out of her bed. Crooning—“oh, honey, I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry,” he patted the edge of the bed. She loped over, head low, curious. He clasped it in his hands and assured, “It’s okay.” He pressed a loud kiss to the top of her head, then propositioned Steve, a touch nonsensically, “What if we just moved to Spain?”

“. . . Why?” Steve asked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“Why? Why _not_?” Tony retorted, launching himself to his feet with sudden verve. “Who would see that coming? Nobody. I didn’t. Did you?”

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Steve blinked slowly at him. “What’s goin’ on, Tony?” he asked quietly.

“If I tell you, it’ll change things,” Tony said, waving a hand, pacing. “We gotta be— _unpredictable_. Can’t lean on safe bets, safe bets are off. I never liked the path of least resistance anyway, too many straight lines.” He was babbling, but he couldn’t quite stop himself as he proposed, “You know, we both speak the language, and lightning never strikes twice, right? Let’s go back. To Russia. Fuckin’ Siberia, I don’t care. We have to disappear, where better to go?”

Steve’s whole demeanor changed, darkened. He said firmly, “No.”

Tony nodded: he didn’t want to go back to Siberia ever or even Mother Russia any time soon. Still, he pressed, “We can’t stay here. Staying still is bad. Sharks don’t sleep, right?”

Steve shook his head, not in negation of what he was saying, but in bewilderment. “Tony, what’s—what’s going on?” he asked. “We’re not going back. Remember? We’re. . . .” Clearing his throat, reaching up to scratch the underside of his jaw, he added, “ _I’m_ done. I know it’s taken time,” he added apologetically, a soft sort of hurt entering his expression. “I just—I don’t wanna leave a mess behind. You know? Gotta plug the gap, keep things stable.”

 _You’re helping them dig your own grave_.

It clicked.

“They’re gonna kill you,” Tony blurted.

Steve stared at him for so long that Tony was forced to blink. Then he shook his head. “No.” He offered no defense, just as he’d offered no explanation for his absolution.

( _It wasn’t their fault. Things went sideways. I made it out_.)

Tony repeated with sudden certainty, “They’re gonna kill you. If you try and get out—it’s a done-deal.”

Steve demanded quietly, “Who, Tony? S.H.I.E.L.D.?” He shrugged on a shirt, keeping his distance. “I know you don’t trust ‘em.” He gathered Laika’s leash in his hand. “I get that.” Laika heeled to him, because she always did. Tony wondered if she’d sensed future Steve’s presence. Present Steve crouched and slipped her collar around her neck, leash still in hand—he’d clip it on later, in public, to keep her from loping joyfully off into the great wide city yonder—and showed Tony his back. Tony could imagine a glowing red dot on the back of his head.

Steve straightened and turned towards him. The proverbial red dot held steady, right over the center of his chest. Tony tried to banish it, to meet his gaze, but he couldn’t. He stared at it, knowing it wasn’t real and utterly certain that it was a warning. _Cosmic karma_. Steve wouldn’t accept paranoia, though—he was a goddamn super-soldier, he’d been working for S.H.I.E.L.D. since they’d woken him up and had taken bullets to the teeth—and telling him about his anxiety wouldn’t transfer it. If anything, Steve would trust him _less_ , would box it up as one of Tony’s neuroses. Anger swelled in Tony’s chest as he asked sharply, “Did you send it?”

“Send what?” Steve asked. He held Laika’s leash loosely in hand, but his jaw tensed, firmed until it nearly creaked.

“The final notice. Did you send it?”

Steve frowned, stroking Laika’s head, smoothing down a pointy ear and saying, “Last night.”

Tony felt the solid earth underneath him turn to ice. Edging forward, he said, speaking too rapidly, “We gotta intercept it. Goddammit, Rogers. Don’t you get it? Don’t you _get_ that you are _nothing_ to them? They won’t hesitate.” Steve’s eyes clouded with hurt, his own annoyance, _anger_. He slid the door back. Tony grabbed his shirt, held it tightly. “Don’t go.”

Steve’s shoulders were bunched, but instead of turning around and shutting the door, he slipped out of Tony’s hold, walking towards the elevators. Laika loped along after him, her ears perked alertly upright. She would sense danger, wouldn’t she? How could she follow him if it was the wrong decision?

 _Because she trusts him_. And Steve didn’t know.

Tony felt a bit like a shitty person as he said, “Manual override alpha elevator.”

“Manual override initiated,” J.A.R.V.I.S. responded coolly. The elevator doors stayed open, the red line on the floor that was always blue signaling a full stop.

He stared at the red line, unable to look away from it for a long moment. None of it felt right. He was fucking it up, and he didn’t even know what the original response was.

No: he knew. The original response was inaction. 

The staircase door shut noisily behind them.

Steve moved at a leisurely pace, Laika’s tail wagging as she trotted down the steps after him. Tony looked down at them, leaning against the railing. At last, he called out, “Do you trust me?”

Steve paused. Laika loped ahead until she reached the lower platform, then turned around and returned to his side. Steve turned slowly to look up at him, expression unreadable.

He took one step towards him. Then another. Tony felt some of the shivering anxiety dissolve as Steve retraced his steps towards Tony. Laika followed readily. _She trusts him._

 _He trusts me_.

Steve alighted on the edge of the platform, but Tony didn’t crowd him out, chase him down. If Steve ran, he would never catch him on foot. With his suit, he could in a heartbeat, but he really _would_ run Steve out of his life if he wasn’t careful. They had to be on the same page.

Reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose, trying to ward off a headache, Tony said, “So, you know the first rule about time travel?

“I’m about to break it.”

. o . 

Sitting at the table, looking over the physical copies of the digital reports Steve had already filled out and sent in, Steve shook his head as he thumbed through them. “Nothing,” he muttered, taking another long gulp of his water. Tony had offered him coffee, but Steve had said he wasn’t in the mood, and Tony could see it in the ways his fingers trembled. He felt jittery, himself, but coffee steadied him. Coffee made him alert enough to face any threat from any quarter. “They’re just. . . .” Steve paused, then frowned and slid a sheet in front of him, thumbing a penciled-in number at the top of the page.

_O-802991._

Tony didn’t need to fish out the dog tag strung along his own neck—comfort and security and a promise, all at once—to know that it wasn’t Steve’s. It was close—close enough that, someone who hadn’t already memorized Steve’s serial number, _eight-three-two, his uniform is blue; four-five-six, teach an old dog new tricks—_ and unconsciously, Tony formed a new pneumonic, knowing that this was the message:

 _Eight-zero-two, paired off with blue; nine-nine-one, misdial help on the run_.

Eight-zero-two, paired off with blue. Nine-nine-one, misdial help on the run.

Eight-three-two, his uniform is blue. Four-five-six, teach an old dog new tricks.

Eight-zero-two, paired off with—

“Bucky.”

It was a whisper, barely there. The page crumpled in Steve’s fingers. He hastily released it, smoothing it out like he was afraid to damage the numbers, the memory of them.

Eight-oh-two, paired off with—

 _Best friends since childhood, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes were inseparable on both schoolyard and battlefield_.

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Tony offered, a touch hesitantly, “That’s a hell of a secret handshake.”

And it was: dog tags weren’t recorded outside military files. It wasn’t anywhere in the exhibit. Most soldiers were just numbers, smudged out to obscurity. Even with the commanding _O_ , he wasn’t remembered publicly by his serial number. Even Captain America’s serial number wasn’t to be found in the exhibit. They didn’t have his dog tags, or, Tony knew, with sudden bitter certainty, they’d have put them on a neat little display with an explanation of each number, like a textbook example, nothing more.

Sipping his coffee noisily to distract himself from the unbearable _quiet_ , Tony choked when Clint greeted breezily, “You kids are up early.”

Steve didn’t respond to Clint’s entrance or Tony’s sputtering, staring at the number like it was staring back at him. Getting himself under control, Tony slid his hand across the table, touching his fingertips to the side of Steve’s palm, but Steve didn’t move. He wasn’t even breathing. Tony curled his hand around Steve’s and wondered if he shouldn’t have gotten rid of the papers, because they were just printed copies, not the electronic files with Steve’s serial number damningly stamped on them.

To intercept _those_ papers, he’d sicced J.A.R.V.I.S. on S.H.I.E.L.D. 

The AI, uncharacteristically _totally_ occupied, was heroically flooding S.H.I.E.L.D.’s servers with a little under ten thousand terabytes of junk data. When the best servers of the day could handle about 100 terabytes in full, the Noachian flood was enough to bring even the most robust systems to their knees, quaking under a mountain of meaningless inputs.

Last he’d checked, the transmission was less than 0.00000001% complete. It would have been hilarious to watch the glacial progress if he wasn’t so anxious to make sure that S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn’t somehow absorb the attack and keep going like business-as-usual.

Even at the unimaginably prodigious rate of ten teras per second, it would take over 30,000 years to send the whole package. The point wasn’t to burn out his own systems by _actually_ creating and sending quintillions of bytes of data: it was to brute-force any server into submission with the lie.

So far, so good.

He’d named it the J.E.T. protocol, for Junk Electronic Transmission (J.A.R.V.I.S. had vetoed his somewhat morbid alternative, E.M.O., for _End Me, Overseer_ ). He’d set up different levels of input, one for unencrypted emails that was so subtle it wouldn’t make the twitchy tech-nuts at Google flinch, others sophisticated enough to shut down whole governments for a time. 

J.E.T.-3 wouldn’t _nuke_ S.H.I.E.L.D.’s data, but it would guarantee a power outage while all systems were rebooted under a hard lock that would not accept any new transmissions. All field operations would be suspended; time-sensitive missions would be carried out the old-fashioned way or abandoned. A couple hundred thousand lower-ranking employees wouldn’t be able to access their emails. 

It would, in short, be a very unpleasant Tuesday for S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, but it would keep the higher-ups fuming and trying to get things back under control and _not_ sending out kill orders.

He’d bought them a few hours, at least. Fury would nail him to a wall for causing unjustifiable mayhem, but the J.E.T. protocol was untraceable. Even a quantum computer would pant trying to retrace the looping network of empty doors and errors that he’d built into it. It was a work of genius. If hacking was Nobel Prize worthy, he’d been a shoo-in for the next awards.

But that was beside the point.

Sliding his palm into Steve’s hand, he yelped in alarm more than anything as Steve clamped down like a _vice_.

Tony wrenched his arm back in an instinctive bid to free his hand. _T_ _hat_ made pain arc, white-hot and indescribable, from his fingertips to his shoulder.

He wasn’t sure how he escaped, but one moment his hand was still caught in a bear trap, the next he was holding his right hand tightly against his chest. In dazed amazement, he watched Clint, who had ripped Steve away from the table hard enough to tip the chair over. 

Lying on his back on the floor, Steve didn’t move. Laika barked under Tony’s chair and Tony jolted in surprise, which made needles jab into the meat of his palm. He gritted his teeth hard to stifle a cry of pain. 

If he acknowledged it, it would hurt more, he thought, a touch hysterically. He was afraid to even look at his hand, afraid he would find nothing more than splinters in skin.

Clint didn’t engage Steve, didn’t even touch him, but he hovered between them, saying in a low voice, “Go sit over there, Stark.”

Tony wasn’t sure he could stand. He stood, fumbling his chair back. Slowly, Steve pushed himself up onto his arms. Clint caught Laika by the leash as she darted over, telling her, “ _Hah_ , back.” She tugged, but he didn’t relent. 

Tony forced himself to say, “ _Laika_.”

She turned and Clint let her go so she could lope over to Tony, who snatched her collar in his working hand, his other still held tight to his chest, not quite out of sight. Fuck, it hurt. He could see blue bruising staining the edge of his palm, visible in his periphery. Half-limping, half-dragging Laika over to the couch, he sat and kept a firm grip on her collar.

Tony’s phone rang. He wanted to laugh because he had no free hands to speak of. He really should create a system where he could answer without needing to thumb a button on his wrist or fish his actual StarkPhone out of his pocket, but the unstoppable tremor in his hand, rattling hot splinters, was thoroughly distracting. He let the phone ring.

J.A.R.V.I.S., he thought vaguely, would have announced the caller if he wasn’t occupied, but even his technological wonder could only do so many things at once. It was either full-steam-ahead with the J.E.T. protocol or a pause to announce a social call.

Oh, hell, his hand hurt, jostling when Laika whined and surged forward, tugging at his free hand. He told her sharply, “Stay.” For good measure, he barked, “ _Ostat'sya!_ ”

She barked again, but she didn’t tug at his arm a second time. She was strong enough that, in his cold-fingered grasp, he had no doubt she _could_ have broken free. She didn’t.

He didn’t know how much time passed—it seemed to be measured in the heartbeats in his hand, pulses of pain, stronger with each passing moment, like his nerves were only registering the door he’d slammed on them, the startling moment of surprise followed by the howl of agony. Except it wasn’t a door he’d slammed on them. The pervasive agony wasn’t going to relent any time soon. Tony closed his eyes, trying to find steadiness, but that only made him dizzy. Opening his eyes again made him dizzy, too. He breathed in, whining thinly through his nose.

He dared to look down.

His right hand still _looked_ like a hand, but where his pinky finger connected to his palm, there was a noticeable displacement.

With morbid curiosity, he tried to flex the finger and promptly dropped through the floor.

He came to still on the couch, completely disoriented, bright morning light nearly indistinguishable from mid-afternoon light. Had it been minutes or hours? He didn’t know, but he was fumbling unconsciously for his vibrating phone, his left hand no longer holding onto something. His right hand, he didn’t move at all, pressed tightly to his chest. He fished his phone out awkwardly with his left hand, saw, FURY and thumbed the bar to answer. “You have reached the life model decoy of Tony Stark,” he recited dutifully. “Don’t leave a message.”

“ _What the goddamn_ hell _do you think you’re doing?_ ” Fury thundered. “ _Do you have any idea how much damage you've done? How many lives you have put in danger? Our reboot systems are fried, our main systems won’t be operational for days! You have compromised our global security, and for_ what? _Th_ _is isn’t the goddamn time or place for a prank. You call off that fucking robot or I swear to God, Stark, I will haul your ass before a tribunal and nail you to a wall_.”

Tony listened to the buzz passively, even though Fury’s voice carried across the room. Finally, Tony deadpanned, “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” and promptly hung up. For good measure, he activated the _Do Not Disturb_ setting. Dropping the phone, he exhaled harshly. His right hand _throbbed_.

“What _did_ you do?” Clint called incredulously, a touch of admiration and exasperation in his tone. Tony looked over at him slowly, saw him again holding Laika’s collar. He wondered if it had been hours or minutes, seconds or years, as Steve shuffled on the floor, little abortive movements to stand. 

Tony wanted to help him, to grab his shoulder and haul him up. He would grumble good-naturedly about how Steve was lucky that Tony was as virile and strong as he was or he wouldn’t be able to lift Steve's heavy ass. Steve would huff and take nearly all of his own weight anyway, retorting, _I had a big breakfast_ when Tony knew for a fact that all he’d had was a coffee.

That was another time, another place, distant, removed from reality. Reality was Clint holding Laika’s collar, watching Steve plant a hand on the floor and push himself upright slowly. Clint didn’t let Laika go, even as she surged towards Steve again. Tony rocked onto his feet, lurched over to them. Steve rasped, “Barton.”

Clint let Laika loose. Immediately, she bounded forward, nearly bowling Steve over. He wrapped a steadying arm around her shoulders. Tony knew that he could crush her, but he wouldn’t, not consciously, never consciously. Tony’s hand throbbed anew as he took another step towards them.

Clint was next to him, then, saying, “You’re all right.” Tony wanted to laugh at that, because he was decidedly _not_ all right. They couldn’t afford to deal with the not-all-right-ness because they only had hours—Fury’s pessimistic report would only spur his techies to throw themselves into the task of hard-stopping and hard-resetting the systems, getting things back online ASAP. As loathe as Tony was to admit it, S.H.I.E.L.D. was packed to the gills with talent. Somebody would earn a promotion tonight by doing the impossible in six hours.

They didn’t have time to deal with anything. He breathed in through his mouth and said shortly, “I’m fine. Just need a glass of water,” he decided, because maybe he would feel less shaky with one. Less like he was going to throw up or curl up into a ball and cry, because he didn’t want to know the future, he didn’t have time to act, he could probably sink S.H.I.E.L.D.’s network if he had to, activate J.E.T.-1 and let the world burn, but Fury was right.

Lives were at risk. He was responsible for them. If anyone died in the next twelve hours—well, he knew, logically, it wasn’t his fault. But it might have been. It would always seem like his fault.

 _Action, inaction_.

He could feel future Steve’s gaze on him, watching him, _judging_ him. He hated it. It was purely a contrivance—Steve wouldn’t judge him, might even _pity_ him, and that was worse—but it still made him feel a certain kind of calm as he cleared his throat and said conversationally, “This is a goddamn bitch of a Tuesday morning.”

Steve said, in a raw sort of voice, “Oh, God, Tony.”

With more bite than he intended, Tony replied, “I’m fine.” He wanted to wrap his hand, but he was afraid to even touch it, to move it an inch, keeping it against his chest instead. “It’s fine,” he added, feeling Clint’s hand grip his shoulder more firmly as he swayed. “Guilt later, _doing_ now.” They couldn’t afford this, not this delay, not this _error_. He realized, all at once, just how daunting fourteen million to nine odds were.

 _This is a fatal mistake_.

He tried to brush the thought aside, knew he was being paranoid, twitchy about it, but unable to help it, feeling like he could see dots on all of them, ready to fire. There were no red dots, no one was in any real danger—no one except the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in the field, operating in the dark, and he told himself, _They have_ _contingencies, fallbacks_ , but it didn’t make him feel better—but he felt the air of uncertainty.

Steve let go of Laika and stood up. Clint didn’t move aside. It wasn’t even a contest, push-come-to-shove—Tony knew, as much as Clint did, that Steve could force him aside—but Steve didn’t fight him, just looked down at his own hands, then at the papers, and finally at Tony.

He said, “I don’t know what. . . .” He paused, then added in a passable approximation of his normal voice, “I’ll get Bruce.”

“Cap.” One word from Clint and Steve faltered, looking hunted, unsure.

“No,” Steve agreed suddenly, nodding to himself. “You’re right. You need a, an actual doctor.” He looked at Tony as he said it, then added slowly, “I’ll take care of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Sounds like they’re having a goddamn bitch of a Tuesday morning,” Clint said, the only equilibrium in the room.

Steve didn’t smile. He looked at Tony’s hand. “It’s _fine_ ,” Tony snapped, a surge of anger pushing down the pain.

God, he couldn’t stand it, the sadness in those eyes, deep dark blue, like it was already over, like he’d failed the first step, but no. _No_.

_We don’t give up. We don’t surrender._

_We don’t lose this time_.

Stepping forward—Clint’s hand fell from his shoulder readily, not restraining, just supporting—Tony grabbed Steve’s left hand with his own and squeezed it. “You’re not going to fucking S.H.I.E.L.D.,” he said forcefully, letting go. “I didn’t sic J.A.R.V. on them for you to go in waving a peace flag.” He poked him in the chest, trying to diffuse the anger sizzling under his skin, but it came out of him anyway, a furious bite to his voice as he added, “I’ll let you know when I start blaming you for all this, but right now? I don’t. I need you with me. I need to get those damn files and burn them, then work on the rest.”

As if on cue, another phone rang. This time, it was Clint pulling it out of his pocket, Fury’s fuming face visible on the screen. “Good morning, sir,” Clint greeted cordially.

“ _Where is Stark?_ ” Fury boomed, his voice as riled up as his namesake. “ _I do not have time for games_.”

Clint replied, “I’ll pass the message along,” and then, “I’ll be there soon, sir.” He hung up. Smirking, he told Tony, “Fury wants to talk to you.”

Tony made a disgusted sound, then coughed, a hiccup that lingered painfully close to sobbing territory slipping past him as it carried on, God Almighty, he had to get a grip on himself. It helped when Steve stepped forward, closing his arms around him, careful not to hold him too close, arms wrapped around his back like a place to lean. Tony leaned against them gratefully, right hand still pinned to his chest, eyes on Steve’s, unblinking. “I need you with me,” Tony repeated softly, too honestly.

Steve, though, just said, “Then that’s where I’ll be.”

Leaning his forehead against Steve’s shoulder, not caring at all that Barton was there, Tony promised, “We’re gonna win.”

Steve made an uncertain noise but didn’t let him go. Tony wondered if he knew, in the same way Tony knew wrong moves lurked everywhere, if Steve knew the trials of his future self, if he could sense all the ways they wouldn’t win.

“We’re gonna win,” he echoed.

It wasn’t victory—was a damn far cry from it; Tony felt sick to his stomach at the splintering pain in his hand, demanding attention, demanding something other than agony—but it was a start.

Clint asked, a touch lightly, “We pickin’ teams? ‘Cause I call Cap.”

Tony made a disgruntled little noise, but he felt something loosen in his chest, grateful for the emotional reprieve, as he told Clint dryly, “Fuck off, Bird-Man. I got dibs.”

Steve cocked his head: _D_ _ibs?_

There was a beat. Then Clint asked, “You think the power outage affected the bird?”

“Not an outage,” Tony elaborated, keeping his right hand very still against his chest. It hurt like hell, but it was a bearable hell if he didn’t move it at all. “Just a system overload.”

There was a beat, then Clint pointed out, “You know, if you overload the matrix, the whole system might just crash, right?”

Another long pause lingered between them. 

The door slid back near the far side of the room. Bruce greeted, “Oh. I miss family meeting time?”

With scarcely a pause, Tony reached proprietarily for Steve’s right hand, awkward with his left but still intuitive as he pushed back the sleeve and checked the watch—mostly assuring himself it was _there_ ; he refused to take it personally that future Steve wasn’t wearing it, better-safe-than-sorry—announcing, “Family meeting time is at nine-eighty.”

Bruce nodded, said, “That’s what I thought,” and bumbled over to the kitchen. He paused, then looked at them and added, “That’s not a real—” before he cut himself off with a disbelieving, “ _Tony_.”

His phone rang, and he was already walking towards Tony and pawing around for it. He pulled it out and announced with a frown, “What does Fury want at—?” 

Clint snatched the phone and ended the call. 

“Hey,” Bruce pouted. “I don’t answer _your_ phone.”

Clint shrugged, casually switching Bruce’s phone to silent and passing it back. “Ignore ‘em.”

“Why?” Bruce asked.

The phone lit up with another call. Clint looked at Tony, who dropped Steve’s arm and waved his hand.

Click. 

“ _Banner? Where the hell is Stark?_ ” 

Clint hung up without a word.

Bruce said, “That kind of morning, huh?”

Clint laughed, handing him his phone and saying, “Best kind. I’m gonna get Nat.”

Bruce crowded closer, his alarm nearly palpable as he said, “Geez, Tony, what—?”

“I smashed it in the door,” Tony deadpanned, holding onto Steve’s shirt with his left hand so he wouldn’t wander off to stand in a corner in atonement for his crimes. _Guilt later. Doing now_. “We’ve got bandages, right? Bet I could get my hands on some morphine. That’s all you need: bandages and analgesics.”

“X-rays,” Bruce countered immediately, reaching for his hand and then retracting it when Tony flinched. The door slid back as Clint exited. Bruce asked in a low voice, “Tony, what happened?”

“Bruce,” Steve said softly. Bruce closed his eyes, comprehension flooding his face.

“Oh.” A beat. “Well.” With a careless shrug, Bruce offered, “Actually, one time, the other guy—” He paused, then concluded, “You know what? Not the time.” He reached for Tony’s wrist and Tony tensed but let him hold it, taking the weight off it. That was kind of him. 

Wondering dryly when the appropriate time to bond over mutually maiming friends _was_ , Tony declared, “I don’t need a doctor, I need a bottle of bourbon and a box of _Star Wars_ bandages.” He nodded at his hand, still in Bruce’s hold, frowning when Steve slipped out of reach, but he just crouched nearby and rubbed Laika’s shoulders, tilting his head down when she tried to lick his face. “Have I shown you my _Star Wars_ bandage collection? It’s extensive.”

“Tony,” Bruce entreated.

Tony twitched his right hand to snap his fingers with playful command, but the movement was blindingly painful. He swallowed hard as he shook in place, curling his hand back to his chest. Covered in a cold sweat, he acknowledged a touch unsteadily, “Okay, maybe _two_ bottles of bourbon.” 

Steve rested a steadying hand on the small of his back, looking at Bruce. Tony knew he was already fucked before Natasha chimed in, “That kind of morning, huh?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Russian translations, in chronological order:  
>  _Ostat'sya._ \- Stay.


	37. SHATTERED

_Broken_ was a paper airplane with a crumpled nose, a bucket with a missing handle, a flightless bird with a crooked wing.

Tony’s hand was not broken: it was shattered.

F.R.I.D.A.Y., his Female Replacement Intelligent Digital Assistant Youth—work-in-progress—stated calmly, “It requires medical attention.”

Taking another long gulp of a raw bourbon he kept for such special occasions as this, Tony parroted, “ _It requires medical—_ ”

“ _Tony_ ,” Bruce cut in, compassionate but aghast. He stepped forward and made another unsuccessful bid to swipe the bottle from him, but Tony held it out of reach with a sneer. He flipped him off with the same hand, pressing his middle finger against the bottle. “Tony, you can’t mix alcohol with—”

“What? Painkillers?” Tony scowled, taking a hard seat on a lab chair before he could collapse cold. “Anesthetics? Fuck off.” A small earthquake seemed to tremble under his skin him, but no one else seemed to notice it. Not even Steve, the super-soldier, who noticed everything.

Steve had banished himself to a ten-foot radius, assuming that Bruce, who was hovering over Tony like a twitchy mother hen, could handle the situation. Lost in his own world, Steve stared at the scan’s readouts with the sort of dull disbelief that made Tony think of lost battles.

 _Give ground. Give way. It’s over_.

Pointing his jug accusingly at Steve, Tony called out, “Hey, Rogers, call off the dogs for me, will you?”

Standing opposite Steve, sparing a glance at Tony, Natasha said firmly, “Knock it off, Stark.”

Tony snarled at her, too, but he repressed the urge to flip the bird her way, because she was a lady, and that would be crass. Instead, he tossed back another gulp of bourbon that burned the whole way down. It was mean stuff. Usually, he allotted himself just a couple gulps to get over milder pains, but those sips had proven insufficient to dull the unbridled agony in his hand. His options had been laid out, drink or die—drink or collapse into a pathetic heap of flinching misery, which was somehow worse than the prospect of slipping away entirely—and so he drank.

At least his hand didn’t hurt as much, now. It felt hot as hell, but it lacked the walking-on-glass tenderness that had made it so hard to breathe before. If it healed the way it was, he knew, he’d never use it again. It was a miracle that he could twitch it at all, feeble, useless efforts where strong, fluid movements should have been. Hands were stupidly intricate, he thought dourly, settling his bottle on the floor. They required a careful touch. And so, with careless aplomb, he used his left hand to try to straighten his bent pinky finger on his right.

That was a mistake on both fronts. Firstly, because Bruce snatched the bottle. And secondly, because he did not succeed in arighting his finger, and he did _not_ black out.

Bright-light pain washed over him and he howled, crumpling over his hand as an electric shock surged from the base of his finger to his shoulder. Shaking uncontrollably, he tried desperately to get his breathing back under control. God, had he fried the arc reactor? Could he even _do_ that? Fear compelled him to grasp the casing with his left hand, tightly caging the metal while his right hand shook and throbbed and burned like scalded water.

Muffled sounds of a conversation reached him. Disoriented by the blow, he could not rise above the still waters of halfway-consciousness, listening from behind a liquid wall to disembodied voices, gaze fixed on his knees. He wanted to tell all of them to get out, to leave him be, to let him suffer in quiet as he had always done. They didn’t understand that that was how he _handled_ problems. He didn’t need their sympathy nor want their attention. Just because _they_ were all super—super-soldier, super-spy, super- _hulk—_ didn’t mean _he_ was a weak link, one to be coddled and goggled and sent away when proven too mortal.

He wasn’t weak. He drew in a deep breath, but he couldn’t make himself straighten. Even the prospect of moving drew a thin moan from his lips, drooling a little, utterly uncaring. A dull sheen of sweat glazed his forehead. If he was to collapse into a stupor, then he could ignore the indignity of spittle. Hell, if he had the motor control, he would spit at their feet, order them to get out. But he could barely draw in one shaky breath after another.

The muffled voices agitated briefly, then quieted suddenly. Tony felt the air displace as someone stepped closer to him. More reflex than conscious thought, he flinched, huddling inward, desperate to be left alone. _Don’t touch me, don’t touch me_ , he chanted silently. The person got the message and retreated. He didn’t need to look to know who it was. It had to be Steve. He wouldn’t mind being a pathetic, trembling mess against his shoulder, but he could not make himself uncurl. He could only hunch further inward, a thin whine of pain slipping past his lips before he could stop it.

Oh, God, he couldn’t do this. All at once, it seemed enormous, unbearable, the searing shock of pain in his right hand. If left alone, it would not heal. If left alone, it would be as good as dead to him. He had to do what F.R.I.D.A.Y. said. He knew he had to _seek medical attention_. But there wasn’t time, not with S.H.I.E.L.D. actively working on disabling J.A.R.V.I.S.’ relentless cyber deluge. Every second that ticked by was a second wasted, a second that could have been spent making his own plan-of-attack to retrieve those files. 

And then what? he thought despairingly. Retrieve the files and send Steve back to work as if nothing had ever happened? Was that what the future Steve had wanted him to do all along? Business as usual? It seemed cruel that after everything they’d been through, their only option to avoid catastrophe was to return to a semblance of normalcy. Normalcy that had nearly killed Steve in less than a month, that had driven him to its own sort of madness in the raw, futile effort to save humanity from itself. It was a job too big for one person.

Saving the future was a job too big for one person, even the illustrious, indomitable Tony Stark.

But he had to try.

Swallowing hard, he managed to uncurl enough to make himself nauseous. Someone was kind enough to thrust a trash bin in front of him so he could wretch miserably into it, gagging on the same poison he’d swallowed to extinguish reality. That was what he’d wanted, above all else: an escape from reality. But there was nowhere to run.

Spitting into the basin, he set it down on the floor, folded nearly in half, right hand held protectively to his chest. It hurt terribly and he knew exactly why. Having seen the crude images, three-dimensional drawings of statistical guesswork based on surficial anomalies, he had forgotten for a short time that there was even a world outside the lab. Horror had scarcely described the feeling in his chest. To make matters worse, the images were actually _better_ than the reality. He needed proper X-rays to know exactly how fucked he was, but what he already knew was damning.

There was no noninvasive repair on the planet that could fix it.

Moaning in despair, he heard talking nearby, but the ringing in his ears was too loud to parcel out words.

A hand settled lightly on his shoulder. Rubbing, gentle up and down strokes that seemed to make the anguish more bearable, the humility and horror of it all less real. He could feel the warmth of Steve’s palm through his shirt, recognized the exceeding care he used, not the same comforting firmness that Tony loved but the kind of reverent touch reserved for a work of art, something fragile. Something made of glass.

He couldn’t bring himself to snap at him that he wasn’t _breakable_. It felt good. The relief, however ephemeral, was too sweet to surrender. Even for his pride, even for the sake of argument. He let their meaningless conversation drift over his head, focusing instead on Steve’s hand sweeping from shoulder blade to center and back again. There was nothing presumptuous or demanding about it. It was comfort offered, and Tony leaned into it.

But there wasn’t—fuck, there wasn’t _time_ for this.

S.H.I.E.L.D. was actively undoing his mayhem. Fury would prosecute him the moment he had the situation under control. Tony didn’t care—he defied S.H.I.E.L.D. to take him on, felt something like cold surety settle into his chest at the thought, that he had crossed a line that couldn’t be retracted—and he drew in a steadying breath, then another, the pain in his hand amorphous, untraceable at rest, catastrophic when he flexed and shards of bone shifted.

It was, he reflected dully, not unlike the little metal shards embedded in the tissue and bone of and around his heart. What most people didn’t know was that he was not awaiting catastrophe: it was already at his doorstep. Without the arc reactor’s magnet to keep pressure on the shards, they would shift with every heartbeat. 

They were too unstable to stay in place; they were too chaotic to remove without risking a catastrophic bleed. They didn’t need to migrate to his heart to cause trouble because they were already _there_ , like knives embedded in flesh, waiting for the moment when false muscles of magnetism failed to hold them and his own beating heart drove him to a swift and unpleasant death.

The thought of a little arc reactor, like the repulsor on the Iron Man hand, carved out of his palm almost made him laugh. It was the most desperate measure he could imagine, a sick solution to a mortal problem, like keeping a heart in a jar. He knew Yinsen had done it out of _compassion_ , like some kind of nightmarish good Samaritan, but given the choice, Tony would have chosen death over torture. He would have said, _Let me die_ , before _do your best_. Some broken things were unfixable.

Lifting his right hand off his chest, trembling and sending little knives of pain through every bleed point, he stared at it. He wouldn’t die if he didn’t attend to it, unlike the shrapnel problem. His own bones wouldn’t kill him. He didn’t _have_ to fix it. He couldn’t risk it: the arc reactor and the magnet it powered were far too unstable as it was. If palladium wasn’t the most reliable fuel he could find, he would have been dead from a glitch years ago. 

One glitch, and he’d lose even more ground, ground he couldn’t afford to lose. Obie’s party trick had already cost him dearly, made him paranoid in more ways than one as his pounding heart seemed to rattle with metal. One stupid mistake, and the quality of the rest of his life would diminish, if not disappear entirely.

No. It was too risky to repair. Cold logic said he could lose his hand, but he couldn’t lose his heart. He couldn’t even afford a fractional margin of error, something going a _little_ wrong. Besides: anesthesia was out of the question. It wasn’t just his own paranoia: it was the very real problem that anesthesia slowed the heart rate. That kind of difference wasn’t accounted for within the narrow normal range the arc reactor could handle. If his heart beat too fast, catastrophe. Too slow, catastrophe. Normal values were fine, but trying to weaken the magnet wasn’t like revving down a _car_ : it meant removing part of the magnet, coring the source. The thought made him shiver, the hand on the back of his shoulder stilling for a moment.

No. 

Nope.

Not an option. Not even a _question_.

He felt strangely calm as he announced, “That’s that, then.” Conviction gave him clarity, slowed his heart, made the pain sharper but his resolve stronger: “That’s that.” He uncurled slowly. There were stars in his vision, the pain still a mean thing, like he’d never freed his hand from the bear trap, caught between metal teeth, but he felt steadier as he added, “Where to? What next?”

F.R.I.D.A.Y. chimed in helpfully, “Your hand requires medical attention, sir.”

Tony nodded indulgently. “You heard the lady,” he directed at Bruce, who seemed almost a specter, slightly blurry in his vision. “I’ve got wraps in the cabinet, top left.” He nodded towards the far wall, sitting up straighter and flexing his left hand, yearning to do the same for his right but not daring. Steve’s hand had disappeared. Turning to try and spot him made Tony dizzy, so he leaned back against the chair instead.

Imperiously, Tony announced, “Fury’s gonna send a lackey. Probably Coulson.” He paused, then snickered. He explained, “Be like him, wouldn’t it? Couldn’t let the man _die_ if he had a message for him to deliver.” He let out a laugh. It was like crying, but without the embarrassment of tears: it helped to purge some of the nervous energy, made it easy to add, “I wouldn’t be surprised, he’d dig up the fucker’s grave if he thought there was still something to pawn.”

“Jesus, Tony,” Bruce said, returning and looking deeply at odds with himself, holding the bandages out of reach. “This is a stopgap,” he said seriously.

Tony sneered at him, not bothering to smooth down his own feathers. Let them see his anger, his annoyance. “Fuck you.” He held out his left hand and ordered, “Don’t make me make you. I can; I _will_.”

Bruce didn’t ask how. 

He didn’t know that F.R.I.D.A.Y. couldn’t control a suit on her own. She was J.A.R.V.I.S.’ backup: more advanced than the nonverbal A.L.T.A.I.—A Limited Toolkit Artificial Intelligence—program he’d thrown together for Rhodey’s suit but far less advanced than the decade’s worth of fine-tuning that he’d put into J.A.R.V.I.S. F.R.I.D.A.Y. was his rainy-day AI: he knew he really needed to work on making it up to his standard, but too often he found himself indulging his desire to spend time with the nearly-human J.A.R.V.I.S. instead.

J.A.R.V.I.S. had passed the Turing test, a standard by which humans could distinguish robots from other humans. In some ways, he seemed even more human than most, compassionate and clever and considerate. He would probably have an interesting solution to the problem, but if Tony dared to order him to abandon J.E.T. and check-in, he’d risk S.H.I.E.L.D. swooping in with their hard reset. That was it. No amount of banging on a nonexistent door would make it open.

Bruce handed him the roll. It was victory that tasted like defeat. That was the sour taste in his mouth, actually. He grimaced, gripping the roll tightly in one hand. Standing, he didn’t wobble, even if the room felt unsteady. He felt something cold and dark burn in his chest, something dangerously close to _get out_ , but he repressed it. Until he saw Steve, standing off to one side looking oh so _guilty_. He said shortly, “Stop it.”

Natasha interjected, again calmly, “Stark.”

Tony ignored her completely, straightening his shoulders, glaring at Steve. He pointed the roll of gauze at him, refusing to make the same mistake twice by setting it aside. “I don’t have time for this. You’re Captain America. I don’t need you like this. I need you to focus on the mission. You love that, don’t you?” He flicked the roll of gauze at him. Steve caught it without blinking. “Here. New mission.”

Steve looked at him, then shook his head. The same hunted look was back. He husked out, “No.”

Tony took a step towards him. “No?” he repeated dangerously. “That your final answer?”

Steve looked between Tony, then Natasha, Bruce, Tony again. Then he straightened his own righteous shoulders and said firmly, “No.” He paused, then steeled himself to say, “We’re not gonna do this. It ain’t right.” He firmed his jaw and said with every ounce of Captain America conviction behind it, “S.H.I.E.L.D. can wait. Barton’s got it under control. You need a doctor.”

“No, _you_ need it,” Tony retorted, standing outside arm’s reach. “That’s it, isn’t it? You broke it, you gotta fix it?” He held up his right hand, a splash of black down the center, four of the five fingers almost perfect but every little tremble revealing that it was a _goner_. “You can’t fix this,” he bit out savagely. “I won’t let you. Got that? You don’t _get_ to fix this.”

Steve didn’t back down, his gaze hard, his tone firmer. “I know you’re in a lot of pain,” he said quietly, like he didn’t want the others to hear. “I get that. But this ain’t—this isn’t right.” He cleared his throat, faltered suddenly, looking again at the others, then at Tony. A touch imploringly, he said, “Let’s do the right thing here. I know I—I hurt you. Let’s get it taken care of, then you can tell me about it.”

Tony said, “Try. Make me.” He stepped provocatively closer. Steve could have hooked his sleeve and held him like a fish on a line, inescapable. He had a free hand and everything. He had _super-soldier_ reflexes. The reminder made Tony angrier, that what could have been almost too fast for him to follow was glacially slow for Steve. He had all the time in the fucking world. Swiping the gauze from a yielding hand, Tony told him caustically, “Good move.”

Then he turned, back to Steve, then said, “J.A.R.V.I.S.? Deactivate J.E.T.-3, override 295.”

A crisp, familiar AI responded, “J.E.T.-3 protocol deactivated.”

“Rest of you?” He stalked towards the opposite end of the lab, putting distance between them. “Get the fuck out.”

Bruce alone lingered. Tony took an insidious pleasure at the way Steve folded, bolting—ostensibly to handle the crisis Tony had forced on his shoulders, _I’m not fixing your broken_ , but far more arguably because he couldn’t stand it, being _second-in-command_ , being forced to back down, but it wasn’t true, none of it. He knew in the corner of his mind not flooded with crossed signals that Steve wasn’t bitter like that, that he didn’t care if Tony decided to be the new Captain of the Avengers. He left because Tony told them to. Natasha followed without a word.

And then there was Bruce.

“Tony,” he began, still in the same quiet tone as before. Not placating—Tony might have shocked him with his handy metal screwdriver sitting on the table if he’d so much as _implied_ compassion—but anguish. “Tony.” He didn’t seem to know what else to say. “What happened?” he decided at last.

Tony didn’t look at him, instead telling J.A.R.V.I.S., “I shouldn’t need to tell you that if anyone overrides Alpha 410 again, I’m disabling you.”

“. . . Understood, sir.” There was nothing but crisp obedience. Not out-of-breath exhaustion, as if the real man had been hounding S.H.I.E.L.D. J.A.R.V.I.S. was an artificial construct, not-real as they came. It didn’t get tired. It didn’t even care about him: it only followed the algorithms he designed. It was painstaking, how manufactured the AI was. Even the hint of dread Tony perceived in its tone was manufactured, designed when he said something to the effect of _I’ll kill you_. It was manufactured dread.

God, he was a monster.

To Bruce, he said, “Get out.”

Bruce was quiet for so long Tony expected the sound of the door sliding back to answer him. Then, in the same defeated voice, Bruce said, “Let me wrap your hand. Okay? Then I’ll go.”

Tony considered telling him to fuck off. But he couldn’t wrap it on his own, not really.

So, he turned to him, nodded at the bottle in Bruce’s hand, and said, “Give me that, first.”

Bruce did. Tony drained it, chasing away the terrible taste in his mouth. He barely felt it when Bruce covered his black-and-blue hand in white gauze.

Sterile. Hidden.

Fixed, he thought, rinsing out his mouth in a sink. Charitably, he offered, “If you don’t get in my way, you can stay.”

Bruce sat in a chair, looking wrung out and defeated. Tony let him stay. 

. o .

Director Nicholas J. Fury was nearly apoplectic when Captain America finally showed up.

Standing along the back wall in the crisis room, Nick growled at him, “I needed you here two hours ago.”

Uniformed but shield-less, Rogers looked at him with vague annoyance, assuring coolly, “I know. Came as soon as I could. Sir.” With a nod at the computers, in the middle of their hard-reboot, he added, “Agent Barton got me up to speed. Where are we at with the reboot?”

“Less than five minutes till we’re back on the grid,” Commander Hill chimed in, still under the desk reconnecting cables. The best way to hard reset, Nick knew, was to kill the machine. Hill had jumped to the same conclusion nearly as soon as he had. She’d shoved a techie out of his chair, got down on the ground, and started yanking cables out to get the situation under control. As a result, her monitor was coming online, while the rest of the room remained mostly dark. 

A sluggish cascade rippled around the room as other, belatedly disconnected computers sparked back to life. Soon, they’d be back online and able to assess damage. But the fight wasn’t over yet, not until they had their attacker locked down.

Looking at Captain America, stiff-backed as ever, Nick ordered, “Walk with me.” To Hill, he added sternly, “We’re Cold-Blue until I give the all-clear. No incoming messages until I have Stark in front of me. Got it?”

“Understood, sir,” Hill said, emerging from under the desk and offering him a terse smile. “Good luck,” she added.

He let out a growl of a sound, too pissed off to find it funny, walking towards the door, Rogers on his heels. He was already loathing the prospect of chasing down the goddamn weasel that had compromised the world’s premier spy organization in less than thirty seconds. Stark’s transmission had to be off the charts, because they already _had_ emergency countermeasures for precisely these kinds of cyber-attacks. S.H.I.E.L.D. was no stranger to a good old-fashioned brute-force infiltration: they fielded thousands of attacks a year. But even the most sadistic ones only knocked _individual_ systems offline.

In forty-seven years, S.H.I.E.L.D. had never gone completely dark.

According to the clock on the wall, they’d been Cold-Black for 138 minutes.

It was supposed to be impossible.

Stalking past scrambling techies, Nick refused to pin the tail on them. They had rightly reassured him that the only way to completely overwhelm the enormously intricate network was to drown it in signals, which was impossible, because no organization on the planet had enough data to swamp them out like that—hell, the combined power of _every_ intelligence organization on the planet shouldn’t have been enough to create a digital flood of that magnitude.

They were in big trouble. Assuming the systems came on after being Cold-Blacked, there was a real chance that viruses had been sent along with the transmission to damage or eliminate anything caught up in the wave. If the attack was truly benign, they would be fine and able to chalk the incident up as a stellar practice exercise, but if there were any surprises waiting for them, the damage could be irrecoverable, the whole organization at risk of collapse.

The World Security Council was going to have his head for this, Nick knew, stepping into an elevator. Rogers followed placidly, not offering a word of protest. Nick appreciated that about him: military guys were good listeners when they weren’t arguing with their superiors, which was why S.H.I.E.L.D. ran flawlessly as a military organization. It was a system of trust, communication, and good leadership.

Friendly or not, he needed to get Stark in front of him, _now_. He had to figure out how he had _that much_ power at his disposal. More importantly, he needed to pull the plug. If necessary, he would unleash his own considerable political resources on the man. It wouldn’t be hard to persuade them of the danger: the man who could, on a whim, launch a cyber-attack that could sink the unsinkable ship could as easily target the Department of Defense or other interested parties.

Stark better have a damn good explanation waiting for him, Nick thought.

Impatient, he said, “Why?”

Rogers replied, a touch disingenuously, “I don’t know.”

Nick waited until the elevator stopped at his floor, till he marched down the hall, till the door to his office slid shut behind Rogers, before he announced with dangerous calm, “I don’t think you _want_ to know how much trouble we’re in, Captain. Given our relationship with the DoD, this sort of behavior is a very fine line between felonious and treasonous.”

Standing at parade rest, Rogers replied, “I’ll talk to the DoD.” A beat. “Sir.”

“No,” Nick snapped, “you won’t. No one is going to be talking to the DoD without my permission.” Sliding behind his own deck, he said, “Sit. That’s an order.”

Rogers complied, looking at him searchingly, unblinking. He would make an excellent interrogator, Nick knew, but he was no small amount disconcerted by the idea of training him like one. He was already a super-soldier. He didn’t need that kind of extra leverage. Rogers and Romanoff were already a dangerously complementary pair—throwing Barton in the mix added to the nightmare of trying to countermand them—and Nick knew that if he alienated them, if he turned it into _us versus them_ , things could get ugly. Quickly. 

He kept his cool. He always did. “The Council,” he said slowly, watching storm clouds gather in Roger’s eyes, his breath deepening in the way that meant he was tamping down some kind of anger, “is going to want answers.”

Rogers’ expression didn’t waver. “You mean blood.” He didn’t bother with the awkward formality, _sir_. 

Nick didn’t want to know what it meant, but he already did. Rogers was upright, responsible, a good Army man to his core. He wasn’t the type to scuff his shoe in line-up or drop a title in esteemed company. He would never casually forget it. Nick resisted the urge to shake him, needing him to understand how much Stark had forced the issue, how there was no _walking away_ from this.

Leaning forward, he said lowly, conspiratorially, “Assuming everything is peachy-keen, Rogers, the Avengers are over. And if there’s even one missing file, you can bet there’ll be a war.”

Calmly, Rogers said, “No.” A touch derisively, he added, “No, sir, there won’t be. Because the Avengers aren’t S.H.I.E.L.D.’s.” He gave no quarter, staring Nick down with inhuman intensity. Nick knew, deep down, that they’d made a mistake, that feeding a super-soldier’s hunger for justice in a violent world was dangerous, but there was no turning back. He couldn’t threaten to put Rogers in the ice; he didn’t want to. 

He knew Rogers was a good man. He also knew that Rogers was far more traumatized than any of his flying colors psych evaluations would lead the Council to believe. He was worth a thousand agents for his technical skills alone; he had a heart to carry the organization. He was not Nick’s enemy. But he also had split loyalties, and Nick knew where he would stand, if forced to choose.

Which was why he wasn’t expecting Rogers to say calmly, “I know about T.A.H.I.T.I.” He said, “They like to trade in blood.” With the same derisive tone, he added, “With all due respect, they don’t want _answers,_ Director.”

Nick blinked once, twice. Then he reminded, “T.A.H.I.T.I. was scrapped.”

Rogers nodded, leaning back in his chair comfortably, arms folded across his chest. “It was,” he agreed. “On grounds that it was deeply immoral.” There was no absolution in his eyes as he added, “But we both know what the records don’t show.”

Nick’s mouth was dry. “Stark?” he tried.

Rogers shook his head. “Doesn’t know,” he said shortly. “Started lookin’ into it, after—Russia.” He smiled. It wasn’t friendly. Still, he hadn’t blinked. His eyes weren’t even watering, like he didn’t need to. Not for a good long while. “I was torn,” he admitted at last. “Between doing something and leaving it be.” He firmed his jaw for a moment, holding back words, collecting himself. “I don’t like sabotage, sir. I don’t like to fight my own. And—well, I imagine a little friendliness would erase a lot of hard feelings, wouldn’t it?”

Nick frowned, then shook his head. “No,” he insisted firmly. “No. T.A.H.I.T.I. was scrapped.”

Rogers nodded once, like he was accepting the dismissal politely. Then he said, “You’re a pretty good liar, Director.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a folded up sheet, and unfolded it. “After Norilsk, I made a promise to my family. This is the fulfillment of that promise. And it’s the reason you’re having a _really_ bad day.” Nick stared at the resignation notice for a long time, noting a penciled-in number at the top, O-802991. Other, smaller markings skittered across the page. Taken as a whole, like a twisted crossword puzzle, the circled letters were _t, a, h, i_.

With sudden venom, Rogers said, “How could you keep this from me?” There was raw pain in his voice, sudden and indescribable, as he added, “Barnes is _alive_ , and you didn’t—”

“Rogers,” Nick cut in, sensing a wave he could not hope to survive if he did not cut it off. “We never found him.” He waited until Rogers’ shoulders lowered, a different sort of pain entering his eyes long before Nick could make himself say, “I’m sorry.”

Shaking his head, suddenly agitated, Rogers stood. “Don’t lie to me,” he snapped, but his voice was thin, lacking conviction. He paced over to the windows, looking out over S.H.I.E.L.D. Rogers said suddenly, ominously, “T.A.H.I.T.I. is operational. Tell me I’m wrong.” He turned, then, slow enough that Nick could have schooled his expression into nearly unreadable flatness. 

But there was no lying to Captain America. Nick let his expression remain blank. At last, he admitted, “You’re not.”

“Tell me Sergeant Barnes is dead.”

Raw honesty was a non-answer. “We never found him,” Nick repeated, very coolly.

Rogers nodded to himself. Nick expected to see crushing defeat. Instead, Rogers just said, “Not good enough.”

“It’s been almost _seventy years_ ,” Nick reminded, as forcefully as he could, because he could see the spark of madness.

“And how long did it take you to find me, sir?” The venom was back, full force. “How hard did you look? He’s alive. I know it. Dammit, Nick!” He stuffed the paper back into his pocket, surging forward and yanking Nick out of his seat so fast he barely registered being held a foot above the ground before Rogers was setting him back down and stepping back. He said quietly, “I’m sorry, sir.”

Nick’s gun was still on his hip, holstered, safety-on. The realization that he was completely vulnerable was strong in the air, even as Rogers deliberately took a seat again, clasping his hands in his lap, purposefully bowing his shoulders. “That was too forward, sir,” he said.

Nick stepped around his desk, not quite looming over him but refusing to stand on even ground as he asked in a low tone, “Would you care to shake down the Council, Captain?”

“No, sir.” He stared at his hands. “I’m sorry, sir.”

Nick didn’t let him get away, insisting, “How about the Secretary of Defense?”

“No, sir,” Rogers repeated. At last, he looked up at Nick. He admitted gravely, “I know I’m not—I’m not fit for duty.” The admission took the thunder out of Nick’s sails. He wondered, suddenly and terribly, what the hell had really happened in Norilsk. 

He’d heard the story, but there was more.

Missions went south all the time. It was the nature of the thing: the more risks you took, the more you’d inevitably experience mission failure. It was rarely catastrophic. Even when it was, they got past it. It wasn’t like he hadn’t watched Rogers like a hawk to ensure that he was even-keeled, had purposefully planted Romanoff and Barton close to him. He couldn’t risk Captain America going rogue. The words seemed wrong, completely at odds with the man in front of him, whose tone and gestures, subdued and deferential, did not speak of a man on the verge of something.

But he was. He saw it very clearly, the way Rogers looked at him with eyes wide open, like Nick was going to tell him how to pick up the cards of his life. But Nick didn’t know what _normal_ looked like for a twenty-seven-year-old taken from the edge of a war and thrust into the twenty-first century, to the center of a team of superheroes. He didn’t know if Steve Rogers would have broken more or less quickly if _Captain_ wasn’t in front of his name. It didn’t matter. If he was just Steve Rogers, he would have slipped away unnoticed.

Despite the spotlight, the perennial need to be in control, he was slipping away, Nick knew. T.A.H.I.T.I. wasn’t recompense; it was a way out.

Blowing out a breath, Nick sat in the chair next to him and asked seriously, “What’s _really_ going on?”

Rogers hunkered down, hands laced behind his head, stating, “I have to resign.”

“Wasn’t my question,” Nick reminded. He wasn’t a man prone to hugs or grand gestures, but he sensed the need to reach out and set a hand on Rogers’ bowed shoulder.

“I’m not fit for duty, sir,” Rogers repeated dully. “I’m a danger. To everyone.”

Nick said, a touch dryly, “Have you met Agent Romanoff?” Rogers huffed. “Agent Barton? Hell, even Stark can do a number with that suit of his. I don’t think I need to explain why Thor and Dr. Banner are potential risks to the people around them.” He squeezed the solid muscle under his hand as hard as he could, not entirely sure Rogers could even feel it. “You—well, let’s just say, if I had to choose who to piss off, you’d be bottom three.”

“Of six, that’s not much,” Rogers reminded. “Respectfully, sir.”

“Sorry to disappoint.” Nick squeezed his shoulder again before dropping his hand. Rogers sat up slowly, hands flat on his legs, his expression calm, his gaze somber as he glanced over at Nick. “Yes, you’re dangerous,” Nick agreed, never one to beat around the bush, “and yes, if you so chose, you could do a great deal of harm. Most of my higher-ranked agents are extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat. I have no illusions, Rogers, about the caliber of people I have surrounded myself with. And do you know why I work with them?” He waited a moment, looking right at Rogers as he said, “Because I trust them.”

Rogers smirked ruefully. “T.A.H.I.T.I.?” he rasped. “What level of trust is that, sir?”

Nick exhaled. Leaning back in his own chair, he admitted, “Nine.”

Rogers nodded. “Guess I. . . .” He hesitated, then admitted, “Guess I got a promotion, somewhere along the way.” 

Nick raised his eyebrow. Rogers shook his head, then looked at him, back down at his hands. Finally, he admitted, “I had a suspicion. First time I asked you, you hesitated.” He smiled a little, a laurel leaf of friendliness. “That was a while ago. And then I saw the papers.” The smile faded. His brow furrowed. “I don’t want to sabotage, sir,” he said, in that diplomatic way of his that worked well with the DoD, “but where I came from, people were being slaughtered by the millions on immoral grounds. I didn’t turn away from them then. And I can’t look away from T.A.H.I.T.I. now. I can’t do nothing. Maybe by gettin’ in—well, maybe that’s the good ending, after all. Sometimes you can put a fire out from inside a house.”

“I never liked it,” Nick admitted. “Stuff like that—resurrection—rubs you the wrong way.” A shadow slipped over Rogers’ face, like he’d realized that he was the object in question, but Nick shook his head. “You weren’t dead. A bit chilled, but you were alive. Somehow.”

“Serum,” Rogers rasped, then, a touch uncomfortably, “I didn’t feel it. Wouldn’t have known, you know, if you’d just left me.”

Nick didn’t say what came to mind, then: _You know, Stark advocated for it. That we leave you. Said it was immoral. Said you might not be alive enough to save, and even if you were, it was wrong to ask you to fight for us. You’d already died once. That was enough_.

It wasn’t the thing to say, so he tucked it in a drawer, never to be opened. “T.A.H.I.T.I.,” he went on, but Rogers’ expression stayed closed-off, distant. Nick paused. “Captain?”

“Hm?” Nick waited. It took a few moments, what might have been minutes for an ordinary person but mere seconds for a super-processing super-soldier, before Rogers looked at him, gaze alert, all-there again. “Sorry, sir. I’m listening.” He frowned. “T.A.H.I.T.I.?” he added helpfully. Then, in a rasp, he asked, “Barnes? Do you think—?”

“If he’s alive,” Nick began. He knew it was a mistake as soon as he formulated it that way, Rogers’ eyes lighting up, like it was a new mission he could _do_ , “then he’s nowhere we’ve looked,” he added as firmly as he could manage. “And we’ve looked.”

Nodding distractedly, Rogers said, “Do you think—?”

“I wouldn’t want to speculate,” Nick cut in, not unkindly.

Rogers hunched inward, then nodded in agreement. “No. I understand. I understand, sir.” He looked at Nick, adding, “This can happen one of two ways, you understand.”

Nick exhaled. “Easy way,” he agreed, “or hard way.” A beat. “You do realize, I’m only one man. I can’t pretend Stark didn’t shut down my entire agency in an unprovoked and potentially catastrophic attack. There will be hell to pay.”

“I understand, sir.” A beat. “Consider this a blank check, sir,” he said at last. “Not a mission. Just a—Let’s call it a compromise.” Solemnly, he added, “I wouldn’t expect this all to be forgiven, but I think everyone could agree to let this unhappy incident slide past us with a little friendly cooperation, wouldn’t you?”

Nick said slowly, “Compromises rarely work well, Captain.”

Shrugging, Rogers said, “No. They don’t, sir. But we’re not at odds here.” He smiled, then added, “And we’re on the same team, aren’t we? So.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the folded-up sheet. He carefully shredded it into pieces—a symbolic gesture, Nick knew, realizing that he’d be the one standing before the tribunal, after all, with Captain America’s next words in his pocket: “Let’s forget all this happened. And if anyone wants blood—which they will,” he added solemnly, making no illusions that it _would_ come to pass, “then you know where to find me.”

“There are some things, Rogers,” Nick said, “that are better not knowing.”

Rogers nodded once. It was merely polite, a formality. “Yeah. And once I know ‘em, I can’t sit by.” Watching Nick with that same cool unblinking stare from before, he added, “I’ll cooperate when our interests align. The World Security Council—they just want peace. Right? That’s what world security is all about. So.” He leaned over, dropping the fragments of the resignation notice in the trash. “Maybe, instead’a fightin’ them all the time, we can agree to be friends. I can get answers. They get the serum. That’s why I was created—peace.”

“I don’t think you know just what you’re getting into,” Nick warned.

Rogers smiled wolfishly. “No idea,” he agreed, with that same spark of madness, of _nothing is too much_ in his eyes, that should have been enough to shut the conversation down. Rogers was adamant. “But that’s why I gotta find out. So. Tell ‘em I said hello. And tell ‘em the notice was an accident, a mistake. I talked with you and came to my senses. Stark was bein’ Stark; talked to him, too.” He said the last words stiffly, robotically. “This doesn’t have to get out of hand. It can be an inside fix.” He stood up, hands behind his back, parade rest again. “What do you say, sir? Do we have a deal?”

Nick stood, looking him in the eye. “Just so we are abundantly clear, Captain. You accept responsibility for this incident?”

“I do, sir,” Roger said with utmost gravity. “Completely. And whoever comes at your doorstep with charges of treason, you can tell ‘em I’m here to fix it.”

Nick offered a hand. Rogers paled but took it, shook it, let it go, all in the span of a couple seconds. “Let me know when the Council says yes,” Rogers said briskly. “And I’ll be there.” Nodding at the door, he added, “Until then. I’ve gotta take care of some stuff.”

. o . 

Steve felt calm, settled in a way that he hadn’t felt in a long time.

He walked down the hall with a calm confidence that felt familiar, like a coat he hadn’t worn in a while. Agents stepped aside, deferentially at attention, one step below a full salute. Greetings of “Captain” were common. He nodded at them, repeated their last names back to them, then moved on. He knew them all.

And he knew that he wouldn’t sleep at night, knowing that T.A.H.I.T.I.—the oddly sinister initiative to revive mortally-wounded agents using redacted methods, which could only mean methods so inhumane no one would ever support them in plain view—existed. The Council would never let him get close enough to infiltrate. After Kunar, he’d been on a tighter-than-ever leash. He needed to know, exactly, what sort of horrors were going on in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s basement.

If necessary, he needed to put a stop to them.

And the only way to do that was to get in. Had the resignation gone through, he would never have known about T.A.H.I.T.I.

He’d been grimly satisfied when he’d first asked Fury, months ago, whether or not that mission was ever closed. It wasn’t a mission, he was informed, just a program that was scrapped on grounds of impracticality. _Immorality_ , he didn’t say. It was clearly bad enough his future self had wanted to warn him. 

He swallowed hard, reeling at the mere possibility that his future self had really visited Tony, that he’d left a coded message for Steve, a message that could only mean _Bucky is at T.A.H.I.T.I_.

Right? It had to be so. He knew himself. That gave him ample confidence, striding down the hall, heart beating strongly in his chest. He would get the Council off his back with a little cooperation, giving them what they wanted—the serum, enough to manufacture it, like the Iron Man suit he hadn’t destroyed even when Tony begged him to, because that was sabotage, and he couldn’t sabotage—and then walk away once things were settled.

Walk away once things were settled. That was what he had to do, he knew, had to—had to distance himself from it all. He wasn’t supposed to be here. This was the future, a place that had no place for him. Justifying his place there, dragging a chair to the table, pretending he was part of, of some kind of _family—_ well, he wasn’t, he thought firmly. He was their Captain. That was what he was.

It was time to fall in line. That was what Tony wanted: _finish the mission_.

He owed it to them, after Norilsk, to do something right.

Maybe, he thought, standing in the elevator, the Council would let the incident slide. Fury wouldn’t offer Steve up for the slaughter if they didn’t demand blood. They could forget his offer altogether. He could remain in the amorphous space between freedom and containment, rooting for the home team.

He descended one level, hands clasped patiently in front of him. He didn’t have his shield on him. He should have, but he hadn’t—well, he’d remembered to grab the paper, knowing that he needed to confront Nick Fury about T.A.H.I.T.I., but he hadn’t thought to grab his shield.

He descended another level. The elevator halted, doors opening. “Hey, Cap,” Brock Rumlow greeted, stepping inside. He tapped the button for the second floor above the one Steve had selected. “You believe this outage? Crazy. Thought Fury was going to have an aneurysm.”

“It’s under control,” Steve assured calmly. 

Rumlow nodded. “That’s what I like to hear.” He leaned in, asking conspiratorially, “It was Stark, wasn’t it?” 

Shaking his head, Steve said nothing.

“C’mon. He’s the only bastard smart enough to do it. Can’t believe he actually did it,” he said, a touch incredulously. “S.H.I.E.L.D. must’ve done something to really piss that guy off.” The elevator kept descending. Steve stood in silence, refusing to implicate. “Well. Just another Tuesday, huh?” He clapped Steve hard on the shoulder, then stepped through the doors as they came to a halt. “I’ll see you around, Cap.”

Nodding after him, Steve watched the elevator doors close, wondering if he ever would. Either the Council would demand their due and he’d give it. Then he would run, or he’d be cut loose and skip the intermediary step.

He couldn’t stay. That much was plain.

He’d fucked up. Tony was right: he couldn’t fix that. Tony was scared out of his mind because of him. Tony had gone to Norilsk _because of him_. Tony had covered for him, had made sure nobody saw how many broken pieces he really was by throwing his support behind Steve.

Enough was too much. He had to cut them loose.

If protecting him meant endangering them, it wasn’t a price he could live with. He’d vowed after Norilsk never again. Then he—his future self; hell, shouldn’t he have known better?—had fucked up. He wouldn’t make the same mistake. He refused to.

He wasn’t sure he dared to think of it as returning home—he felt vaguely guilty for being unable to face Barton and Romanoff, unable to see them and know they could read him, to know he’d struck a deal with a Council of demons who were all hungry for his blood, literally—but that was the essence of the thing as he walked home.

All the while, he remained blissfully unaware of the transparent, microscopic chip attached to the back of his uniform near the shoulder, faithfully transmitting his location every step of the way.

. o .

“Tony?”

Tony opened an eye to a slit, glaring at the fuzzy red-and-blue figure nearby. Blinking slowly, he hiccupped close-mouthed and pushed himself up on the couch—couch? What the hell?—a little more. That didn’t look like Bruce, he realized, squinting and pulling Steve Rogers into sharper view. Tony grimaced, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose with his left hand. “I’m too hungover to talk to you,” he muttered without heat.

Steve said quietly, “You don’t have to. I just. . . .” He paused, then asked, “Anything I can do?”

Tony shook his head—not in negation, not really, but overwhelmed by the thought of trying to think of things beyond his head spinning and his stomach aching and his hand on fire. Breathing out gustily, he said, “Yeah, actually, you can. I need a sledgehammer. Right here.” He tapped his temple. “Can you do that, sweetheart?” The endearment slipped off his tongue in a drawl, nothing behind it but tired defeat.

Steve stepped closer, more a shuffle than a full step. “No,” he said, painfully truthful as always, almost too earnest for Tony to confront. His dry humor didn’t work in the face of earnestness, not really. “I can’t.” Steve said softly, “I really wanna help you, Tony. It’s kind of killing me to see you like this.”

Tony smirked, then lifted his bandaged right hand in a very vague mock-salute. “This is how I roll, Steve.” Rogers. Cap. God, he couldn’t make himself say the words, saying too earnestly, “I missed you.”

Steve took another step closer and Tony pulled his right hand back to his chest reflexively. Steve stopped, crouching so they were eye level instead. He bit his lip. He was still blurry, not fully in focus. Tony said unexpectedly, “I love you.” The admission ached in his chest, far more than the shrapnel in his heart or the delirious pain in his broken hand, his unusable hand, his _God-help-me-if-I-lose-it_ hand. Looking at Steve, Tony felt the raw affection, the unabashed need to keep Steve near him now that he was back. Lifting himself off the arm of the couch he didn’t remember sitting on, Tony held out his left hand instead, reaching out.

Steve hesitated. Then he straightened and moved closer. Tony shuffled away from the arm of the couch to make room, not much. Steve sat down carefully, like he was afraid to touch Tony even though it was impossible not to. His left side was fine, unhurt. Tony leaned against him firmly, ducking under Steve’s right arm to press his cheek against Steve’s chest, right next to the shiny silver star, battle-scarred but still beautiful.

The nausea was too strong for calm to claim him, but it felt safe, familiar, exactly where he’d needed to be. He relaxed, sinking into him, Steve’s arm strung along the back of the couch so it didn’t even accidentally rest near Tony’s right hand. On cue, Tony heard clicking claws. Then he felt Laika hop up on his right side. He huffed in good humor against Steve’s chest, dog-on-the-couch, as Steve snapped his fingers gently and Laika hopped back down. She curled up with her head on Tony’s feet. Tony felt like crying, all at once, swallowing hard to stifle it.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, afraid to speak too loudly.

Steve said, equally quiet, “Oh, Tony.” He brushed a kiss against the top of Tony’s undoubtedly sweaty, mussed-up hair, assuring, “Don’t be sorry.”

“I’m a bad person. I’m a very bad person.”

“No. No, you’re not,” Steve insisted, sliding his arm around so he could pull Tony closer, resting his palm flat against Tony’s thigh, as far from his hand, clutched to his chest, as he could get. “Oh, Tony,” he said. It sounded like his heart was breaking. “Don’t apologize. Please.” A rain droplet landed on his hair. “It’s not your fault.”

“It feels like it,” Tony admitted, shivering. “I was bad. I was very bad.”

Steve tucked his cheek against Tony’s head, hushing, “Shh. S’okay. S’all right now. You weren’t bad. I promise.” A beat, another drop of rain indoors. “We’ll fix this. I promise. I’ll—I’ll figure something out, okay?”

“I’m sorry,” Tony insisted. He couldn’t stop it from bubbling out of him, the emotion that wasn’t anger or fear, safe, strong emotions. He sniffled and repeated it into Steve’s uniform, _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry_ , until the words blurred together.

Steve said, “Shh. Shh, it’s okay. It’s okay now. It’s all okay.”

It didn’t feel like it, but he trusted Steve, too. He said, “I don’t blame you.”

Steve stroked his hip. “I know.” A beat. “I love you.”

Reassured, Tony rubbed his cheek against Steve’s uniform, informing him, “Hand hurts.” He hadn’t really meant to say it, but it felt better to say it. “Hurts a lot.”

“Hey,” Steve said, so softly. “I’ll be with you. Bruce, too—you want Bruce?” Tony gripped his uniform as tightly as he could in his left hand. Steve assured, “Okay, all right. Okay. I won’t go.” He kissed the top of Tony’s head. “Be right where you want me, okay? You say go, I go.”

“Don’t go,” Tony said at once, gripping his uniform so tightly his hand shook. “Don’t. Don’t. Please. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, shh. I won’t.” Steve was quiet for a long moment. Tony listened to him breathe, shallower than normal. “I know it scares you. I get that. But—I think, I think it’ll be, it’ll be better, you know, to go. And see. Maybe, there’s a—a solution, you know, a thing we haven’t thought of?” He said it like a question, hopeless and unsure. Tony shook his head against his side, but Steve stroked his hip and insisted softly, “Please. Not for me. For you. For you, Tony. They’ll have—painkillers, you know. I don’t want you in pain. I know you don’t wanna be in pain.”

Tony swallowed, unable to tell him everything, how he wasn’t just scared of hospitals, he was drop-dead _terrified_ of them. How there was no way to really fix his hand, not without doing the unthinkable. How painkillers would only numb the pain. Sometimes pain was a warning sign to stop: if pain didn’t stop him, what would?

But when Steve repeated, “Please, Tony,” in a barely-there voice, he couldn’t say no.

Sucking in a breath, he admitted, “I hate Tuesdays.” He spoke into the fabric of Steve’s uniform, his old patchwork uniform. He wanted to tease him about it, but he couldn’t make a new uniform with one hand, not really. He’d need help. The thought sat heavy in his stomach, the idea of losing his ability to go out and _make_ , Iron Man suits, tools and toys and everything that required two hands. He’d be okay one-handed, find ways to joke about being a pirate, but he’d hate himself down the line for not _trying_ , for giving in.

He had to try. If for no other reason than it might help. 

Nodding once, he felt Steve shift and panicked, his grip tightening again in his uniform, pleading, “Don’t go.”

“No, no. Hey. No.” Steve lifted his right hand to cup the side of Tony’s head, cradling it. “I’m here. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

Tony nodded, safe against him. He whispered, “I love you.” 

Steve sighed. For a moment Tony’s heart beat faster in fear, but then he said, “I’d do anything for you, Tony,” and it was a strange way to say _I love you_.

But Tony nodded again in understanding and slowly confronted reality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What gets bad, will get better. <3


	38. THE FAULT IS IN OUR STARS

_Friday, January 12, 2029_.

With great reluctance, Steve Rogers stepped through the invisible curtain.

At once, he knew that his empty little apartment was unchanged. He tried not to let disappointment, powerful and present, crumple him. It wasn’t fair to expect a miracle. He had tried 94,331 times to correct the wobble of the wheel of time. One more failure wouldn’t kill him. It wouldn’t. _It wouldn’t._

He shuffled over to his little kitchen area. There was only one drawer that mattered. He pressed his thumb against the scanner to open it. It was silent, unmoving, red, for a long time. He waited it out. He had visited the past so often that it was starting to tear apart his genetic code, like an infected computer destroying data. Eventually, the crude fingerprint scanners would stop recognizing him as Steve Rogers. But after a long and thoughtful pause, the drawer slid open.

One day, he mused, staring listlessly at its contents, he’d be a truly invisible man, untraceable. Today wasn’t that day.

He snagged a packet of dehydrated nutrient powder from his little stash, tore the top off, poured it into a glass. Adding water, he drank the mixture down, idly wondering if he’d ever accumulate enough cancer to kill him.

At least it was all in the name of science, he comforted himself. 

Fishing out another packet, he drank that down, too, to chase away the lingering taste of wheat crackers. He’d forgotten how real food tasted. As on previous ventures, he found that he didn’t care for it anymore. It was too sharp. Too rich. At least it wasn’t as strong as it once might have been.

Courtesy of his temporal muddlings, he had started eliminating his sense of taste and dulling his sense of smell. His hearing had long since been filed down to a closer approximation of normal—bye-bye, listening through walls—and even his slightly blurry vision threatened to cast up its hands and stalk off in a fit of misery. He was killing himself, slowly but surely, in the name of try-try-again.

It wasn’t all meaningless. By testing the effects of repeated temporal displacement, he was doing a public service. The scientific usefulness of the endeavor granted validity to his unconscionable objective.

He had to change history. Any way possible.

What the ignorant and blissful did not know was that the chances of mission failure vastly outnumbered the odds of successes. Everything existed in concentric circles of Goldilocks’ zones. Some people asked why tragedies happened. Steve knew why. The odds were ripe for them. It was hard to keep a person alive because a thousand things had to go right, but only one thing had to go wrong to end them. When playing the odds, it was discouraging to know how easy it was for death to win.

To make matters worse, the odds weren’t a thousand to one. 

They were over a million to one.

Setting his empty glass down on the counter, he limped over to the chair he kept in front of the window and sat down. He shut burning eyes, arms hanging limp at his sides with exhaustion. He was so goddamn tired, but he couldn’t sleep. Not only was his insomnia at an all-time high, but his preoccupation with the past was so total that he jerked awake any time he started to drift off, terrified he’d wake up in twenty years, a hundred years, having made no progress at all.

94,331 attempts down. It was a big number to keep in his head, but that was what the chrono-watch was for. It kept track for him. The glowing blue number seemed malevolent to him, counting down wasted lives. Wasted tries. Wasted universes.

He missed his old watch, his old life, but he’d kept all that in a box, never to be opened again.

Nothing he’d done had changed things for the better. Oh, he’d changed things, all right—he’d done it thousands of times, altered his own future so much he didn’t know what it would have looked like without any intervention. He knew that as soon as he stepped outside his little apartment, he would find a changed world. Maybe even a very different one, given how much he’d warped the original timeline. But he was too tired to face reality. He sat in his chair facing the blue skies instead, waiting for strength to try again.

The job was more than frustrating; it was almost futile. He couldn’t keep his family safe. He couldn’t even tell them how to save themselves. He could only imply, suggest, hope.

Direct action never worked. Around the five thousandth attempt, he’d tried to take his clone’s life, believing that it might, just might, be a forbidden solution, a world-changing answer that was not one of the sacred nine but a livable substitute. If he was dead, then he could never perform that one fatal act of altruism that would cost him everything. He needed a world where he would never offer Tony the coat on his back, not when it mattered most.

Desperate for a world where he wouldn’t lose again, he became desperate enough to try the unthinkable.

He tried the unthinkable: to kill his younger self.

It was all unauthorized—but that was the sticking point, really, none of this poisonous adventure was _authorized_ , it was a nightmare of his own making. Scott Lang would figure it out, that someone from the past was filching from the future, visiting later days of prosperity and stealing as many Pym particles as he could get his hands on, stocked in a place located a hundred years from tomorrow. He could slip back home to the past, his present, before anyone could catch him. He didn’t care if they caught him and it changed history; he only cared if they caught him and stopped him.

He was careful. And sorry.

The thefts left a sour taste in his mouth, but he knew they could make more. They always did. Hell, they probably had millions, maybe even billions, in vaults he couldn’t access. He just swiped from stocks on hand, like a pair of car keys left in a tin dish. He stole pennies from a vault full of hundred-dollar-bills. He stifled the urge to apologize to someone, anyone, dreading the intersection of time and fate: if he lived long enough, he would someday arrive at the moment his past self had stolen the first vials, about twenty-eight years from the present.

He’d probably be dead by then. Or maybe he’d not care that he’d stolen them at all. He didn’t know which scared him more.

His damaged cells were already demanding the utmost of the serum. It was holding up as well as it could—far beyond the constraints Dr. Erskine could have envisioned for him—but it wouldn’t last forever. He was no longer strong enough to bend metal with his bare hands. He got out of breath from progressively shorter runs. And he still had over 14,000,000 cycles to try.

He swallowed hard, staring out the window, trying to motivate himself to get up, to go out, to _see the world_. It all felt as insubstantial as the past, fake, unreal, nothing more than a _simulation_. Every slice of reality _was_ reality, but it only made sense as a cohesive whole. The individual possibilities were just part of the total picture, invisible from an insider’s perspective. He was trapped on the flat surfaces when the sum of reality was a cube. The only way he could manipulate it was the long way around.

Reality was a kaleidoscope of tightly-bound possibilities. He could actualize them, not by creating them but by separating them. He took every outcome and separated individual ones from the total, running with them as long as he could before doubling back and trying again. It was like turning the telescope lens and seeing a new picture with each revolution. Similarities and patterns emerged, but things changed each time, no matter how subtly. Sometimes it was black-and-white, other times it was nearly indistinguishable from the home he’d left.

He knew he wasn’t being scientific about the endeavor, but it was probably for the best that he didn’t record, _Attempt 5,049, Shot myself. Didn’t die_.

He wasn’t immortal: the gun just refused to fire. It jammed. It missed. Every time. It defied probability; it was a systematic fluke, a predictable error. With dark irony, he thought he would earn a Nobel Prize if he disclosed the solution to the grandfather paradox. Temporal immunity—the inability to be killed by your future self, no matter how hard you tried. It was comforting, realizing that he didn’t have to look over his own shoulder for a vengeful version of himself from the future, coming back to stop him. 

He couldn’t kill his younger self. He could try. It was disarming, memories of those confrontations from both sides of the lens, but he never got farther than knocking his younger self unconscious. He wasn’t sure if his younger self could kill _him_ , but there wasn’t a rule preventing it. Each one was a fight to the death if he lost.

It didn’t matter. He lost. He always lost.

Rocking the chair onto the back legs, he hovered and thought about his next try and the next and the next.

Words were scarcely more effective at changing fate than direct action. He couldn’t save people from their own doom; he could only suggest that they change course. Telling them about their demises rarely ended well. It led to its own dilemma, a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy whereby learning about an outcome caused it to manifest. Telling people when or how they died wasn’t an option. It wasn’t a solution. All it did was add more terror, more trauma. More _pain_.

He couldn’t alter the course of history, either. Like a dancer cursed to perform a specific choreography, he could only maneuver around other actors. He could not plant himself in front of them or hold them back if he tried—and he’d _tried_. 

At least he wasn’t totally helpless. He could manipulate environmental pieces to his heart’s content, move a chair, open a window, that sort of thing. It became the world’s worst game of _I Spy_ : he would puzzle for hours where the dominos would fall and rearrange little things to draw attention to them, returning to the future to see if his changes had changed history.

It astonished him how easily he could alter the future by shifting a chair to the left. That action caused a delay as someone moved the chair back to its original spot or took a seat where it was and followed an ever-so-slightly different train of thoughts that changed the world.

All because of musical chairs.

It would have been funny if it wasn’t so goddamn frustration.

Steve didn’t open his eyes at a knock on the door. He didn’t get up for a long moment, drowning in the impossibility of it all. Then, with an old man’s slowness, he pushed himself out of the chair and staggered over to answer it.

Tony Stark, immortally young, blinked at him. Cocked his head, opened his mouth, shut his mouth. He held up a hand, pointer finger raised triumphantly, before frowning and lowering his hand again.

At last, he made a shooing motion and Steve, numb to excitement, stepped back obligingly, letting him in the space. Looking around, Tony asked, “You live like this?”

Responding required energy Steve didn’t have. He stumbled over to the sole chair, sat down, then nodded mutely. Tony would be gone as soon as Steve was. “Yeah,” he allowed, not bothering to lift his voice to a conversational level. “Make yourself at home,” he added with a hint of dry humor.

Tony sauntered around for a bit, marveling at the little things. “You know your stock’s running low,” he said, pulling open a drawer that only responded to Steve’s fingerprint.

Steve glanced over at him. Tony thumbed through the packets, observing, “Twenty-five. That’s, what, seven days?”

Steve said, “I can get more.” And he could. Borrowing against the future. Who needed to steal in the present when you could swipe from the infinite plenty of tomorrow? The running joke that all human productivity resided in the elusive cave of wonders called “tomorrow” was not lost on him as he added, “There’s always more, somewhere.”

Tony tipped his head in a nod, passing through the table and prying open the door to the empty, power-less fridge. He said, “God, this is just sad. You have no life.” Looking over at Steve, his mouth compressed into a sober line as he repeated, “You have no life.”

Steve shrugged a shoulder, watching the apparition shut the door. “I don’t want one,” he said. “Not until I got it all straightened out.” 

“What if you already did?” Tony prompted. “What if this is the one?”

Steve did not smile. “Then you’d be telling me in person.”

Tony sighed, wandering over and setting a ghostly hand on Steve’s shoulder, almost warm, almost real. “You gotta give this up.”

Steve didn’t argue. “Only fourteen million, three-hundred-and-twenty-five thousand, nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine runs left,” he rumbled. “Can’t quit while I’m behind.”

Tony stepped closer, his voice louder, sterner as he pointed out, “Steve, this is _killing_ you.”

Steve closed his eyes. “Yeah? What if it is?” He opened them, looking accusingly at the blank space where Tony should have been.

He heard Tony sigh, even though it was empty air. When he closed his eyes, he could almost feel Tony step closer, wrapping his arms around Steve’s shoulders, the memory of them imprinted on his consciousness. It would fade soon enough. He was ashamed at how much he’d still relished the contact, how impossible the next 94,331 simulations were going to be without it. He’d been so careful, so, _so_ careful not to get attached. Of course, all it took was one hug and he wanted to move in again, pretend the future never happened.

“Steve,” Tony said in Tony’s voice, somewhere overhead, “this isn’t what I would want.”

“Yeah?” Steve blinked at empty space again, telling the voice in his head, “Then come here and tell me yourself. Otherwise, you know where the door is.”

Tony sighed. He was patient. A lump formed in Steve’s throat as the ghost of Tony Stark asked benignly, “That what you want?”

Steve stared desperately at empty space, knowing he looked crazy as he answered aloud, “No. You know it’s not.” He closed his eyes, swallowed hard. “I want. . . .” Reaching up to cover his ears, he implored, “Don’t make me ask again. I can’t. I want you to stay. You hear me? I want you here.”

There was no response. Steve blinked, uncovered his ears, but the space was silent and empty once again.

He blinked again, but the burn in his eyes came back, stronger than before. Furious, he stood up, knocking over his chair in the process. It hit the floor with an incongruously loud sound in the empty space. God, he yearned for sound, for claws tapping out a familiar rhythm across the floor, for the hum of a TV in a distant room, for the shuffle of paper, the blur of the muffled city at night, the kinetic presence of another human inhabiting his space. He wanted it so badly he could not bear it.

He wanted, he wanted, he _wanted_.

Trembling, he bent down and righted the chair. 

Resting both hands on the back, he stared at his watch, at 94,331 in benevolent blue. He drew in a stabilizing breath.

Then he slid back his sleeve and grasped the tiny vial of red Pym particles.

Breaking the seal, he felt reality shiver around him before it vanished like liquid smoke, tracing a path to a world nine years ago.

. o . 

_Wednesday, July 4, 2018._

“Ohh, you’re getting so big. Daddy’s not gonna be able to pick you up anymore.”

“Up,” Morgan Stark commanded imperiously.

Sighing, Tony Stark affected a posh British accent and replied, “As my lady commands.” He curled his left arm around his four-year-old and hoisted her off the grass, eliciting a delighted squeal. With familiar ease, he pinned her against his side like a sack of grain, his left arm used to the exercise. “Where to, my darling?” he asked, still in the _charmed to make your acquaintance_ voice.

“Barn!” Morgan barked.

Tony huffed and replied, “Barn it is.” Hoisting her up so she could rest her little paws against his shoulder, he commanded, “Hold onto me.” Obligingly, she grasped two handfuls of his jacket. Without further ado, he galloped across the lawn, making her giggle with renewed delight.

Waverly, Iowa, was unusually cool on this, the Fourth of July. The temperature readout hovered in the mid-sixties, compelling Tony to grab a jacket on his way out the door. He’d first trampled downstairs to wrangle the rambunctious critter who had been trying to catch the cat.

At the ripe young age of four, Morgan liked to wake up at an ungodly early hour. She was always full of three coffee cups’ worth of energy and capable of entertaining herself with quasi-patience before one of her adoptive parents ventured downstairs to join her. There were plenty of options—Morgan adored Aunt Nat, Uncle Bruce, and King Thor, who took particular pleasure in being referred to as such—but her true adoptive father still had first dibs.

Slowing to a canter near the open barn doors, Tony halted and lowered Morgan to the ground, left-hand-dominant, right-hand support. He asked, “All right, sweet thing, you wanna say hi to Orion?”

“Onion!” Morgan shouted back, charging into the barn. 

“Whoa, there, cowgirl,” Clint Barton greeted, setting down an open-top toolbox aside and grunting when Morgan crashed into him. She hugged him around the neck before breaking free with a short:

“Sorry, Uncle Clint, I wanna see Onion!”

“ _Onion_ ,” Clint drawled, looking at Tony, who shrugged and waved his stiff right hand.

“Creative license,” he sniffed. Stepping through the doors, boots crunching on packed dirt, he nodded at the toolbox and asked, “What’s that for?”

“Reshoeing,” Clint replied, looking down the center at Morgan. She’d paused in front of Orion’s stall, the snow-white Welsh Pony leaning his head obligingly over the edge to greet her. “Hey, Morgan, you wanna watch?”

“Watch what?” Morgan asked, before adding immediately, “Can I give Onion a carrot?”

Clint chuckled and said, “Yeah, you can give him a carrot.” Morgan bolted to fetch one from the bucket on the far counter. Amused, Clint remarked, “Careful, Stark, or you’re gonna be signing her up for pony shows.”

“There are worse things,” Tony said. With sleep-deprived amusement in his tone, he added, “Always wanted to know how you shoe a horse.”

“Yeah? I always figured your boy—” Clint paused, then dusted off his hands and said, “Uh, you know.” He smiled ruefully. “Sorry.”

Tony prided himself on his ability to smile back and assure, “You can say his name. I’m not gonna cry.” Nodding towards Morgan, he said in a voice that was traitorously on the verge of something painful, “I’ve still got my sunshine.”

Clint nodded sympathetically. “Yeah.” He smirked. “It helps, you know.” He whistled and called, “Hey, Morgan, you wanna help us shoe Athena?”

Morgan crowed, “Yes!”

Leaving ignobly-nicknamed Orion to his morning carrot, the trio snagged gentle Athena, a chestnut-brown American Quarter Horse with a matching black mane. Morgan forgot poor Onion in favor of chanting, “Ateena! Ateena!” as Clint slid back the door to her stall. “Ateena!” Morgan greeted a third time as the horse marched docilely out of her stall. Clint led her; Tony picked up the toolbox with his left hand, following them to the side of the barn.

Setting down the toolbox with a huff, Tony asked, “How many lost treasures of Atlantis do you keep in there?”

“Couple hundred,” Clint replied amicably. He hitched Athena up to a post and crouched next to his box while Morgan inched closer to him, peering over his shoulder with open curiosity. Pulling out an old horseshoe, Clint told her, “Hold this please,” and she somberly accepted it, gripping it with both hands. “Got it?” She nodded. “Thank you.”

Like a true Stark, she was as enamored with the farrier horseshoe oven as she was with the toolkit, asking, “What’s that for?”

Holding Morgan up on his shoulder so she could see inside his little outdoor lab, Clint explained, “It makes the shoe soft so I can shape it to fit her foot. Horses like shoes that fit.”

“Me too,” Morgan agreed, holding onto Clint’s shoulder as they stood back, listening to the muted roar of the oven. “How big are her shoes?” Morgan asked.

Clint held up his right hand, flexing it to the width of a horseshoe, and told her, “’Bout this big.”

“Wow,” Morgan said, impressed.

“Wow,” Clint agreed.

Tony watched from a polite distance, emotion welling up in his chest at the sight. Morgan stood back, per Clint’s command. She watched attentively as Clint grasped Athena’s foot and held it between his legs. Then he tink-tink-tinked away at the old shoe with clinch cutter and hammer.

The repetitious sound was just similar enough to muscle memory that it made Tony’s heart hurt, his right hand aching with _want_. 

Thankfully, it wasn’t the same. Tony was able to banish the memory as Clint chucked the clinch cutter and hammer into his toolbox. Still holding Athena’s foot, he grabbed a pair of long pliers. With practiced twists of the wrists, he removed the outermost, metal shoe.

Morgan asked, “Does that hurt?”

Still working methodically, Clint assured, “Nope.” He finished prying the shoe off, chucking the old shoe into the toolbox and explaining, “I’m just trimming her nail. Just like your fingernail, but horse-sized.”

Morgan looked down at her own unblemished hands curiously. “Wow,” she said again.

He lost himself, watching Clint work and Morgan supervise. The warming air coaxed the jacket from his shoulders; Tony shrugged out of it carefully, draping it over his right shoulder. 

His right hand didn’t hurt much these days, only twinged in a way that was more heartache than muscle pain. He was left-hand-dominant now, using it for every fine task and most crude tasks, carrying and leveraging and otherwise manipulating a world that had always been his oyster. He’d abandoned hard pens, preferring the somewhat more forgiving stylus of a digital brush. It had practical benefits, too: he could copy-paste a digital signature, sparing him the indignity of trying to relearn it with his left-hand.

He knew he could _try_ tofix his right hand, but the prognosis was rather bleak. After atrophying for years, full functionality might be unattainable. Surgery, months of physical therapy, the best modern medicine could do might restore limited functionality and dial the dormant pain up to eleven. 

A much better option would be to amputate it and replace it with a bionic limb. But he couldn’t bring himself to hack away his own limb and become more machine than he was. So he let it go, and let it go, and let it go. 

And then it was a thing he did not look at much.

It wasn’t a metaphor, he promised himself. It was just the new reality, the life-after that he’d never wanted to live.

His long-time therapist, Jeremy, had supported his irrational decision, even if he knew the things Tony would not say.

_I don’t want it to heal._

_I don’t want to lose him_.

It was irrational, but it was the last tangible reminder of Steve Rogers he had. The thought of living in a world without a trace of him was unbearable.

The dog tags were warm against his skin, so familiar they were almost forgotten altogether. He could recite the number in his sleep.

He had a mnemonic and everything.

 _Eight-three-two, Steve is dead._ _Four-five-six, Steve-is-dead_.

It wasn’t even a slant-rhyme, he reflected, looking over as Natasha appeared, worn around the edges, tired in a way Tony understood. They all understood, every one of them except Morgan, sweet innocent Morgan who didn’t know what death meant and had never met Steve, anyway. 

It didn’t matter that it had been half a decade since he’d watched them bury his best guy. It still hurt. It would always hurt. Clint who had lost a brother thirty-five years ago knew that, and Thor who had lost a mother three years ago knew that, and Natasha, who had lost everything including herself twenty-some years ago knew that. Even Bruce, who had no one but them, knew that.

It was a seat at the table they’d never be able to fill.

“Good morning, Morgan,” Natasha greeted. Morgan trampled over, leaping into Natasha’s arms. “Morning, boys,” she added, lifting Morgan effortlessly onto her shoulders. She was twice as strong as either of them, and that was before Tony had lost a hand. It was no surprise, Tony had realized over time, that she’d liked to spar with Cap. He was the only person around on a regular basis who she didn’t have to worry about breaking. You almost couldn’t kill him if you tried.

(God, he should have made him bulletproof.)

“Morning, Nat,” Clint said, setting down Athena’s hoof and grinning up at her. “You’re up early.”

“I don’t sleep,” Natasha said, smiling as Morgan folded her arms and rested them on top of her head. “You should know that.”

“Yeah,” Clint agreed warmly, smiling. “Should’ve known.”

Tony said, “God, you two are gross,” and caught Natasha’s knowing little smile as he added, “I need some fresh air.” Ignoring the fact that he was already outside and the air could not be fresher, bright, _summer-y_ , he announced, “I’m going for a walk.”

“Bye, Daddy!” Morgan crowed, perfectly content from her perch.

Tony blew her a kiss, assured, “Farewell, Moorgona,” and flipped Clint off with his right hand, fingers crooked in a way that made it easy. Clint cackled that familiar hyena laugh, and Tony felt whole and almost alive as he trekked away from the barn.

His wolf was busy digging a hole in the dirt near the backside of the nearby house, so he whistled and Laika perked up, trotting over, tail wagging. “Hi, good girl,” Tony said, crouching down and rubbing her shoulders with both hands, immune to the little sparks of pain in his right hand. “How are you, my dear?”

She licked his face. He pushed her away, assuring, “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Wanna walk?” She sniffed at his hair before backing off as he straightened. Looking up at him with clear eyes, she waited for him. He swallowed hard, picked a cardinal direction, and started walking. 

He expected her to dash ahead, to go running off into the hills, but she stayed by his side. At times, she would race off, but only when he was secure on the porch. Without fail, she would return to his side as soon as he got up, staying close by no matter where he went thereafter.

It was projection to imagine she was looking for someone.

She was nearing later adulthood, Tony knew, but she still enjoyed a youthful rigor that made Tony believe she was immortal. Maybe he just needed to believe it. Swallowing hard at that unwanted thought, he looked down at her, fur silky-smooth, tail sweeping back and forth. He encouraged, “Let’s go for a walk.”

He told himself he wasn’t looking for anyone, either.

It wasn’t often that he took a leisurely stroll, least of all in hectic D.C. He’d moved out of New York shortly after—After, capital A, the kind of After that even the great Tony Stark didn’t plan for—and opted to spend some time closer to his other home-away-from-home, evicting Rhodey’s neighbors for the paltry bribe of ten million dollars and moving in. He couldn’t stand being in the Tower, After. He couldn’t stand being within a hundred miles of New York, After.

It was hard enough living in D.C., After, because he could still picture Steve on Rhodey’s couch, Steve accepting Rhodey’s undersized jacket with a smile. He could hear that goddamn Spanish soap opera playing in the background as he rounded a corner, expecting to see him. But he was never there. Steve Rogers was gone. He wasn’t coming back.

They had the decency to close the exhibit, at least. Tony didn’t know if he cried because it was so unexpectedly decent or because it was a tether he couldn’t lose. Regardless, he cried when he got the first box.

He should have taken a thousand more pictures of Steve. He should have yanked that dumb disposable from Steve’s hands and run the film dry with pictures of him, alight in the full sun, his hair was as golden as his heart, his smile radiant, his laugh so—so _irreplicable_. Tony knew all laughs were, in some way, unique, but Steve’s seemed like it was from another time, impossible to hear again. He’d never recorded it. Why would he? He’d never expected to live through an After.

There was so little left of him. Steve had never signed anything. Hadn’t signed it even in the most conspicuous places, like his S.H.I.E.L.D. files, using his exhaustive S.H.I.E.L.D. serial number in its place. (Tony hadn’t memorized it. It wasn’t his name. It was their name for him; Tony would never repeat it.) There was virtually no trace of Steve Rogers in the twenty-first century. He’d come and gone in a cosmic instant.

Tony made it to a quiet corner of the woods, far enough away that the world fell nearly silent, before pausing. Laika heeled next to him, sitting down patiently when he didn’t move. He drew in a deep breath, blinked to try to clear his blurry vision. He couldn’t think about it, no more, or it would kill him. He could barely breathe, because it had been six years since Steve died. He still couldn’t think about him without feeling like he was going to fucking cry.

He stood there, frozen, tears perilously close to falling, a hand arrhythmically stroking the soft fur between Laika’s ears, for a long time.

And then, about ten paces ahead, the air shimmed, like passing sunlight. A shadow appeared, incongruously human-shaped. The black-shadow specter was so ungodly, so unexpected, that Tony froze, petrified, before it stepped forward and coalesced into glorious technicolor wonder.

Steve Rogers stood before him, looking worn and as exhausted as Tony felt, blinking incredulously at him, staring at Tony with open wonder. Laika loped over to him, head low, sniffing. Steve crouched and husked out, “Hi, sweet girl.” He smiled as she licked his face, once tentatively, then with great enthusiasm, laughing that merry little twinkle that Tony wanted to pocket and keep. “Hi. I missed you, too. Hi, Laika.”

Tony made a thin, helpless noise, not quite a disbelieving laugh, not quite a hysterical scream, but somewhere in the middle, thankfully too airless to be more than a breathless sound. He felt on the verge of panic. He felt on the verge of ecstasy.

Steve straightened and said softly, “Tony.” He walked towards him slowly, giving him time to run, but Tony stayed rooted in place. “Tony, Tony, Tony,” he repeated. It was the best word Tony had ever heard as Steve whispered it to him for the first time in six years. “Oh, Tony.”

Tony wasn’t sure if he closed the distance or if Steve did, but somehow, he was wrapped up in Steve’s arms and shaking hard enough his teeth nearly rattled. He gripped Steve’s jacket, white and red and hard to hold onto, as tightly as he could in both hands, flexing his right one as much as possible. “Tony,” Steve breathed, nuzzling his hair near the temple. “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

The words only made him cry, suddenly and uncontrollably, hitching breaths dissolving into noisy cries that he stifled against Steve’s jacket. “Honey, baby, oh, angel,” Steve murmured. Tony thought, _That’s my line_ , but he couldn’t speak, could only take it all in for the first time in _forever_. “It’s okay. It’s okay, I’ve got you.” He squeezed Tony gently, his hold firm but his grip just this side of right. “Oh, Tony. It’s okay.”

Tony gasped for breath, rasping, “Steve—?”

Steve nosed along his hairline. “Yeah,” he mumbled, his voice soft and warm, sweet and so _real_. “It’s me.”

Tony finally managed to hold Steve far enough back to sniffle and look up into his face. Steve’s brilliant blue eyes were fuzzy with tears. Tony reached up with both normal and mangled hand to brush them away as they slipped free. “If you cry, I’m gonna cry,” he warned, even though his voice was already wobbly, his cheeks damp. Steve caught his hands gently and kissed his right palm.

“Oh, honey,” he murmured. “Tony. _Tony_.”

Breathing harshly, Tony said, “I couldn’t. I couldn’t.”

“S’okay.” He said it so softly, so _earnestly_ , that Tony felt some of the tension, some of the unbearable guilt of it all, ease. “S’okay. I love you.” He whispered, “I love you, I love you, I—”

Tony kissed him, breathless and needing it more than he’d ever needed air. Steve responded in kind, curling his arms around Tony’s shoulders, pulling him close, cradling him, protecting him from the great big world beyond the trees. It was everything, everything dreams could not remember and memories could not hold onto.

He could not bear to break apart as he gasped for breath, kissing along Steve’s cheek, under his right eye. Relief settled into Tony’s chest, warm and tangible and indescribable. “God, you’re so beautiful,” Tony whispered, staring at his face, at his eyes, at the little lines, at the things he remembered and the things he didn’t. “What? How—?” He didn’t know where to begin. He knew exactly where to begin. 

“Son of a bitch,” he gasped. “You changed the timeline again.” He gripped Steve’s face in his hands, his right hand not resting flat but still capable of _holding_. Gently, in a way he hadn’t done in six years, he wagged Steve’s head back and forth, back and forth, love _was_ a verb, telling him with complete sincerity, “I hate you. I love you. Please don’t go.”

Steve closed his eyes and Tony ached with a love so powerful it was completely overwhelming. He grasped at Steve’s flanks, gripping his hard-to-grip jacket, reeling him in, holding on as tightly as he could. “If you leave again, I will kill you,” he muttered against Steve’s shoulder. “Don’t test me, I won’t hesitate.” He hauled Steve closer and felt Laika squeeze between them, tail wagging, her whole body writhing joyfully. Tony understood her enthusiasm completely. “Oh my God, oh my _God_.” He sobbed, tightening his grip on Steve’s back to keep the tears at bay as he said, “I waited six years for you, you bastard, do you know how many tears you can cry in six years?”

Steve held onto him, gentle but secure. He whispered, “I’m sorry, Tony.”

Tony shook his head against Steve’s jacket, leaning back and cupping his face. He brushed his thumbs along Steve’s cheekbones, noting, “Jesus, you look terrible. What happened? Did we fuck up? Of course we did, you aren’t even—” He sucked in a breath, then said, _F_ _uck it_ , and revealed, “You’ve been dead. For six years.”

Steve stared at him. “What?” he asked. He blinked and shook his head, then said, “That’s impossible.”

Tony felt his throat tighten as he said, “I was there. And unless you pulled a Houdini—did you pull a Houdini? Because if so, that’s _horrifying_.” Tony ran his hands over Steve’s space-age suit, confirming his realness, admiring the suit and the man underneath it. Soberly he rested his palm over Steve’s heart. It beat steadily underneath his fingers. He had to swallow hard before he could repeat, “You died.” 

He closed his eyes, shuffling closer so he could bury himself in Steve’s welcome embrace. “I couldn’t—there was nothing. Right through the heart.” He poked Steve over the chest, flinched at the sound of a bullet, six long years ago. 

Breathing in his scent—all wrong; the ozone smell was stronger, like he’d been bathing in it, his own sunshine scent buried, but that was fine, everything was _okay_ again—Tony told him like the world’s worst secret, “I watched it happen. I watched you _die_.”

“Oh, Tony.” Steve trembled against him. Tony almost regretted telling him, but there was nothing but weary sobriety as he said, “I’m sorry.” There were words he didn’t say. The way he scrabbled at Tony’s jacket, firm and desperate, spoke volumes. _You don’t come from a land of plenty, do you?_ Tony thought.

In the six years he’d had to reflect since Steve Rogers took a bullet straight to the heart, he’d yearned for the future Steve to rescue him, to reassure him that all was well when none of it was, when future Steve had to be dead because his Steve, his Steve was dead, and yet—

“You’re here now,” Tony assured, his right hand throbbing as he clenched Steve’s jacket until his knuckles turned white. “You’re _here_ now.” Steve exhaled. Tony warned fiercely, “I wasn’t kidding about that _don’t you dare leave_.”

“I know. I know.” Steve pulled back and Tony let him, but he kept his grip on the jacket. “I know,” he said a third time, looking world-weary, torn. “I—I shouldn’t stay, Tony, I shouldn’t—”

“Don’t,” Tony said, feeling desperation claw its way up his throat. “Steve Rogers, don’t you dare.”

Steve closed his eyes, looking hurt and tired and so hopeful at once, blinking and looking right at Tony, reaching up to cup his face in one hand. Tony leaned his cheek against Steve’s palm, big and warm and steady. Steve said, “I can’t stay. It’s—it’s not the nature, of things. I have to go home.”

“No,” Tony said, turning his face against Steve’s palm and closing his eyes. The grief and raw relief were too much to handle. Steve’s hand was trembling. “No, you don’t,” he insisted.

“I just might need to,” Steve said again. Tony recognized a formality when he heard it, a token protest. He felt his thundering heart rate slow as Steve settled his arms around Tony’s shoulders, curling him in for a hug. “Tell me to go, Tony.”

Defiantly, Tony said, “Never.” He held onto the flanks of the jacket. “Never, never.” Steve kissed his cheek under his left eye. Tony closed both eyes, insisting, “I’m not telling you to run. But if you do, I promise you, I’m gonna come get you. You hear me? I am a stubborn bastard, I will live to be seven hundred if that’s where you left the car.”

Steve pressed a kiss to his temple, saying nothing. Tony sighed. “I don’t care how long you make me wait. I mean, I’ll hate you forever and write you a lot of very unhappy letters, but I’ll wait.” He leaned up, kissed Steve firmly on the mouth, pulled away to mutter, “You taste like chalk,” and kissed him again anyway, lingering until he was breathless, until he was dizzy. Then he hid face against the safe space between Steve’s neck and shoulder, breathing there. He was alive. He was alive, impossibly alive. “I missed you,” he confessed, as if it wasn’t self-evident. “God, I missed you. I kept—I hoped, you know? I hoped.”

Steve nodded, arms still curled around his shoulders, cradling him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I—I’m sorry.”

“For dying?” Tony asked bluntly, safe because he was _alive_ , he was _real_. “Or for taking so long to come back?”

Steve nosed along his hair and pressed another kiss to the side of his head. “Both?” he tried. “More,” he added gravely, his voice so deep it was nearly inaudible. “So much _more_.” He shivered once, just a full body shudder. Then he said firmly, “’m not gonna go, Tony.” A beat. “Not—not again.” He didn’t explain. The tremble under his skin was heartbreaking, a question Tony didn’t ask. 

_How many? How long?_

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know how long it would take Steve Rogers’ indomitable resolve to break. So, he leaned back, leaning playfully against Steve’s arms, looking at him with a smile and telling him, “You know, you have impeccable timing, birthday boy. I’m getting you a cake. I’m getting you twelve cakes. I’ll buy out a cake shop—”

“Tony,” Steve said, closing his eyes, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Save some for the rest of society.”

Tony scoffed, said, “My boyfriend came back from the dead, _fuck_ the rest of society, they can have their cake tomorrow. I’m gonna put—Jesus, how old are you? Don’t tell me, I’m making it up. Happy 703rd. You old bear.” He pecked Steve on the cheek playfully, lingering there. Ozone. He couldn’t wait to take him flying. He hadn’t been flying in—God only knew how long, but the smell of it was intoxicating, like fresh cookies in a bakery. He was only a man. The temptation itched under his skin, trembled in his fingers, his right hand flexing in emphatic hopefulness.

 _I’m gonna build a new suit_. The thought alone made him giddy. He felt like he’d been reborn, like _he’d_ been given a second chance at life as he babbled, “We gotta sing _Happy Birthday_ six times, you realize. One for every year we missed. You know you’re really selfish, depriving us of the chance to sing it—how many years has it been for you? Don’t tell me.” Bubbling with joy, he effused, “You’ll be so damn sick of that song.”

Steve just looked at him with a smile curving the corner of his lips, equal parts amused and rueful. Tony told him affectionately, “Shut up. Fuck the future. I’m keeping you. You hear me?” He gave his sides a squeeze, easy with his left, firm with his right. “I’m keeping you this time. There’s not even a conflict of interests, you’re not—are you?”

Steve understood. He shook his head.

Tony let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, sliding his hands up and down Steve’s sides, feeling the give of space-age fabric, the liquid-smoothness of it, each breath as real as it had been the day he’d died. But he wasn’t dead. He was _alive_.

Tony met his gaze and held it. When Steve didn’t look away, he knelt down, with the kind of spontaneity he’d always known, sliding his hands down Steve’s sleeves so he could grip warm, real, breathtakingly _real_ hands in his own. Steve blinked down at him. Tony snickered as Laika, her dog-father’s dog-daughter, tried to wedge herself under his arm. Keeping his arm pinned to his side, holding Steve’s gaze steadily, Tony entreated, “Marry me.”

He realized belatedly that it was supposed to be a _question_ , so he cleared his throat, grinned as Laika finally snuck under his arm anyway. He repeated gently, “Marry me, Steve Rogers.”

He didn’t care that he was in barn clothes, didn’t care that his hair was rumpled and his cheeks were still damp with tears, his smile hopeless and making up for it all. He said it with stunning conviction: “Marry me. Please.” That was a hell of a look, he knew, a Stark begging for something, but it was worth it. “Marry me, you beautiful disaster.” Laika licked at his face and Tony had no hands to hold her at bay, snickering instead as he ducked his head. Steve drew in a breath, steadying himself with it, squeezing Tony’s hands gently.

“Always,” he said. It was better than _yes_. Tony grinned helplessly up at him, so happy he could die. Steve tugged him to his feet and gave him his _yes_ , soft, barely there, pressing a kiss to Tony’s forehead.

Tony let go of his hand to cup his face, teasing, “You missed.”

Steve smirked, closing his eyes, world-weary blue. “I missed your smile,” he murmured. A tear slipped down his cheek; Tony kissed it away. “I missed you.” He exhaled when Tony kissed him on the mouth, the tension vanishing from his shoulders.

Laika pawed at Steve’s leg. He smirked against Tony’s mouth, pulling away so he crouch and rub her furry head, assuring, “I missed you, too. I did.” He kissed her forehead, then looked up at Tony and pointed out softly, “This is so selfish.”

Tony grinned, winding an arm around him when he straightened. “Good. You deserve selfish.” Steve smiled, eyes closed but holding Tony with the same gentle urgency, the need to stay tethered, grounded, as if he could slip away if Tony didn’t hold on, drift away if he let go. “I’m serious, your altruism is _exhausting_ ,” Tony said. Steve opened his eyes, half-mast and amused, oh so tired and oh so happy at once. “I don’t have a ring,” Tony admitted.

Steve shook his head. “I don’t need one,” he murmured. “I’ve got you.”

“Sap,” Tony said fondly. He nodded to the side, urging, “Come home with me.”

Steve nodded. “I shouldn’t,” he said, valiant to the finish, but he didn’t let go. “You know I don’t—”

“Belong here?” Steve’s mouth firmed into an unhappy little line. Tony kissed the corner of it and insisted, “You’re here, aren’t you? Good enough.” He let his right hand drop to rub Laika between the ears as she sat next to him, his hand aching faintly. Steve looked down at his hand. Tony said quietly, “Don’t blame yourself.”

Steve smiled wearily. “If you knew what I blamed myself for,” he murmured cryptically, kissing Tony’s forehead and pulling him in for a firm hug. “Doesn’t matter. Not anymore.” He inhaled and said simply, “I’m home.”

They walked hand-in-hand, Laika trotting alongside Steve like the happy wolf she was, Tony monologuing about every up and up of the last six years, pausing to gesture grandly. He made a point to add assuringly, “We’ll catch you up, won’t be hard, you’ll be fine. You’ll fit right in.” Tony felt younger, livelier, even as he approached the barn with a sudden hesitation, drawing up short in the trees. Steve watched him as Tony preluded hesitantly, “There’s, um, something you should know.”

Steve was patient, waiting for him to speak, but Tony couldn’t verbalize it. He could only close his eyes and smile helplessly at a familiar shriek of laughter and the distant sound of a hose spraying. Laika barked and took off to find the source of fun. “That, um. That one’s mine,” Tony said at last, nodding at the four-year-old who appeared around the barn, wielding the hose like a madman under Clint’s amused supervision. “I don’t think that’s a horse!” he called out as she turned the hose towards Laika, who jumped up at the stream, biting at the water.

With the hose still on and in hand, Morgan whirled to face him, nailing Clint. “Daddy!” she shouted, dropping the still-running hose and sprinting towards them, Laika zipping past her while Clint grumbled good-naturedly and went to retrieve the hose. Before Clint could spray it at Tony, Morgan threw herself at him, gripping his legs tightly.

Tony wrapped an arm around her, telling her, “Hey, sweet pea, I want you to meet someone.” He crouched and picked her up, holding her on his shoulder with his left-hand-dominant, right hand steadying her. He turned to introduce Steve, who had stepped back, almost out of sight.

Steve looked at the two of them with equal parts wariness and hopefulness, like he was expecting Tony to shoo him away, _get out of the picture_. Tony nodded in the little sideways _c’mere_ gesture instead. Steve took a step closer, emerging into the fuller douse of brilliant sunlight. Tony told Morgan with a regal nod, “This is Mr. Rogers.”

Morgan rested her cheek on Tony’s shoulder and looked at Steve, echoing shyly, “Hi, Mr. Rogers.” Leaning around to point at the meadow, she added, “I got the hose.”

“Yeah?” Steve said, smiling. “Looks like fun.”

Nodding, Morgan said, “I’m gonna go get it” and squirmed until Tony put her down, taking off the way she had come.

“Tony?” Clint called, his tone devoid of casual humor as he ran towards them with big Clydesdale strides. He halted and gawked at Steve, stepping forward, one hand out. He hesitated, then planted it on Steve’s shoulder and gave it a firm shove. When Steve rocked with the motion, offering a tentative half-smile, he managed in a strangled tone, “Oh my _God_.” Then he crushed Steve in a bear hug.

Steve hugged him back, expression haunted, eyes open and grip just as tight as Clint’s, looking equal parts overwhelmed and relieved. Tony rested his left hand on the small of Steve’s back, offering silent support, while Clint pulled back and rasped, “How are you alive?”

Steve winced. Tony interjected firmly, “Later.” He smiled winningly at Natasha, who had reappeared on the porch, coffee in hand, watching them with the kind of seen-a-ghost posture Tony understood. She set her cup down on the railing and didn’t acknowledge Morgan’s chirp of, “Hi, Aunt Nat!”

She did not run, just paced down the stairs, crossed the yard, joined their little huddle as Steve pressed back against Tony’s hand, radiating the same mixture of hopefulness and discomfort, joy and shame. Tony scratched at the jacket of his suit, trying to convey without words, _It’s okay. It’s just a shock_.

He managed, “Hi, ‘Tasha.”

Natasha said, “Bozhe moi.” She reached out to cup his face, ran a hand over straw-blonde hair with its silver touches, brow furrowed, trying to reconcile what she’d known with what was in front of her. Morgan was far enough away, once again toying with the hose as Laika bounced up to catch the stream. She said slowly, “You died.”

Steve shrugged. “No,” he said. “No, I did not.” A beat. Then he added, “But . . . the—the time . . . . There are. . . .” Faltering, he said, “There’s more than one ending, y’know?” There was a helpless plead-the-fifth quality to his tone, but he looked between Clint, standing back, tears pooling in his eyes, and Natasha, holding his face. He said, “I’m sorry. That I—I’m sorry.”

Natasha shook her head, still seeming as shell-shocked as Clint, but she stepped forward and wrapped him up in a gentle hug, hands splaying across his back. Clint grasped at his left sleeve like he couldn’t quite help himself. Tony didn’t move his hand from the small of Steve’s back. Steve's breath hitched, but he did not cry. Not even as Natasha started shaking against him.

Morgan called out, “Daddy! _Daddy_!”

Tony replied, “Hey, sweet pea, you wanna get the others?”

Morgan chirped, “Okay!” She dropped the hose—thankfully, off—and charged towards the barn, laughing as Laika zipped ahead of her.

Tony scratched gently at Steve’s back, just one hand tethering them. The door smacked shut behind Morgan. No sooner had the muffled cry of “ _Uncle Bruuuce! King Thooor!”_ rung out, it seemed, then a very merry Thor was stepping out, hand-in-hand with Tony’s daughter, looking across the yard at their little congregation and bellowing:

“Steven! On mighty Valhalla, where have you been?” He beamed like the Golden Retriever that he was, adding in the same megaphone tone, “We thought you were dead! But I knew, Steven, I knew you would return to us! I knew it!” He beamed, then said, “Here, would you hold this?” to Morgan, who nodded and accepted Mjölnir.

Tony smiled in spite of himself as she held the hammer at her side like it didn’t weigh much of anything. They’d all been adopted into the Avengers’ clan; it seemed fitting that she would be able to wield it. She was one of their own.

Unencumbered, Thor ran to them, bundling them all up into his massive arms before anyone could attain a safe distance and declaring, “We shall feast like kings and queens tonight! One of our own has returned to us!”

Tony implored, “Thor, I can’t breathe,” and Steve laughed, a happy little sound that made Tony’s heart beat anew, joy and relief coursing through him. “Take his side, why don’t you?” he muttered, exhaling when Thor released them, clapping Steve on the shoulder hard enough to stagger him, Natasha letting him go and stepping back as Clint did the same.

“I have missed you!” Thor effused, gripping Steve’s shoulders in two massive hands, shaking him. “My friend! You have returned!”

Steve said, “Easy, Thor,” but smiled to show he wasn’t hurt, adding a touch apologetically, “These old bones ain’t what they used to be.”

Immediately, Tony saw some of the tension in Thor’s firm grip release, even though he didn’t let go of Steve entirely. “Are you well?” he asked, the booming joy mellowing to more conversational inquisition.

Steve nodded, assuring, “Well as I can be.” He looked at Tony, then, like he was reaffirming his presence, shoulders slumping. “Been a while since I. . . .” He paused, considered. Thor let him go. Steve slouched further on his feet, adding, “Would it be all right, if we sat down? I haven’t slept in a while.”

Tony pressed closer, shoulder to the back of Steve’s. “Sure,” he answered promptly for the class, nodding to encourage the others to do the same. Thor alone seemed immune to the vague delirious nature of it all, as if his friends regularly died and came back from the dead. Maybe they did. “Sure, Steve.”

Bruce was still yawning into a cup of coffee when they filed into the barnhouse, choking on his next gulp and nearly collapsing altogether when Steve urged gently, “Easy, Bruce.” He stared, eyes bulging, at them, gaze meeting Tony’s as if to say _Did you do this?_

Tony shrugged modestly. He refused to let go of Steve, instead saying, “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

Face still red from choking, Bruce managed, “Steve?”

Steve said, “Don’t die on me,” with a smile that was numb to casual humor, breaking free from Tony’s grip so gently he barely felt it, moving forward and wrapping an arm around Bruce, pulling him in for a brief hug. “I just got here. Be a damn shame to lose somebody in the first hour.”

With a hysterical noise, Bruce said, “Tell me I’m not the only one seeing this.”

“I’m sure there’s a _very_ good explanation,” Natasha agreed, fixing Tony with a look that implied, _which you will deliver_.

Tony shrugged, stepping up and tugging at the back of Steve’s jacket. “Yeah, well, write me in the mail, expect a reply in two to six business days.” He waited until Steve stepped back before adding to the congregation, “Questions later. Got it? Write ‘em down, there will be a quiz.”

Bruce huffed, Clint said, “Sure,” and Natasha grabbed Steve’s jacket one last time, holding onto the side of the suit. He hugged her, too, gentle and forgiving, offering everything he had. God, was he on fumes.

The upper level of the house was well-appointed, but they didn’t stop there, ascending to the little attic that Tony had squirreled away in, the others paired off according to skill sets—smashing and caching, respectively. 

He liked to imagine Thor, feet hanging off the end of a queen-sized bed, while Bruce laid on the floor trying to sleep next to the Asgardian’s bellowing snores, loud enough to be heard from an entire floor below. Natasha and Clint, for their part, were far less conspicuous and probably enjoyed less constricted real estate. 

Tony’s little room was still the best in his mind, because it was the whole floor to himself. Morgan had a sleeping pad and camping mat nearby; Laika had one of Tony’s jackets and a spare horse blanket on the opposite corner, curled up into a ball.

Steve looked around, taking it all in. Tony let him, sliding off his own jacket. It was going to be a hot day. The highest room of the house also suffered the _hottest_ room of the house problem, but Tony just cracked open the window, letting in life and fresh air.

Steve ran his hand along the wall, looked at the sleeping bag and improvised dog bed, the actual guest bed still unmade, because Tony was only capable of so much. He seemed to soften at the sight, turning to look at Tony, gaze drifting down to his right hand.

Tony tucked it into a pant pocket, nodding at the bed and saying, “All yours.” A touch playfully, he kicked off his shoes and grabbed Steve’s space-age jacket, hauling him after him like a recalcitrant horse. “All mine, actually, but same thing.” Eyes twinkling with merriment, he looked at Steve, who smiled back, just a small, happy thing, rarer than a four-leafed clover. Tony had had a pretty full night’s rest and a rambunctious four-year-old downstairs who would undoubtedly request his presence again once she tired of watching Uncle Clint try to lift King Thor’s hammer, but he didn’t care, climbing into bed and half-tugging, half- _hauling_ Steve after him.

Tony scooted back so he could rest his back against the headboard, letting Steve slide down so his cheek rested against Tony’s belly. His shimmery space-age jacket refused to yield its secrets, so Tony left it alone, itching though he was to get his hands on warm, real, human skin again. He felt Steve breathe against him, wondered if he was already asleep, brushing his fingers through his hair, smoothing it down, his right hand resting against his side.

Then Steve said softly, “I missed you so much.”

Tony hushed, “I’m here.” It was easy, now, because Steve was there. It had been six years, but it didn’t matter. Steve was there. Steve was _home_. “It’s okay.” Steve’s boots were still on, and Tony wanted to tug them off, to tell him he could _stay_ , well and truly, but Steve was heavy and warm against him. 

And as a final act of altruism, Steve toed off his own boots, letting them thud to the ground and sighing apologetically. “Shh,” Tony told him, clinging to him, holding onto him. “It’s okay now. It’s okay. You can rest.”

It was easy to tell when Steve fell asleep, his weight heavier where it rested on Tony, his entire demeanor relaxed. He’d been so tense that the inverse, at rest, caused him to tremble nearly uncontrollably. Tony held him more tightly in turn, crooning wordlessly, feeling tears slip down his own cheeks, joyful tears, because he finally had something good to cry about.

And, well. He might have sobbed once or twice when Steve proposed to him in front of the barn. 

He did it in plain view of their strange little family, kneeling in the dirt and looking up at Tony like he’d hung the stars, eyes so tired, body so heavy, but heart so _full_ as he said, “Every time, Tony—I’d choose you every time. I’ve lived a life like no other, been told to move on, to find something else. To.” He swallowed, then continued, “To live in a tomorrow without you. But I can’t. You’re my once-in-forever. And if I can have you here, if we can make it work—then that’s enough for me.

“So. Tony.” He smiled, toothy, boyish. Tony was aware, in a warm sort of way, of their audience: Laika held at bay by Clint, sitting on the steps and gruffly not crying while Natasha and Thor sat on the porch swing, Morgan kicking her feet between them, Bruce leaning against the doorframe with a smile in his eyes. It was the first nightfall Tony had looked forward to in a long time. He couldn’t wait to show Steve the _stars_ again.

Steve looked at him with stars in his eyes and asked seriously, “Anthony Edward Stark. Will you marry me?”

Tony wanted to say it firmly and for all, _yes, **yes**_ , but he only managed a warbled approximation, gratefully leaning into Steve as he straightened and kissed Tony like there was no tomorrow.

And he was six years late, but it didn’t matter a bit. They sang _Happy Birthday_. Laika howled and Morgan joined her and Thor drowned them all out with a lively rendition of an Old Norse song. It was perfect, Tony thought, arms wrapped around Steve’s shoulders, a grin on his face as Steve valiantly blew out 100 candles crammed onto a single cake.

And all was forgiven. And they lived well again.

. o . 

**_Tuesday, January 15, 2013_.**

Sitting next to him, Steve prompted, “Tony?”

Tony snuffled, realizing he must have dozed off again, grimacing at the drool at the corner of his mouth. “Hm?” he asked, brushing the back of his right hand across his mouth. Pain sparked and he hissed. “Yeah?”

With apology in his eyes, Steve blinked sad blue eyes down at him and said, “I’m sorry.”

Tony shrugged, yawning against his shoulder. “Don’t be.”

“We’ll fix this,” Steve promised in his firm, Captain America voice. It was almost comical, the way he wore his red boots and medium-blue pants but the gray NYU hoodie slung over his suit, hiding it. His shield rested near his feet. He sat against the wall, hunched inward, allowing Tony to doze and drool on his shoulder while they waited for the second hour in a small side room at the emergency room. “We will.”

“S’okay.” Tony brushed his cheek against Steve’s shoulder firmly, adding, “I forgive you. You know that.”

Steve stroked his opposite hip, arm slung around his waist. He said nothing for a long moment. “Whatever’s gonna happen,” he said at last, “whatever bad stuff—I promise. We’ll figure it out.”

Tony nodded against him, said, “That’s the spirit,” and yawned again. “Wake me when I’m wanted.” He still felt dopey, heavy, from the alcohol and barely-repressed panic of being back in a hospital and the general awfulness that spiked at the end of his right arm.

Steve, ever the chivalrous man, nosed his hair and said softly, in a voice Tony wasn’t meant to hear, “If I did, I’d never let you sleep.” But more firmly, he added, “Okay. I will.” Slumping down against the wall, he added, “I got you.”

Tony drifted off, confident that he’d hold himself to that, safe in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy belated four-month anniversary, OMA. You have been my most beloved beautiful disaster.
> 
> And you all have been my most wonderful friends for joining me. <3 It's not the end. But it's one ending, of a sorts.
> 
> Onward and upward. Onward and upward.


	39. CHOOSE YOUR OWN ENDING

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, this is not the end. <3 This is just part of our new adventure.
> 
> I have to prelude this by saying that, for Our Steve and Our Tony, there will be a happy ending. But, as we saw in the last two chapters, more tragic outcomes exist. This chapter explores several of them. 
> 
> So, be warned: there is mention of character death, albeit somewhat obliquely, in this chapter. Like I said, you will get exactly the kind of happy ending you signed up for, no codas or qualifiers. But to glimpse other roads is to sometimes look at dark places, indeed.
> 
> Thank you for trusting me, for believing in this story.  
> Cheers to even more. <3

The river of time forked.

**Cardinal East**.

“I’m proud of you,” Tony said. Linking his arm with Steve’s, uncaring that they were in plain view as they walked the snowy streets of blizzard-bunkered New York, he added lightly, “Now that you’re a free man, you can come work for Stark Industries.” With another foggy breath, he added around a shiver, “Which I will be re-headquartering in Malibu. Promptly.”

“Oh?” As if he couldn’t care less about the cold, Steve unzipped the jacket of his patchwork suit and folded it over Tony’s shoulders. It radiated prodigious, furnace-like heat. Tony released him long enough to tuck his arms into the sleeves, melting in gratitude. “I dunno.” When Tony frowned at him, he added soothingly, “Business and pleasure?”

Sniffing, Tony said, “I enjoy mixing them. With the right people.” He nudged Steve with an elbow, observing, “You’re gonna freeze, you know that?”

Steve shrugged in his undershirt, lifting the edge to reveal a second thermal underneath. “I was getting warm,” he assured, which seemed so improbable Tony snorted.

Locking arms with Steve again, head lowered against the falling snow, Tony observed, “Uh huh, sure. So, does this mean you’re vetoing Australia?”

Steve blinked, reaching up to brush the snow out of his own hair as they paused at a red light. “Australia?” he said, thick on the Brooklyn _awh_. “What’s so interesting about Australia?”

“Well,” Tony began, then coughed, and never finished the statement. 

He didn’t recognize the pain at first. There was just pressure, sudden and deep and confounding, focused on the left side of his chest, neat between his ribs. He let his arm go limp in Steve’s hold, feeling numbly for the hot-deep-cold pressure point, shaking fingers encountering blood already pouring from the wound.

“Steve?” he whispered, voice unexpectedly small. Steve didn’t respond, covering him, standing in front of—behind him, because that was where the shot had come from. He’d been _shot_. It didn’t make any sense. He felt darkness swallow the world underneath him.

There was only a moment between Steve deciding to pursue the attacker and help Tony, but Tony didn’t care that he chose to stay, following Tony down, yanking his own shirt so he could bundle it against the wound. There was no pain, only a profound ringing in Tony’s ears that made it impossible to know what Steve was saying.

He tried to say, “I’m okay,” because if he could play it off as a, as a _joke_ , he would be.

But he couldn’t play it off.

The last thing he ever saw was Steve’s face, raw with disbelief.

**Cardinal South**.

“So that’s it, then. You go home to, what, business as usual?”

Standing near the door in his patchwork uniform, eyes still haunted with the specter of Norilsk, Steve said slowly, “I’m sorry, Tony.”

Lounging near the desk in his hotel room in Anchorage-fucking- _Alaska_ , wearing three shirts and still unable to chase the cold from his bones, Tony shrugged and said, “It’s fine.” He waved a hand dismissively. “No one asked you to quit. Why would you? It’s fine,” he repeated with a wounded little shrug. “It’s over now, isn’t it?”

“Tony.” There was real pain in Steve’s voice, underlain as it was by the husky scraped-over-ice sound of a night full of wracking coughs Tony did his best to sleep through. Steve justified, “There’s gotta be more to this. Path doesn’t end here. Someone had to send out the alerts. I have to—I have to find out who. I have to do this.”

“Right.” Looking at him, Tony smiled an unpleasant smile and said, “No, you’re right. After all, what’s Captain America without his S.H.I.E.L.D., huh?”

Steve still looked far more sad than angry. “I don’t want there to be secrets between us, Tony.”

Tony nodded and said, “Your honesty is _riveting_.” He knew he needed to curb the bitterness in his voice, but he _couldn’t_ , dammit. 

He was disappointed, but he didn’t know why. He hated the way he felt, conflicted and uncertain and worn to the fucking _bone_. “No, I think that’s a great idea. S.H.I.E.L.D. is your life. I would never ask you to leave. It’s the best thing for you. Clearly.” He turned to the desk and told it, “For the sake of not keeping secrets, I’m never doing this again. Norilsk was—that’s it for me, bud. No more. Can’t do it again.”

“I would never ask you to, Tony.”

Tony nodded, then said, “You’re leaving. Aren’t you?”

A long pause. “I can stay,” Steve offered. Tony shook his head. “It’s not—”

“No. Go home. Pepper and Rhodey are here. We’ll be fine.” He shrugged, then added, “Go. I’ll be home soon. It’s good, you know, to be independent.” The words tasted so sour in his mouth. Tony hated the way his chest felt cracked open, all his emotions exposed, like he couldn’t show any of them to Steve. “Go. Do what you have to. I’ll be there.”

Steve said in a surprisingly small voice, “Yeah?”

Tony shrugged. “Where else would I go?”

Steve seemed somber, sobered. He stood there, prim and proper but beaten, somehow. He said carefully, “I don’t want to go. I just—I wanna do the right thing, here.”

Tony wanted to say a lot of things. He said none of them, only, “I love you.” And it rang so, so hollow.

**Cardinal West**.

Through the cotton-headed heaviness of mild— _moderate—_ intoxication, Tony knew what was going to happen almost before it did.

He wasn’t sure why the Universe deigned to give him a glimpse of the other side, of a premonition so certain that it defied motionless inaction. He didn’t think, didn’t try to justify, didn’t ask, _Did you hear that?_ He just lunged forward, shoving Steve as hard as he could off their bench and following him to the floor.

The bullet sliced through the wall, right where Steve had been.

The sound of it firing had been quiet but unmistakable. Tony had no time to fathom it as he landed on top of Steve, bracing himself on his right hand.Pain electrified him, paralyzed him. There was a blur of motion next to him. Then the warmth and heaviness were just _gone_. He wanted to shout, _get down, you goddamn idiot_ , but that wasn’t who Steve was.

Bullheaded to the finish, Steve loped towards the door and confronted destiny head-on.

It wasn’t surprising. Steve was the last person to take cover under fire. He’d go for the gun.

Tony heard more gunfire, still muffled— _silencer_ , his mind supplied, his mechanical, gun-friendly upbringing determining it was some kind of Sig Sauer, they had _punch—_ and he could no sooner move than saw off his own right arm. Feeling like a coward, he laid on the floor, trying to gain control over the blinding pain lancing from fingertip to shoulder.

He made it to his knees before he noticed the eerie quiet. With fear pounding in his chest, Tony pried himself off the floor, stumbling to his feet and lurching towards the door, his hand hurting so bad it ached in his teeth. He shouldered his way out, eyes flitting around the emergency room. People cowered under chairs, white-faced and terrified. No one seemed to be bleeding profusely, he noticed numbly, which was a good sign.

There was also no sign of Steve anywhere—no blood, either, except there was, little splatters here and there, he’d been nicked, somehow, high up, the droplets were on the _wall_. Tony swallowed bile as he lurched towards the exit.

It was ten degrees above zero outside and he’d surrendered his coat in the confining warmth of the hospital, but he didn’t care, gave a single full-bodied shiver and turned in a circle, desperate to cry out but completely mute. Where was Steve? _Where the hell was Steve?_

There was a muffled sound nearby, boots scuffing on concrete. Tony froze like a deer in headlights, convinced that he was about to die, but the attack never came. Turning towards it, he lurched towards Steve, who was struggling to pick himself up from a snowbank, one hand flattened over his chest.

_**No!** _

He looked at Tony, grimaced. Then he said almost noiselessly, “They got away.”

Tony couldn’t make a sound, stumbling over to him, heedless of the pitching world or his screaming hand as he crouched and tugged at Steve’s arm, _What happened, what happened, God, what happened?_ He could see the dark red seeping around Steve’s fingers. He tried to make a sound, to say something, _anything_ , but nothing came out.

He tugged at Steve’s free arm, trying to get him up because he could either stay with him and, and watch Steve—or he could run back, get help.

Refusing to play the game, Tony hauled on Steve’s arm with all the raw strength fear granted. Steve obliged him, shaking off snow and ice as he stood. Tony knew he should be keeping an eye out for a second assault; he couldn’t help but hunch his own shoulders in paranoia. But he knew it would make no difference. Whoever could fell Captain America would have no trouble doing the same for Tony Stark. Really, if he was going to be shot, he would have been shot already.

He still wasn’t sure _where_ Steve had been shot, only that there was a growing red patch over the left side of his torso, his hand white where it pressed against the wound, grimly staunching the flow. Tony knew that if _anyone_ could survive being shot through the—

He swallowed hard, refusing to give it voice, terrified to acknowledge how dire the wound was. 

A Good Samaritan arrived. Tony didn’t care who it was, if it was the worst person alive, because they helped take Steve’s weight on his other side and that was all that mattered right then.

They got Steve out of the cold, at least.

It would have been intolerable to Tony if he had washed away in the cold.

**Cardinal North**.

Being held in Steve’s arms was always pure joy. 

It was a realization that Tony had had a hundred times, but he was still falling in love with it, with the freely given affection. If Steve had made him beg for it, he might have swallowed his pride and done it, asked, _Could you just hold me until I love some part of me again?_

He loved whoever he was when he was with Steve. Whether it was railing against the establishment in a Shakespearean dialogue or declaring his intention to play disco music until someone stopped him, he had more fun with his life whenever Steve stumbled into it. 

Steve didn’t actually stumble—he didn’t dance the way Tony did, either, big and wild and silly, rarely so unrestrained; so far, his laughter was the most out-of-control thing about Steve Rogers. Tony loved his laughter more than anything—but he swayed contentedly, holding Tony close as close could be, radiating a warmth that defied definition.

Cheek resting against Steve’s shoulder, Tony couldn’t help but relish the little things, the way he was strong and soft and warm. He smelled nice, like _Steve_ but also like . . . _summer_ , the same way good wine tasted and good music sounded. He looked good in a tux, too, despite being bashful about the whole thing, not going so far as to say, _Tony, I don’t deserve a wedding_ , but thinking it. 

While it was tempting to shower him in extravagance, Tony had chosen the least presumptuous version he could dream up instead. He was glad for it, because it allowed them to escape to this quiet corner beyond it all.

It wasn’t that he didn’t love his friends, his _family_ , but he liked the quiet summer night, the way that he could hear a party going on in the distance that he didn’t want to be part of because he had somewhere better to be. They’d made their appearances. They’d surely go back.

But right then, right there, he embraced every second he got with Steve.

After the backbreaking Samarkand incident, Steve had dropped S.H.I.E.L.D. for good. It was the best thing that had ever happened to them.

. o . 

The river of time split into tributaries.

**North-East**.

Their good, good soldier. Their brave toy soldier.

Loathe as they were to lose him, Tony was amazed at how easily S.H.I.E.L.D. lost him. They let him walk. They accepted his proverbial keys, shook his hand, and allowed him to live a new life. It was only fair: he had, in just under 120 days, cleared forty-eight high profile missions. On average, he was out in the field once every two-and-a-half days. Since missions usually ran for two to three days, his field-time was almost continuous, with few intermissions.

They still had sixteen-hundred little projects that he could have accelerated, but after the stunning win at Norilsk—a win that involved uncovering a whole Hydra cell at the top level of S.H.I.E.L.D.—well, once the bad apples had been sorted, the organization had granted his one wish. To be free, to be _home_.

They moved to Malibu that spring and the Avengers Tower became the Avengers Compound. It wasn’t hard to sell out. New York was S.H.I.E.L.D.’s. New York, in many ways, had also been Howard Stark’s city. California was Tony’s little country within a country. It was a beautiful place to live, a beautiful place to be reborn.

They were still on call, of course, as the Avengers, but life on Earth was tranquil, as though a meteor intended to strike had somehow been steered away.

Tony stood on the beach some distance away, watching Steve soak in the sun, head on folded arms, belly on a beach towel that cost more than his total earnings back in the forties. Rolling over the little box in his hands, Tony basked for a long time, embracing the same peaceful doze Steve had adopted.

Then he strode over, tucking his little box into his pocket, ignoring the fact that he was absurdly overdressed for the beach. He could be patient.

He had waited a month in Oahu to accept what had been obvious from the start. He could wait a few more hours, allowing Steve his tranquility, allowing himself the space to think and breathe alone. 

Standing on the shore, he knew peace.

**South-West**.

They didn’t go to the hospital, because why _would_ they go to the hospital, anyway? 

It wasn’t hard to argue that the visit would be pointless: Tony was too intoxicated to receive any medication and too stubborn to even discuss the possibility of corrective surgery. They couldn’t do anything for him except tell him what he didn’t want to know and possibly splint his hand so it wouldn’t be so burdensome until the surgery he refused to have. 

He didn’t care if his hand healed all wrong. They could always go back later and break it anew. It was a horrible prospect, especially since there were pesky things like nerve damage and muscular atrophy to contend with, but nothing was going to happen that night, so why would they go to the hospital?

No, they stayed home instead.

Tony stayed home. Steve said he needed to take care of something, that Tony could reach out to Bruce or Clint or even Natasha if he needed help, that he would be back soon.

Just as he had a thousand arguments about why it was silly to go to the hospital when he didn’t want to go, when he couldn’t face treatment if it jeopardized the arc reactor at all and couldn’t face treatment even if it _didn’t—_ he had no arguments to keep Steve from walking out the door.

In retrospect, feeling over the patchwork uniform with its damning red hole, he would have given anything to have gone to the hospital if it meant a happier ending.

He never found the little chip on the suit, faithfully transmitting the wearer’s location. 

It didn’t matter. The target was still eliminated.

**South-East**.

It wasn’t exactly unexpected, that they would part ways. After all, Steve was married to his mission.

Still, Tony surprised himself at how . . . how completely he could let go of someone who had felt so tantamount to his universe. Sitting in Jeremy’s, his long-time therapist’s, office, he admitted, “I feel like we could have burned a lot longer.” 

And that was it. Their little candle of hope was snuffed out not by animosity but attrition. It wasn’t that he hated Steve or Steve hated him. It was that Steve was S.H.I.E.L.D.’s; there was no room for Tony.

Tony had accepted that. When things had still resembled normal, he had immersed himself in his own work; maybe that was why he was at peace with it. He didn’t _need_ Steve to prosper. He was still a magician even when no one watched him perform. He still made suits, more than ever, made them like they were going out of fashion, like every ticking moment was meant to be used. He worked hard in his lab and in the public eye to propel humanity forward just as Steve eliminated global threats like an ox ready to work itself to death at the yoke. 

They both carried their own yokes; their paths split irreconcilably.

He could never tell Steve to _not_ choose his own life.

There was just no way to reconcile it. Tony refused to ask him to leave, and he could not join Steve in his work. He could only watch Steve get farther and farther away, less theirs and more S.H.I.E.L.D.’s with each passing month, until he realized that they had somehow come full circle. 

They were still friends but not to a degree that it interfered with their lives. Tony had to keep Steve emotionally at a distance to keep from wanting more than he was given. Steve did the same to devote himself to his job, his mission, his reason for living.

There were still moments, little moments that they spoke of to no one, when they came together like galaxies crossing paths. There were no explosions, no fireworks, only a drawing gravity that brought them closeness and comfort and peace. They would never be anything more than each other’s, in whatever way that meant.

It was pathetic, that he loved those fleeting moments of old affection, of earnest adoration, enough that he never formally let Steve go. He couldn’t. He couldn’t move on from the ex he refused to call an ex, from the man he didn’t dare love too much.

The only peace he found was in Steve’s arms. He’d take one minute in ten thousand to experience it again. It didn’t matter if maybe, just maybe, he _deserved_ better than a love that was half-warm. Steve was the best. There was no _better_ , there was only _after_. Tony refused to live in an after.

He would not entertain a life _after_ Steve until Steve walked out and never came back.

**North-West**. _Present_.

They went to the hospital.

Of course they went to the hospital. What are you, nuts? Why _wouldn’t_ they go to the hospital?

Tony’s broken hand wasn’t a boo-boo one could put a _Star Wars_ bandage on and call _fixed_. Someone with a medical degree needed to tell him what to do. Then, like a Roman emperor with his imperial thumb upraised, ready to accede or deny, he could make a decision from there, _let’s treat it_ or _fuck off_. He didn’t care about the limb or the pain itself; he only cared about tying it off with a bow, about doing the right thing and then booking it the hell out of there.

He was rampant with nervous energy and paralyzed with anxiety, unable to sit still for long, alternating between near catatonic acceptance and furious refusal to be cowed. He felt edgy, too not-sober to handle the situation with quiet calm, but at least he had Steve and Bruce to keep him from doing something stupid, like kicking a hole in the drywall out of spite.

“I could do it,” Tony grunted hatefully, foot upraised to strike the helpless wall. Steve sighed and stood up to help, taking exactly one step towards him.

And that was when a bullet tore through the wall right where he had been sitting.

Bruce, standing by the water jug out of reach, froze. Tony went rigid, floored. Steve said sharply, “Shit.” Tony blinked rapidly in surprise as Steve bundled him into a corner, his own gaze fixed on the _bullet hole_ still marking the place where Steve had been. He watched incredulously as Steve picked up his shield and narrowed his eyes in indifference—borderline _annoyance—_ as a second bullet _pinged_ off the vibranium.

“Well, that’s good,” Steve muttered—and Tony was about to ask, _I’m sorry, how is that_ good?—but Steve was at the door leading to the waiting room, pointing sharply for Bruce to get on the goddamn ground. Chin down, eyes closed, Bruce was gripping the edge of the table that the water jug rested on, shoulders bunched and jaw clenched in concentration. 

Tony could’ve sworn his skin had a _green_ tint to it. Oh, hell, that was just what they needed, wasn’t it?

Wishing that he’d chosen a _less_ volatile companion for this godforsaken adventure, Tony still took it in stride as he said, “C’mon! Let the Hulk have some fun!”

“ _Tony_ ,” Steve snapped. 

Tony took _that_ in stride, too, snickering in a mixture of bewilderment and horror as another bullet pinged off Steve’s shield, right over his heart. Given the _wall_ between them, the precision was uncanny, like shooting at a target, Tony mused. A human dartboard.

The next shot came faster. As the mark tore through the wall like it wasn't there, Tony realized that these were elephant-killing bullets. It smacked against the shield with a ferocity that said _instant kill_. Steve didn’t look alarmed, little more than vaguely annoyed, as he deflected it. He reached for the door, one hand still balancing the shield. Then he flung it open. 

Instead of charging forward, his shield collided with a thunderous _boom_ against something heavy, metal, _powerful_.

Normally, a blow like that would have knocked any human assailant head-over-heels, but their attacker didn’t budge. The nonreaction sobered Tony more than anything.

It further sobered him when Bruce roared, arching, _transforming_. Steve didn’t acknowledge him, too busy _dropping his shield_ and kicking it across the room. It slid like a saucer to a halt right next to Tony. For a moment Tony thought Steve had a death wish, but then he saw the attacker’s gun gripped in Steve’s hands, forced to the floor, a hole burning through the linoleum right near Steve’s feet. 

Undeterred, his attacker shoved them forward hard enough that Steve, indomitable, immovable, _I can hold my own against Thor_ Steve, stumbled backwards. Pressing the advantage, their attacker drove them against the far wall, crashing into it hard enough to dent the wall itself.

Tony reached for the shield next to him, getting it up in front of himself. He jolted as another bullet _clanged_ against it, the vibration making Tony’s teeth buzz. Still, it was better than having a bullet lodged in his sternum, so he cowered behind it instead of flinging it aside and declaring that it needed more shock absorption.

Problems for another day, he resolved hastily, huddled with his right hand on fire but giddy with adrenaline, with shock, with appalled surprise as Steve grappled hand-to-hand with a black-clad assailant who was doing a spirited impression of trying to carve him into a pile of string cheese.

Ground was given. Stripes ripped across the gray fabric of Steve’s hoodie still covering the uniform underneath it. Stealth was pointless, but there was no chance to take it off. Tony couldn’t do anything to help him—nothing, that was, except strike out as soon as a black clad leg was in reach. 

He wasn’t sure it made a damn difference; it was like hitting a goddamn tree trunk with his foot. He might have had more luck against the fucking _wall_ , but there was a half second—a nanosecond, a _picosecond—_ of surprise on the behalf of their attacker and then Steve had an arm wrapped around their assailant’s neck, his balance thrown by one tenth of a degree, not enough, not even a blow, but just the kind of unbalance that tipped the scale.

Of course, with both arms wrapped around his attacker’s neck, Steve was wide open for a full frontal assault.

The knife made three strikes before, with a predictable lack of precision, the Hulk swatted an arm forward and knocked both of them through the adjacent wall.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Tony told him, struggling one-handed to his feet as Hulk lurched over to the newly-made hole in the wall to give the rowdy miscreants a good thrashing. “Hey, hey, let’s root for the home team, yeah?” Tony said, nonsensically holding out the shield. Hulk’s chest swelled. Tony ordered, “Hold this.”

Looking as surprised as a fourteen-hundred-pound green monster could, Hulk took the shield as Tony scrambled, lurching drunkenly through the gap in the wall. He was afraid that Steve was dead, but then Steve slowly shifted, turning from his back onto his side, grimacing and spitting out a mouthful of blood.

Their attacker was gone as if they had never been.

Unconcerned with their assailant, Tony crashed next to Steve, knees digging into his side as he asked, “You okay? Hey, you all right?”

Steve nodded once, sitting up with a grimace and saying, “Got away.” He looked over his shoulder as if he hoped to see the black-clad attacker racing out the door, but they were gone.

“No one bats against the Hulk,” Tony offered, reaching for him, too wired to care about the burning-hot needle-point pain that lanced through his right hand as he grasped at Steve’s demolished hoodie, pulling him more upright. “C’mon, big guy, c’mon. Shake it off.”

With a huff that was almost laughter, Steve said, “That’s my line.” He worked his jaw, then said, “I didn’t—couldn’t see who it was. They had a mask.”

“Can’t all be perfect,” Tony muttered consolingly, getting up and trying to get him on his feet, frantic with it. “Hey, c’mon, you’re all right, get up.” Hulk lumbered forward, still holding the shield between thumb and forefinger like a very large mint, free hand swinging forward—Tony ducked around it, barely—and closing around Steve’s jacket, dragging him upright.

“Cap,” Hulk grunted, setting him on his feet. Steve was several degrees paler than normal, his jaw set, but he stood when Hulk let him go and accepted the shield Hulk shoved at him, grimacing as it pressed against his chest.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice somehow both stern and emphatically polite. Hulk nodded once, still looking ready to smash the first troublemaker but holding his ground, conceding to Steve. Cap. _Captain America_.

Without looking at Tony, Steve slid his free arm around his back like _he_ needed the support, pulling him into the fold of his arms with the shield around him, looking around intently. Steve said nothing and Tony didn’t know if he could hear more or less, if the chaos outside the room was real or imagined, the blare of a fire alarm occluding their attacker’s exit.

After a long moment, Steve announced, “He’s gone.” He sounded equal parts disappointed and relieved. Tony knew that if he hadn’t been there, Steve would have been off like a shot, never-stand-down, never-think-twice, in hot pursuit. He might have even caught the bastard. Tony felt a touch guilty but a lot grateful as he stayed patiently in the fold of Steve’s arms.

There was a roar nearby. A poor good Samaritan snapped the door shut quickly. “Attaboy, Hulk,” Tony told him without moving from his huddle.

. o . 

There was no scene of carnage to greet them.

Aside from the fact that the emergency room was ghost-town empty, everything seemed normal. The little side room they’d been holed up in had a smattering of bullet punctures in the drywall and an entire section battered clean through into the adjacent nurse’s station, but even it seemed relatively untouched by violence. There were no streaks of blood, no sprays of gray matter, no dead or dying. It was like a lightning bolt, the damaged confined to the point of impact.

Tony was grateful for that, almost insisted on going home because hospitals were cursed, or maybe _he_ was, could people be cursed? Anyway, he pointed towards the door with his right hand, which was still black and blue. He was so disarmed by the sight of the injury that he could do nothing but stare at it blankly for a few moments.

Steve didn’t let him go, commanding the scene completely, one hand upraised to keep Hulk from striking out at anyone, a lion tamer with a shield on one arm, hiding Tony from view, while his free hand kept the most powerful being on Earth from atomizing unsuspecting bystanders. The shield was like a badge, a verbal confirmation that Captain America was there and he was in charge. No one questioned it.

He was a showman, assuring here, ordering there, snapping and soothing in equal measure, never blistering anger but thunderous obedience anticipated. He was very much an Army guy, Tony reflected. He wanted to stand back and watch the show, certain a lackey or two _saluted_ their honorary Commander in Chief as he restored order.

He apologized, he took blame, but he also got the operation running again, radiating palpable gratitude when someone informed him that they had evacuated their floor once the masked intruder arrived wielding a rather formidable gun. There were no casualties. It was a God-ordained miracle.

It was the icy touch of Steve’s fingers against Tony’s bare arm, an accidental thing as Steve adjusted his grip, that made Tony step up, step _in_ , because nobody knew and Steve sure as _fuck_ wasn’t going to tell them, the stubborn bastard. Honestly, it _would_ be like him to bleed out on the emergency room floor, speaking to a pair of cops, rather than admit that he had taken a single hit.

Grumbling to himself, somehow more amused at the improbability of the situation than bone-scared—he had the _fucking Hulk_ on his team, he was untouchable—Tony said insistently, “Hey, whoa, sit the fuck down.”

The two cops, old enough to be seasoned but still visibly flabbergasted, both blinked comically in surprise, like they weren’t expecting _Tony Stark_ of all people underneath the shield. Tony greeted, “Officers.” With a sweet little sweetheart smile, he said, “I’m protecting a National Treasure here, please leave all complaints with my associate.” He nodded at Hulk, who helpfully bared his teeth and _growled_. If they weren’t veterans to the job, one or both of the cops would’ve pissed themselves.

Hell, Tony wasn’t sure they didn’t piss themselves, because he was too busy shepherding America’s sweetheart out of plain view. 

Thankfully, a Good Samaritan—who had nobly chosen to risk death-by-Hulk to step forward—was there to help.

Tony said loftily, “Come along, Hulk.” Hulk stared at the doorway, growled in anger. 

Then he created a newer, much larger doorway and obliged.

. o .

It was far more fun to badger someone _else_ in a hospital than to be admitted into one. 

Tony nearly forgot his own troubles, hyper-focused on directing traffic around his big green friend and forcing Steve to put one foot in front of the other as the latter tried to subtly pull away. _C_ _’mon, hypocrite_ , Tony thought affectionately, keeping his grip on him. Steve didn’t dig his heels in, but he was clearly tempted to, like the thought of acknowledging damage underneath the shield was somehow unacceptable.

 _Yeah, yeah, Captain Invincible_ , Tony thought, helpfully keeping his thoughts to himself to avoid an actual confrontation.

He didn’t care what level of treatment Steve consented to—he himself wasn’t sold on the _fix the hand_ package, so who was he to force Steve to see reason?—but he needed to know what was lurking underneath the hoodie and suit. He needed to know that they had _really_ escaped catastrophe.

Not unscathed, no, but on their feet. That was good, wasn’t it? They were still on their feet.

“Wonder who’s trying to kill you,” Tony mused conversationally.

Steve, sitting on the edge of a gurney looking like a man about to be rebuked by his commanding officer, didn’t respond. Not to his question, anyway, saying instead, “How’s your hand?” The Brooklyn drawl was thick, _how’s yah hayand?_

Tony shrugged and looked over as Bruce groaned, holding up a hospital gown in front of himself. “What happened?” he said, half afraid, half pleading.

“Nobody died,” Tony assured. Bruce seemed content with that. Leaning against Steve’s side, Tony quantified, “Yet.” He was partially serious, but the little worry wouldn’t go. One hand flat against his own belly, Steve turned his head and pressed a quick kiss to Tony’s temple as though to say, _Don’t worry about it_.

It was easier said than done, Tony decided.

But of course, within the hour, potentially lethal wounds were nearly sewn shut, Steve’s expression shifting from flat to agitated, more like he had a headache than like he’d been _stabbed_ four times. Somehow, Tony had missed the fourth strike. He stared in wonder and horror at the red patches on the uniform underneath the shredded NYU hoodie, momentarily mourning its loss and the strange innocence it represented, where ninjas didn’t emerge from the night to attack them.

 _Kill order_.

It clicked, but he couldn’t stop staring long enough to say anything. He tried to say something witty and clever and diffusing, but all that came out was, “Jesus fuck, Rogers.”

Steve just set his jaw and said insistently, “His hand.” Tony didn’t realize he was the object of interest for a stupefied moment, so arrested by the sight, but then he looked down at his own right hand, shaking and black where it was visible around the bandages. He huffed. 

“Yeah, Mr. Stabbed Four—”

“Tony.” It wasn’t playful or teasing; it was his _this is your Captain speaking_ voice. Tony didn’t argue with it, cowed. “Get it taken care of,” he said, again in the same no-funny-business tone. “Bruce?”

Wearing a bland issue of hospital clothes that could pass for pedestrian, Bruce stepped up to bat, saying, “He’s right, Tony.”

Tony made an incredulous noise that came out as a laugh. When neither of them laughed with him, he snapped, “Oh fuck _off_. Or do you wanna tell me these were—” He jabbed a finger forward for emphasis. He grimaced more at the feeling of cold wet blood than _Steve_ did at the contact. It was through the suit; his skin felt icy where Tony touched it. Shuddering in irrepressible revulsion, he said, “No. Priority’s change.”

“Get it checked,” Steve said, voice as firm as before. “Get it wrapped. Then you can be here.” He nodded at Bruce, who, traitor that he was, hooked a gentle hand around Tony’s elbow, tugging.

“Twenty minutes. Tops,” he assured. Sure, Bruce had worked field med before, but twenty minutes was a _long_ time to leave Steve alone. And Steve was wounded, how was Steve supposed to defend himself? Steve had a star on his back, a target for any opportunist.

Nonsensically, Tony ordered, “The suit. Take it off.”

Steve frowned at him, but sensing he might make some headway with a bit of reciprocity, he nudged Tony away so he could reach the zip, his jaw still firm as he slowly unzipped the jacket.

He left the white undershirt on, the off-white material stained red, drenched with sweat. It was easy to hide trauma from one’s expression, but it was impossible to crush down biological responses. Neatly, an Army man, Steve started folding the jacket, then paused. 

He felt very carefully along the sleeve. Tony crowded close again, curious. Steve felt around the left shoulder, frowning and pulling, first gently and then forcefully enough his knuckles turned white, at something in the fabric. It wasn’t until, nearly tearing the fabric underneath, he divorced the tiny, nearly microscopic metal parasite from its host that Tony even realized there was something there.

They all stared at the chip for a long moment. 

Storm clouds gathered in Steve’s eyes. A dark sort of fury passed over his face as he crushed the chip neatly between his fingertips and tucked it in his pocket. He drew in a slow, steadying breath, then said, “We gotta go.” He stood, then, replacing his jacket. He paused, looking at Bruce and Tony, then said, “They know we’re here.”

A nurse arrived. The animosity was so plain in Steve’s eyes that she stepped back out at once. He said again, more forcefully, “We gotta go.”

“Cap.” Tony had never heard Bruce stand up to Captain America. His voice was far from rock-solid conviction in any storm, but there was a real thread of protest as he said, “You’re bleeding—”

“There are other hospitals,” Steve cut him off, glowering like he’d stepped on his toes in line-up. Realizing his audience, he softened his tone as he explained, “It’s a tracker. They know we’re here.”

Cold water washed over Tony. 

They know we’re here. _They_.

“They?” Bruce repeated, standing up. Tony followed suit, his own hand numb to pain. “Who’s _they_?”

Steve shook his head. “Tell you later,” he dismissed. He picked up his shield where it rested on the floor, then grimaced, looking at the doorway like he expected the attacker to be there. Tony picked up on his palpable unease and felt anxiety claw its way into his own chest, stepping closer to him. “Dammit,” he muttered. Then, like he couldn’t help himself, he echoed, “Goddammit.”

Shaking his head to clear it, Steve said, “New plan. You two are gonna stay.”

Tony balked. “And _where_ ,” he began heatedly, “do you think you’re going?”

Grimly, Steve said, “We walk out the front door, where d’you think our friend is gonna be?”

Bruce said with unexpected confidence, “We can take 'em.” Tony nodded, because that was the sensible option, staying together. Splitting up was _suicide_.

Steve seemed honestly torn as he said, “It’s too risky.”

“We’ll be sitting ducks here,” Bruce reminded.

Steve frowned. For a moment, Tony thought he would insist that they stay, because inside was safer than outside, outside was where the person trying to kill Captain America lurked. Probably. 

For all Tony knew, the black-clad assailant could be right outside their door, waiting to fire as soon as they stepped out of it. He understood Steve’s dilemma suddenly, aware that it was unfair—cruel, even—to force him to make these choices when he was struggling to keep from grimacing over the wound on his abdomen. Wounds. Plural.

He could still bleed out internally, right?

Tony asked suddenly, “You think they’ll come back up here?” Steve blinked, brow furrowing uncomprehendingly. Waving his right hand automatically, biting his cheek to stifle the raw electricity that seemed to crackle across it, Tony pressed, “Would you? Come back?”

Steve’s gaze flicked, improbably, to Bruce. Bruce, who steeled himself and said seriously, “Just say the word, Cap.” His fists clenched. Steve looked at Tony instead, unblinking, contemplative.

Then he looked down. Tony forced himself not to hide his hand, to not try to assuage the guilt he saw in those dark blue eyes. 

At last, Steve said, “No. I wouldn’t.”

Tony nodded, letting Steve make the right call for them. “No, I wouldn’t,” Steve repeated quietly, lowering the shield on his arm. “Not. . . .” He frowned, then said, “Not alone.” He looked between the two of them, oddly cornered, like he didn’t dare run if it meant leaving them behind, in _danger_.

Tony, surprised to play the voice of reason, said, “You can’t fight. _I_ can’t fight. We gotta level the field a little here, Steve.”

Almost imperceptibly, Steve slid his free hand onto the gurney, resting his weight on it, done in but refusing to say it. Still, it was a mistake he couldn’t course-correct, the simple movement sapping whatever strength had been bull-dozering past their concerns, shoulders bowing. 

“All right,” he husked, like he would kill himself if he was wrong. Tony had a dark feeling he would. If anything happened to them, Steve would never forgive himself. His gaze lingered on Tony’s hand like he had personally broken it—

And, well, he _had_. But Tony didn’t feel the same dark self-hatred in Steve’s eyes when he looked at Steve. He felt the same mix of fondness and exasperation, exhaustion and hope and love, burning and deep and undaunted. That was too much to admit aloud, far too much to consign to anyone but Steve, like baring his fucking _soul_. 

And Tony would gallivant naked through the White House on live TV before he admitted how gladly he would take a bullet for Steve, how he would do anything to keep him around, looking disgruntled and disappointed and protective as hell.

He said, “I’ll let them look it over.” Holding up his hand was redundant. Tony knew he’d committed to it, then, to _doing something_ about it, even though the thought made his stomach hurt, but it was the best bargaining chip he had.

Steve nodded once, head down, like he couldn’t quite believe he was choosing inaction over action, but it was like the future Steve had once said:

 _Maybe it would’ve worked out. If I’d done nothin’. Nothing at all_.

He said, “Okay.” Then, closing his eyes, he added, “One hour.”

Tony nodded, saying, “Sure” when Steve didn’t open his eyes. “Great. I love a good timetable.”

Steve didn’t smile, didn’t open his eyes. Tony prodded, “Hey.”

Steve opened his eyes to slits, looking over at him with defeated frustration. “Hm?”

“One hour,” Tony confirmed. He was rewarded when some of the tension eased in Steve’s shoulders and Steve nodded once.

. o .

It took ninety minutes to confirm what Tony already knew and get his hand rebandaged in a way that made it immobile, which, temporarily at least, was an improvement. The delay was to be expected: given the preceding chaos, they were lucky to be fast-tracked at all.

Still, panic threatened to overwhelm Tony as he realized that Steve wasn’t the type to tolerate tardiness, that he should have come barging through the door at minute sixty on the dime and demanded his due. But he didn’t. Tony experienced a moment of existential dread, of _Steve’s dead_ , so powerful it nearly made him retch.

He forced himself to be calm, to mirror Bruce’s cool as he strode after the nurse who agreed to take him back to _Steve’s_ room, dammit. Bruce, at least, was visibly more mellow after his own hearty round of anti-anxiety pills, perhaps offered because of his alter ego and the still green tinge to his skin. 

Tony envied him, but he’d brought his misery on himself, denying an IV because no, thank you, he had places to be, things to _do_. He didn’t care if it wasn’t protocol, he was a goddamn Avenger.

And, besides, Dr. Bruce Banner, the Hulk himself, was sitting nearby, ready to go after anybody who got on his tail about it. It was kind of awesome—Tony was reasonably sure he could do anything by gesturing at his companion, who could transform in less than a minute into a giant green monster—but he tried to keep a cool head on his shoulders and exercise great responsibility, despite his great power.

With great power came great responsibility. 

You could make a business out of that. Or maybe a religion.

Thankfully, Tony’s worst nightmare wasn’t awaiting him. It was just Steve, patient devil that he was, reading—of all things—a _National Geographic_ magazine someone had provided. “Hey, old timer,” Tony greeted, relief clear in his voice.

Steve looked up at him, blinked once. Tony saw the same relief in his expression mirrored, soft and melting, wondering if it looked half as open on his own face, wishing he could shove Bruce away and pretend that nobody existed but Steve. That would be a safe world, he decided. Bruce stepped into the hallway, giving them a semblance of privacy.

Steve folded the magazine. His undershirt and jacket and even the torn hoodie were folded neatly on a chair nearby, his uniform pants in place, red boots and all, ready in a moment’s notice. 

Tony could see white bandages wrapped around his belly, knew that there wouldn’t even be scars, because he healed miraculously. They’d be tender points for days, but his color already looked better. Someone had thoughtfully left an entire water jug dispenser with Dixie cups in arm’s reach. 

No IV, but that wasn’t surprising, for the same reason that Tony, who was only human and _could_ have benefited from one, had refused it. Readiness. It was all about readiness. Fluids were good but medications were pointless. The trade-off wasn’t worth it. Readiness prevailed. Readiness, above all else.

Suddenly and with an existential need that defied explanation, Tony stepped closer, took a seat in a chair, then admitted, “I wanna go somewhere—lonely.”

“Lonely?” Steve repeated. There was no judgment in his tone, only curiosity. A quiet, listening kind, the tone that invited Tony to sit for a while and explain the Hodge conjecture, to explain Möbius strips and how, somehow, somehow, they were relevant to everything, to future Steve’s life and maybe to future Tony’s.

Future Tony. He kind of wanted to meet the bastard, see who he would become. He hoped future Steve had found somewhere nice to settle down, even though he knew, in a sorry corner of his mind, that he would never know, not unless he came back. And why would he? If he was happy, he would stay, forever.

Tony hoped he’d found his forever. 

“I wanna go somewhere lonely,” Tony said, “I wanna be lonely.” He looked at Steve, putting his elbows on his knees and his chin in hands, his right hand bandaged so comically it was nearly painless. The numbing salve had helped. Real painkillers would be so much better, but any improvement felt like breathing again. He tried to imagine _never_ fixing it; he felt gratitude that he hadn’t chosen that path. 

“I wanna be lonely with you,” Tony insisted, tightness in his chest. “I don’t wanna share you with the whole world. I know it needs you.” He reached forward with his right hand, resting it on the edge of the gurney. Steve gently set his own hand on top of it, barely any pressure at all. “I do, too. And for a little bit, I wanna go somewhere nobody needs you or me.”

Steve swallowed, looking down at their hands. He nodded once. He said nothing, visibly torn.

Tony said, “So let’s get this goddamn sonuvabitch. And then find the loneliest little corner of Earth to get lost in.”

Steve smiled, looking up at him and saying, “Deal.”

Tony grinned, hovering in their peaceful little _let’s stand still and let the world go by_ for a long moment before pushing himself to his feet and wrapping both arms tightly around Steve’s shoulders. “I love you,” he told his hair. “You die, I’m coming after you, and we both know what a hard-ass I can be in negotiations.”

“You?” Steve murmured, his own arms slung low around Tony’s back, speaking comfortingly to his shoulder. “I can’t see it.”

Tony huffed, pulling away to look down at him, the relief in his expression nearly palpable, the conviction strong as ever. “Asshole,” he muttered, cupping his face and kissing him firmly. “I love you,” he insisted. Steve stroked his hands up and down Tony’s sides once, making him shiver.

Steve said softly, “I love you so much more.” He smiled, then nuzzled Tony’s left palm, murmuring, “You know I would—I’d do anything for you. Make it right. Do it right, the first time.”

Tony nodded once, feeling like his ribcage wasn’t big enough for his heart, the love was bleeding out of him, impossible to hold back. “It’s okay,” he said, and meant it. He kissed Steve’s forehead, then released him, one little head shake for good measure, Steve’s smile making him feel invincible. “We’re okay. Remember? We’re goddamn invincible.”

Steve held his gaze. Tony saw him accept it, the forgiveness, the _I don’t blame you_ , as he reached forward gingerly and curled his hand around Tony’s right, barely touching it but daring to touch it at all.

Something clicked in Tony’s chest, certain that no matter what waited outside those doors, they’d make it work.

They’d choose the right path. Together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **The River of Time** is my analogy for time travel. It's not a literal river, but it is a metaphor for the nature of history and the way that events can have multiple outcomes.
> 
>  **The Compass** is a way of navigating the River of Time. Here's how it works.
> 
>  **Cardinal Directions** set the tone for each adventure.
> 
>  **Cardinal North** is our happy ending.
> 
>  **Cardinal South** is our unhappy ending. It's an inversion of the North ending.
> 
>  **Cardinal West** is the letter-to-the-law interpretation of a historical event. The big question here is "If the kill order is sent out for Steve Rogers, who is in the greatest danger?" In a **Westerly** world, it's **Steve.**
> 
> In this particular Cardinal West depiction, there *is* a time traveling event involved because Future Tony has a premonition right before the first shot is fired, which is a nod to Future Steve's warning to be careful. Unfortunately for Tony, this is one of those "you can do everything right and still lose" situations. Even though he saves Steve's life initially, history still repeats itself (Steve is still shot through the heart). This is where Future Tony, from 2018, is from. It's the **"inevitable tragedy."**
> 
>  **Cardinal East** is the inversion of the letter-to-the-law interpretation. The question here is still "If the kill order is sent out for Steve Rogers, who is in the greatest danger?" In an **Easterly** world, it's **Tony**.
> 
> In the Cardinal East interpretation, there is no time traveling event: this is our original ending. This is Future Steve's original universe, where Tony and he are oblivious to any danger and thus "careless" when destiny arrives in the form of a bullet. It's the single act of kindness that Future Steve refers to (offering Tony his jacket) that leads him on a treacherous journey to try to obtain a different outcome. It's the **"inevitable accident."**
> 
>  **Tributaries** represent different outcomes that fall under these grandiose categories.
> 
>  **North-West** is our direction, as indicated by the _Present_ tag. We're in store for a "Happy Ending." As part of this Westerly route, the shot is fired at Steve. (Good ending, letter-to-the-law).
> 
>  **North-East** is sort of the "best ending" possible. In this ending, S.H.I.E.L.D. cut Steve and Tony loose and they run off into the sunset. No kill order, no gun fired—neither Steve nor Tony are in danger in this one. (Good ending, inversion of letter-to-the-law.)
> 
>  **South-East** , on the other hand, is a bad ending because Steve and Tony effectively part ways. Steve stays with S.H.I.E.L.D. (thus, no kill order, no gun fired). Tony is the one who suffers the most in this ending because he witnesses the emotional death of his relationship with Steve. (Bad ending, inversion of letter-to-the-law.)
> 
> And finally, **South-West** is a grim ending where Steve returns to S.H.I.E.L.D. and walks right into destiny. (Bad ending, letter-to-the-law.)
> 
> **  
> **  
> To recap:  
> 
> 
> Future Steve (2029) is from a **Cardinal East** world.  
> Future Tony (2018) is from a **Cardinal West** world.  
> Our Steve and Tony are from a **North-West** world.
> 
> In a **Westerly** world, **Steve** is in greater danger.  
> In an **Easterly** world, **Tony** is in greater danger.
> 
>  **North** is _good_.  
>  **South** is _bad_.
> 
>  **West** is the _inevitable tragedy._  
>  **East** is the _unavoidable accident._


	40. INTERLUDE: A RISK-IT-ALL KIND OF GUY

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *clinks glasses* Is it more or less fitting that our fortieth chapter is both an interlude, a departure from our usual fare, as well as the shortest of the bunch? This whole collosus was supposed to be 15k, tops. And here we are, surpassing 400k.
> 
> Cheers, my friends. Onward and upward. <3

Life was like a dream. Life was like a dream, a temporary experience with only one outcome: to wake up and see what came _after_.

After—such a small word to describe a big thing. It was the culmination of everything, the idea of waking up once and then falling asleep again forever. All things in the Universe only existed once; every being that ever was had a final chapter, no matter how bright or dull their spark of life had been. Not everything existed for very long, but everything that ever was or would be, would have an after. 

A thousand afters. Ten thousand afters.

A hundred trillion afters.

What was after like? No one knew. All anyone knew was the dream of life. The rawness of it, the journeys to the rooftops of the universe, the ecstatic reach. To the mountaintops; to the vacuum of space; to the stars and great dreams beyond them.

To live was to prepare for a time of unliving, a candle lit in the darkness verging on collapse. Beyond the curtain of life, there might be grand things, or there might be nothing. There might be a steppingstone towards a truer after, a watchmaker, or a great emptiness.

No one knew.

All anyone knew was the dream of life. And to dream was to take a journey down the River of Time, tumbling lazily towards the Sea of Eternity. 

The Sea itself resided at the lowest point of possibility. Few would ever catch a direct glimpse of it, visible only at the gasping end of the Universe. For nearly all the rest, the Sea was an idea, a mythos, a finite ending for a finite thing, where every current on the River led towards.

Most beings who journeyed on the River would follow it as it bent and crashed and yawed towards nonexistence; meandering with it as it twisted and swerved and squeezed through ripe pastures and narrow canyons. Most beings did not know that the River was changeable, only that their boat seemed to move without coercion towards some final destination. Always in a forward direction.

But unlike the great majority who would drift unaware of the River's mutable current, some would try to peer ahead at the foggy horizon and discern how to get certain places in the only boat that they had. They would try to alter their destiny, yet it would prove a nearly insurmountable task. The River flowed strongly and noncoercively; it resisted change. 

The Navigators who looked _forwards_ were daring enough, but among them were a distinct class of even more audacious souls who looked _backwards_ : Charons, sacrilegious creatures who defied the River's motion and journeyed against the current towards the past. Despite their enthusiastic work, even they could not stand still. Inevitably, they would be pushed forward by the relentless River, ending up nearly or exactly where they started, should they fail to divert the course.

Should the disruptions be slight enough, the River could return to its original bed with scarcely any scars to speak of. But should the disruptions be remarkable enough, they could become small eddies that ballooned into massive whirlpools that ultimately launched these audacious navigators down new unrecoverable paths. 

It was a risk each one of them took by confronting destiny, that they might be caught up in a new flow and unable to return home.

Steve Rogers was a Charon, a Navigator on the River of Time. 

He pushed upriver as far as he could, then banked and disembarked, landing in a new present, a new Universe. He cut his shovel into the land, testing sand and stone, ice and loam. He cut and cut and cut and cut, and still his efforts were like bailing out an ocean, the mighty River ignoring his attempts to change its course.

Not completely, though. As the flap of a butterfly’s wings could stir up a hurricane, so too could the action of making small cuts along the bank of the River alter it. Its speed, its course, its nature—tiny changes could make waves in the future, accelerate destiny in unseen ways.

Still, small action could not dam nor divert the mighty River. It would take a Herculean effort to make big change. And, like a hole dug to the water table, the River would not forgive his absences, filling in whatever new spaces he created, refusing to be coerced.

It was an impossible task for a mortal tool, but his shovel, being proverbial, would not snap. He could venture upstream as many times as he liked to cut and cut and cut, to try and carve out a new course for the River. What nature, unimpeded, did spectacularly—creating for itself a path of least resistance across a cosmic landscape—nearly no mortal could mimic.

The cosmic inevitability of it all led to solutions for dangerous problems, like the Ancestor Paradox. Rather than being able to kill one’s younger self or immediate ancestor, the River shoved so powerfully against such action that it was like trying to dig out the center of the channel itself, the mere action of diving in creating new currents that compensated for such sinister action, making it impossible, like surviving in the bottom of a toxic lake.

It was, hypothetically, possible, but it would assuredly kill the traveler in the attempt. It was unforgivingly difficult, besides. Working on the periphery, nudging here and there, rearranging and suggesting, these were the winding curves of history that could be encouraged to move a little to the left. Small change had big effects, when determined enough.

For example, it was easy for Steve to persuade the Arctic team to search a bit farther to the West with a nod and a dropped hint, implying an anomaly rather than stating it outright. It was hard to fight the current directly, to spell it out plainly, but it was easy to suggest at the periphery, as unobtrusively as possible, dressed in the same clothes as the rest of the team, voice buried in Arctic winter gear.

Thanks to that fluke of intuition—like the most magnificent fossil beds ever discovered, all flukes of intuition—the Arctic team unearthed Steve Rogers from the ice nine months ahead of schedule, in July of 2011.

It was the least—and the only—thing that Steve could do to end his icy imprisonment sooner. Much sooner and he risked diverting the River far from its original course, a final outcome he could not hope to predict but dared not strive for. He wanted to work with the Devil he knew. And so, the best he could do was ensure that his frozen self was not left to rot nearly another year before being liberated.

He’d followed that path for a short while and been satisfied to see the newly-formed Avengers fighting the Chitauri as a team, exactly as they had the first time. That course was, truly, a parallel universe. 

But had he been able to see the full River rather than merely its effects, he could have seen the illusion for what it was, that the courses were not the same.

Alone and aloof for nine months longer, Steve Rogers in that Universe was a very different man than the Charon who stuck a shovel in the dirt and encouraged the River to diverge in the first place.

But that Steve Rogers would lose his Tony, just as the Charon Steve would lose his Tony. 

The Charon didn’t know. He didn’t look that far.

He remained fixed on his own journey. He had revisited that night, that damned night, thousands of times. He had found the gunman, a shadow in the night, well-hidden and always one step ahead of him. He couldn’t get to the man in time to unmask him, let alone stop him from carrying out destiny. 

The direct route never worked, either. He couldn’t convince his younger self to change direction, for his younger self was convinced that he was an imposter, an evilness in the world that had to be rid. 

As for Tony, well. By the time the Charon Steve made any progress, Tony was dead. The younger Steve would look at him with ungodly wonder and a fury so deep that the Charon knew that if he had lingered, he would have died to that rage.

He could remember that rage; it beat in his own chest, once, in the aftermath of that horrible event. It was what had inspired him. The effort was tedious. Exhausting. And all, seemingly, for naught.

He was getting nowhere, trying to win the game from the second before catastrophe. He went farther back. He looked for any opportunity to divert the River’s course.

Thus, one could find the Charon on one brisk January morning in 1975 on the streets of icy New York.

Steve Rogers, who had been dead in the ice for thirty years, navigated the snow-stricken city with easy familiarity. He moved confidently and briskly in pursuit of his aims, wearing a go-away-gray trench coat and a black hat to hide his hair

It had once been gold as straw, but it was darker, now, starting to silver. No human could have hoped to notice it. The faintest of silver threads, the barest beginnings of aging.

He had stood in front of the mirror, staring at his reflection for a long time. Amazed. He did age. It was simultaneously horrifying and reassuring, that he was not doomed to live forever and that, with finite years on his hands, he was _wasting them_.

But he couldn’t stop. Not here, not now, not yet. Not until he had tried everything or died in the attempt.

 _By my shield, or upon it_. It was an old phrase Spartan mothers used to bid their sons to battle, demanding that they either survive by the shield, or return home on it.

He was Spartan, his entire existence cut to the bone. Despite being over thirty thousand attempts into the task, he had seen no progress. He almost didn’t believe that there were even nine good outcomes. In a River that split into fourteen million, four-hundred-and-twenty thousand, three-hundred-and-thirty-one tributaries from a single point, there was a lot of ground to cover.

The River did not move in one direction, cutting a clean path to the Sea. No, it began at the point of a mountain, the inception of life. Then it descended gently in every direction. And, against the nature of such grandiosities, it could flow in all four cardinal directions as it proceeded towards the Sea.

The River wasn’t real, after all. It was only the idea that kept Steve sane.

As Steve loped towards his destination, a mugger made the mistake of accosting him. A different Steve Rogers would have stepped aside and moved on. With the impatience of a man on attempt number 32,071 to change history, Steve snapped. 

The clamor of the knife hitting the ground drowned out the man’s agonized gargle.

Head low and jaw a firm line, Steve forged his way across the city at a walk that was slightly too brisk to be human, arriving at his destination—easily an hour’s walk away for even the fleetest foot—in less than ten minutes. His walking speed was just shy of twenty miles per hour. No one could keep up, but he was alone on his journey. He had no one to slow him down.

He moved like a shadow in the night, blurring from any bystander’s observation, his go-away-gray fabric crafted for such stealthy missions, Charons like himself.

At the Stark estate, he strode up to the porch, hammered three times on the door and stepped back, waiting.

Seconds passed. Then the door slid open and a posh British man looked him over once and asked, “May I help you, sir?”

Steve let the man process his presence for a moment before reciting cleanly, “ _Aut cum scuto aut in scuto_.” His voice was deep, dark with the dead of winter. He almost did not care what worlds he burned. But of course he did. If he truly didn’t care, he would have gutted the obstacle and moved past him.

Instead, he chose the stealthier approach.

 _Come home by the shield, or upon it_.

Whoever said passwords were a thing of the past?

Edwin Jarvis, rigid with alarm, glanced compulsively over his shoulder. In a hushed tone, he entreated, “The mother and child are here.”

Steve felt a tightening in his chest that had nothing to do with the cold. He said in the same unflinching tone, “I have only business with Stark.”

Looking torn, Jarvis decided, “One moment, sir.” He did not invite Steve inside. Instead, he shut the door brusquely. Strain though he might, Steve could only hear him walk away a few paces before the city sounds, ambient as they were, overtook the muffled noise. Minutes passed.

At last, he heard louder, authoritative steps. Then the door swung open again. A new disheveled-looking man stood in its frame.

It was night, but Howard Stark wasn’t dressed for bed. He was an insomniac. The only sign that it had been a while since he’d slept was his slightly rumpled suit.

Staring at the apparition in his doorway, Stark was motionless. Steve watched the faintly flushed agitation of a man who had been summoned by his fellow freemason pale into morbid horror. He thought Howard might faint. Instead, he gripped the door tightly. 

Finally, Steve said, “We need to talk.”

Looking like he would wretch if he spoke, Howard drew in a shallow breath, shook his head, then stepped back. “Get out,” he managed. He slid the door shut.

Steve’s foot slid smoothly into the gap, patience in his tone as he said, “I know what you’re thinking. I’m alive.”

Howard swallowed hard. He, like Jarvis, looked over his shoulder, like he feared his wife or son might see. Steve wasn’t sure if they even knew about his illicit coterie of well-placed friends who could make problems disappear. Certainly, the idea of a freemason like Steve showing up like a descending angel at his doorstep was the kind of nightmarish inversion of the arrangement a man like Howard would dread. It was the wolf come to stalk hearth and home.

Realizing all at once that he was beaten, Howard, his face still fixed in a grimace, stepped back, holding the door open in a white-knuckled hand. It let the frigid air and Steve inside, then shut. Steve politely stamped his boots on the mat, but he left his outermost attire on, knowing he would need it. He noticed that Jarvis was nowhere to be found.

Probably, Steve thought grimly, protecting Maria and Tony Stark, wherever they might be.

He had to make this quick. Doubtless, they had called the cops, anticipating violence. He intended no harm, but his way in the door was a gun in the face.

Howard’s time was precious and hard to buy. He did the only thing that could guarantee it. He forced the issue.

They walked down a short hallway, Howard leading with his hackles raised, visibly tense at putting his back to Steve. 

For a man who owned five homes, Howard’s New York estate was almost demur compared to his elsewhere getaways. There was still a van Gogh original hung in a study; Steve was certain that the mat he’d wiped his feet on cost more than his monthly salary in 2029 dollars, almost fifty years from the present day, but it was toned down opulence. There were only three cars in the underground garage, after all.

They sat in the lounge area. Jarvis had helpfully provided wine. Howard reached for the bottle first and poured. Then, with uncharacteristic modesty, he offered the first glass to Steve. Taking it with a nod, Steve held it and preluded, “I am real.” He drank to prove it. Howard, if anything, paled further, draining his own glass in one gulp before refilling it with a grim-faced expression. 

At last, he bit out, “Who are you?”

Steve said, “Former Captain Steve Rogers, United States Army—”

A gun pointed in his face. It seemed to move in slow motion, the tension in Howard’s frame obvious. Strapped to the underside of the chair, it was an easy reach. And it would as assuredly put an end to Steve’s life as any other mortal’s, should the bullet find its target.

He was not fast enough to outrun a bullet, but he felt no fear staring down the barrel and saying, “You don’t want to do that.”

“Don’t tell me what I want to do,” Howard snapped, hand shaking but not lowering. “Tell me who you are or you’ll be identified by the coroner.”

Nodding very slightly in acquiescence, Steve began, “I won’t hurt you.” The gun didn’t move an inch. The safety was off. “I don’t want to hurt you, Howard.” He was surprised that there was real pain in his voice as he said, “For God’s sake, put it down.”

Howard said stiffly, “Hardly an answer.” His expression was thunderous. The gun clicked audibly.

“Pop?”

Steve watched Howard look over, a rictus of distaste on his face as he snapped, “Get out.”

Undeterred, five-year-old Anthony Stark said, “Pop? Why do you have a gun?” He was wearing pajamas, long sleeves and pants, looking at the two of them with a mixture of surprise and fear. “You’re not gonna shoot him, are you?”

“ _Get out_ ,” Howard thundered. 

Tony took a single step closer. “Don’t shoot him, Pop,” he entreated.

Steve saw the gun wobble. Not towards him. And in that moment, he reached forward, disarming Howard. He said, “No more guns.” He crushed the gun barrel with an audible crack, watching Howard’s flushed face once again turn ashen.

“Whoa,” Tony said, again stepping forward fearlessly. “You’re really stron—”

Howard flung himself to his feet, looming large. Finally, Tony flinched back. “Pop,” he began. “I just wanted—” He shuffled another step back. “I’m goin’. I’m goin’.” Looking at Steve, who averted his gaze carefully, grateful that the room was mostly dark, the light switch untouched, Tony finally said, “Okay, Pop.” His voice was small, like he’d hoped for an ally, _no guns_ , but Steve couldn’t offer him that.

Howard stalked towards the five-year-old with faintly murderous intent. Steve thought, _To hell with it_.

He didn’t come back to make friends, after all.

It was only two seconds to crumple Howard to the floor with a well-aimed blow to the head that wouldn’t crack his skull or kill him, just put him down. Tony shuffled back in horror, backing into a wall and cowering. “Don’t hurt me,” he pleaded. Steve wanted to shoot himself more badly than he’d ever wanted to, thought of the gun he’d rent in half and how he should have kept it together so he could.

He couldn’t. And this was why.

Crouching, he said in the low soothing tone that made even hissing cats come closer, “Hey, no. No, buddy. I’m not gonna hurt you.” Tony hesitated, then shuffled forward, irrepressibly curious. “I wanted to make sure your Pop didn’t hurt you.”

Tony’s face twisted up. Steve thought, _Oh buddy_ and added in the same quiet tone, “He has, hasn’t he?”

Scuffing his foot on the carpet, Tony recited, “I shouldn’t talk to strangers.” With the same contradictory confidence of a child, he added, “I do bad things. I make bad things.” He looked at Steve for a long moment, begging silently for contradiction. “I’m bad.”

And Steve said with utmost assurance, “No, you ain’t.” Taking a chance, he gestured forward. Like he knew that any enemy of his father was a friend of his, a real Santa Claus to grant the best sort of wish, Tony shuffled closer, then all at once threw his arms around Steve’s neck, hiding in his shoulder.

“Pop’s gonna kill me,” he said. “I shoulda gone to bed.”

One big paw of a hand nearly covered the span of Tony’s tiny shoulders as Steve said, “No, no, he’s not. He’s not gonna hurt you. Never again.” _Never_ , he thought, because what had been an accident became a new mission, a side mission. He dreaded how many _side missions_ he’d make for himself, but he couldn’t not act. He could never not act on _that_.

Howard Stark would never hurt Tony, not on his life, never again. If he had to dam every tributary that led to such an outcome, he’d damn well do it.

Rubbing Tony’s back, he assured, “It’s all right. Take it easy.” He could feel the moisture gathering near his neck, little sniffles and shaking body. 

Worse, he could hear the sirens approaching down the road. So little time to act. Never enough time to act.

He could run. 

He had to run. 

He had to abandon this timeline to its fate.

Gently but still hating himself for being the one to pull away first, he held Tony at arm’s length, hands that could kill so very careful. He looked into watery brown eyes and assured quietly, “It’s okay. It’s okay now.” Tony nodded. Steve promised, “I’m gonna make everything okay.”

Reaching up to brush his sleeve over his eyes, Tony asked with surprising clarity, “Are you a guardian angel?”

Steve cocked his head, surprised despite himself. It was strange, because he knew how Tony liked his coffee but he didn’t know if Tony believed in a God. All he knew with surety was that Tony knew that there was an _after_. An ending to the journey that was never-ending and beautiful and raw and horrid, that was pain beyond reckoning and joy beyond expression.

The sirens were getting closer.

Nodding once, Steve said, “That’s one way of putting it.” He let Tony go and added, “I gotta go, but I promise. He won’t hurt you.” He waited until Tony nodded, then straightened and stepped back. The sirens were seconds out. 

He moved, a touch too fast—a supernatural being was a good cover, he thought wryly, for his discernibly too-fast movement—to locate a pen and paper, damn him for not thinking to bring them. A firm knock came on the outermost door. Tony looked over his shoulder towards the sound, then back at Steve, who caught his gaze in his periphery as he scribbled a note in his outdated cursive.

He crumpled the note into Howard’s palm, then straightened as the front door open, slipping a vial of Pym particle into his palm. He looked at Tony, wide-eyed with wonder as he crushed the vial and vanished like liquid smoke, fading out of reality like a mirage.

When Howard Stark regained consciousness, he dropped the tissue from his palm, retrieving it irritably after a moment, paying no mind to the police as he saw the message:

 _I’m watching. —832456_.

The tragedy of Steve’s life was that he couldn’t stop all tragedies, but he could dam the River in places, assuring that certain things never happened. Once a critical point was reached, the River diverted altogether. No more was normal _normal_ , but the anomaly.

Thus, his missions gained some sense of peace.

Hell, maybe he was a guardian angel, no earthlier than the River itself, a phantom moving throughout time in search of justice, truth—peace.

It only took five attempts to reroute the River off that course. Howard was an angry soul, but he feared death. He feared _retribution_.

It was one little victory in an existence fraught with failures.

It brought him peace of mind, knowing that he had changed the nature of the River to ensure his Tony was not merely the fluke but the norm, that Howard would never lift a hand against his son.

Side missions, all of it. But what was life, exactly?

Just a precursor to after.

. o . 

**Thursday, July 5, 2018.**

“You don’t sleep much, do you?”

Sitting on the porch of Clint’s barn home in 2018, Steve looked over at Tony, then back up at the stars. 

He’d been counting stars. He resumed without thinking, trailing off, _Nine-thousand, nine-hundred and eighty-one. Nine-thousand, nine-hundred and eighty-two. Nine thousand, nine hundred and eighty three. . . ._

Tony sat down on the porch steps next to him, cracked open a cold beer, and said, “If we’re both insomniacs, we’re fucked, you know.” He took a slug and offered it to Steve, who unthinkingly gulped it, then grimaced at the flavor. Birthday cake was strong enough. Beer nearly made him wretch. “Here I thought you were a hardass,” Tony said affectionately, setting the can aside and snuggling up to him cozily, cheek on his shoulder. “You should know that Morgan is up at five AM no matter what.”

Knowing he had to say something, Steve said, “Okay.”

Crickets chirped. They sounded dulled, muted. Steve’s ears ain’t what they used to be. Nothing was. He felt worn, tired. Like he’d run through so much of life, and only when he slowed down did the exhaustion hit him. Exhaling deeply, he turned to bury his face against the side of Tony’s head, trying so hard to repress exhausted tears, overwhelmed tears. Even Tony’s smell was enough to make him cry, these days. It was why he hadn’t allowed himself to get too close.

Life was a dream. He had to tread gently in others’ worlds. For the sake of futures he never got to see.

Tony breathed against him. Steve wasn’t sure if he was awake or asleep. He turned his head to look back at the stars, finding the cluster of bluish stars and resuming his. Ninety-nine thousand bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine thousand bottles of beer. . . .

Ugh. He could still taste it. He could taste the wine, too, could remember nearly every encounter between today and yesterday, catalogued across. . . . He reached up to rub his eyes, burning with exhaustion. On his own, he didn’t blink very much. The cumulative effect of being awake for _years_ and only blinking intermittently was damage.

Damage, damage. He was damaged goods, nowhere near the shiny super-soldier Tony had last seen six years ago. He’d been on almost a hundred thousand adventures, yet he’d never seen an outcome where _he_ died. It was surreal. It was chilling in its own way. He wondered what decision had tipped the scale.

What decision? What decision?

There was always the blood-curdling possibility that he had made things _worse_ , that he had caused history to flow through treacherous canyons previously unexplored, that it had diverted not to the promised land but a new kind of hell. For every person he saved, it seemed, someone else died.

And all he could think was _Thank God it was me_.

He should go to bed. For Tony’s sake, if nothing else. It wasn’t good for Tony to be out here and God knew what hour in the morning, sitting beside him. Tony said suddenly, “Hey, big guy.” He curled an arm around Steve’s waist. Steve realized then, because Tony was not shaking, that _he_ was shaking. He tried to stop it. He couldn’t stop it. “Easy.”

Time was a slippery thing, but he was good at holding onto it, following each step-by-step motion to get up, get inside, even though the night was warm and agreeable. It was late. It was bedtime.

Time. Time. He hated time.

He wasn’t even sure if it was worth holding onto each desperate moment, knowing it could all be gone tomorrow.

Tomorrow. He shook at the thought of tomorrow, of the _unknown_. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been in one place long enough to mark a new calendar day. It felt like years. It might have been decades since he had had to swallow his fear and watch the clock turn to a new day. A day he had no control over.

If the past was amorphous and winding and spectacularly difficult to change—the future was even worse. It was easy to see the places one had been, even possible to predict where one might go. But the River of Time was so _fickle_. It did not exist beyond the horizon. Steve was afraid of where it would go when he had no sight of what might await him.

He was not afraid of anything except tomorrow.

He paused in the doorway, torn. Tony held his wrist, anchored like he couldn’t bear to let go, either.

“Dada?”

“Hey, sweet pea,” Tony said, easy as anything. With a light squeeze to Steve’s wrist, a promise, _I’ll be back_ , he stepped forward, crouching as Morgan approached, stepped into his embrace, one little paw still holding a pillow to her chest in a self-comforting way. “What’s wrong?” Tony asked, picking her up easily despite his inflexible right hand, resting her on his hip and turning to look at Steve. “Hm? You miss me?”

She nodded, one hand resting on his shoulder, the other still curled in the pillow.

“Know who this is?” Tony asked Morgan in that soft _everyone-else-is-sleeping_ voice, nodding at Steve, who could only blink once, heart beating very hard in his chest. “This is your new Dad.”

“Daddy?”

Tony said, “Sure, scamp. Whatever makes you happy.” He stepped closer. Steve did not shy back against the closed door or bolt into the night like the phantom he’d been for so long, holding his ground but ducking his head, ashamed to exist in their world, grateful beyond measure to be somewhere called _home_. “He’s my best guy. And he gives very good hugs.”

Morgan dropped her pillow and held out both arms towards him. Steve unconsciously crouched to pick up the pillow, offering it to her at arm’s reach, afraid to touch. To _break_. 

He knew, in his heart, that he had broken Tony’s hand. He knew. He _knew_.

Tony would probably lie to him unless he said it directly. Steve didn’t know if he dared say it directly. He didn’t know if his heart could take one more blow without shattering completely.

Again, Morgan reached for him instead. He looked down, still holding the pillow in one hand, like he was hoping it was the answer, the arm’s distance between him and life that he’d become accustomed to.

Then he set the pillow aside and carefully scooped her up, easy as anything. She weighed so little, almost nothing. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d held a child. She grasped his shirt with her hands, twining it into the fabric—the strange fabric that required no plastic nor fur to make, a design he barely understood, as he barely understood anything in the future—and resting her cheek against his shoulder. She was very warm and very trusting.

He did not shake as he held her, holding her so gently, closing his eyes and rocking unconsciously on his feet. It was like a port in a storm, a place to tie up his boat when he’d lost all strength to carry on. He could call this place home. He could live anew.

She fell asleep on his shoulder, and Steve knew he would protect her for the rest of his life.

. o .

There was something soft underneath his cheek, fuzzy and warm. 

It took Steve a moment to place the familiar smell of a dog, his senses stirring sluggishly to attention. He was past retirement age as a military man, easily centuries old from all his adventures; he didn’t jump to action like he used to. But that was okay.

Slowly, he opened his eyes, curled up around the big black-dappled snowball under one arm. Laika stirred as he did, squirming out of his hold and sniffing at his hair, sneezing once and making him smile against his own arm. He didn’t know how he’d gotten on the floor, except that he couldn’t sleep in the bed without feeling like he was about to fall through. It was fine when Tony was there, but even Tony had to wake up sometime and attend to his rambunctious four-year-old.

 _Their_ rambunctious four-year-old.

Somehow, between Tony threatening to house-arrest him if he got up after _three hours_ of rest—poor Tony, nobody should get three hours of sleep a night; it was fine for Steve, it was the most sleep he’d had in years, prior to the previous night’s five—and rolling around on the mattress for a few minutes trying unsuccessfully to find a comfortable position, he’d pulled a pillow aside and flopped down on the floor. He wrapped an arm around the fur-kid that joined him as if he’d never left.

She settled next to him and he buried his face against her fur, still rabbit-soft after all these years, listening to her heartbeat. 

He didn’t quite doze off, afraid to let go, but he did sink below the waves for a time, oblivious to the passage of time. He felt Laika shift again. He forced himself to something resembling consciousness as he heard clicking claws. Then a familiarly warm voice say, “Hi, sweetie, I love you, too.” Tony padded over, then sat on the edge of the bed near him, saying lightly, “Is this a statement or a protest?”

Steve didn’t bother opening his eyes, content to lounge, sun from the window painting his belly, his whole body warm with life. Tomorrow had come, and it wasn’t so bad, after all. He listened to Tony as he said, “I mean, I know the floor is good enough for our children, but they have mattresses, Steven. Even mice make beds.”

“Do they?” Syrupy-slow, content, Steve pressed his head against his pillow and added dryly, “How d’you know that?”

Tony scoffed, said, “Because I know everything.” Steve felt a tug on the back of his shirt, followed by a light, “C’mon, it makes me sad to see you on the floor when we have this big, beautiful bed waiting for us.” He let go and flopped back, making the bed creak. Steve smiled to himself, hearing the bed creak more as Laika hopped up. “Oh, hi,” Tony huffed. “Steve, love, please collect your child.”

“Hmm,” Steve replied, yawning. “Where’s Morgan?” he asked.

“Downstairs, making pancakes.”

“Precocious,” Steve observed slowly. 

“Well, Aunt Nat and Uncle Clint make good teachers,” Tony replied. Steve heard Laika hop off the bed before Tony hooked a hand in his shirt again, tugging on it. “C’mon. Get up here, you big dumb bear.”

It had been so long, yet it still rolled off his tongue so easily: “Mean old tiger.”

“That’s the Steve I know,” Tony grunted, real affection in his tone as Steve finally conceded, crawling onto the smallish space beside him. Tony nearly flattened himself against the curved wall, beaming at Steve helplessly, all teeth, all bright-eyed. “I was _thinking_ ,” he added brightly, dangerously, hooking a leg over Steve’s and wrapping an arm around his back, “that it’s past time I ironed out the Mark XI. I’ll call it the Mark XII.” He winked and added, “Gotta keep ‘em on their toes, you know?”

Steve blinked once, slowly, his own hand cautiously reaching out, flattening gently over Tony’s waist. He couldn’t bear to look at him, so bright and earnest was his expression, so _happy_ , and Steve—it had been so _long_ since he’d been happy, he didn’t know what to do when he was overflowing with it. He shuffled closer, making the bed creak again. He slid under Tony’s chin. He closed his eyes, breathing Tony in, warm and fresh and Tony and _alive_ , Tony’s arm coming up to cradle the back of his head instead.

“Maybe I should call it the Mark XIII, really preempt the thing,” Tony said, soft and close, speaking both like he was listening and wasn’t there at all, unafraid to share his ambitions, half-formed, his dreams, unlived. “Paint it red and gold like the old days. I don’t know what it is, but it’s—it’s home, you know?”

Steve nodded once. His eyes were closed. A tear slipped past one anyway. Tony didn’t say anything about it, but his arm squeezed gently, pulling him that much closer, silently affirming, _I’m here_. “Gonna make it so beautiful, you’ll never wanna look at the Ten again. I still have the Ten.” He exhaled, ruffling Steve’s hair. Streaked with silver. Old bear, indeed. “I still have all of them, can’t get rid of my babies, what kind of monster gets rid of their suits?”

“What kinda monster?” Steve echoed, his voice only hoarse as tears trickled sluggishly down his cheeks. “It’s okay, you know. If you wanna retire ‘em.”

“Really?” There was genuine surprise in Tony’s tone, like he couldn’t fathom it.

Steve nodded. “Nobody expects you to be one guy, your whole life.” The phrasing was awkward, he knew, but he’d seen almost every Tony Stark he could think of. They were all amazing in their own ways. He was simultaneously excited to see and at peace with the idea that this was his Tony today, tomorrow and forever. “You can . . . you can move on. To a new phase. A new adventure.”

“Hm.” Tony curled his arm so he could slide his hands into Steve’s hair, scratching his scalp lightly, intoxicatingly. Reverently. And it occurred to Steve, nearly for the first time, that it had been _six years_ since Tony had seen him. Six years since they had buried their own. . . . It was hard to name him, even though Steve knew it was him. 

It had been six years, but Tony hadn’t stopped loving him. If anything, the reunion was as ecstatic as if he had come back the very next day.

His chest swelled with emotion. He shuffled as close as he could, grateful that for a time Tony said nothing, stroking his hair against the grain as he wept silently.

He awoke and it was darker outside. His stomach growled. He thought about the packets of powder that had sustained him for years, that could sustain him for years if he filched a few more. Anxiety raced down his spine, trembling at the thought, unsure where it would lead.

Then Tony said, “Steve? Love? You wanna come eat with us? Just cookout style, you know, nothing fancy. We’re all heathens.”

Mm. Real food. It both nauseated and appealed to him. He lied motionless for a time, barely breathing. He only caught his breath when Tony said, “Hey.” Rubbing his shoulder, Tony added, “I’m sorry, I had to take care of something.” Without asking, he climbed into the space behind Steve, wrapping his arm around him, his mangled right hand resting low on Steve’s stomach. “You look like someone kicked your puppy,” he observed, light but sober at once.

Steve drew in a big, almost dying breath, expansive and glacial, before he exhaled slowly, drawing in another breath. Rinse and repeat. Breathing, he could do. Tony was warm and solid, around him, behind him, guarding his back from the world. It had been forever since anyone had hugged him. The simple touch was overwhelming. 

Aloud, he said quietly, “I just—never thought I’d be home. In this. . . .” _Life_. His own voice sounded small to him as he added, “I’m sorry it took so long.”

“No, hey.” Hushing, Tony pressed a kiss to the side of his neck, insisting, “No, no. You’re here. Right now. That’s all that matters. If it took you a hundred years, Steve, I’d be happy to see you.”

Gently, tentatively, like it was the most priceless work of art he wasn’t allowed to touch, Steve slid his hand underneath Tony’s right one, curling his fingers around it loosely. “I’m sorry,” he croaked.

Tony made a disagreeing noise, like he wanted to argue, but he flexed his hand and wormed his left arm underneath Steve instead. Aloud, he insisted, “No, don’t be. Don’t be, sweetheart.”

“I did this.” A tear slid down Steve’s cheek. How? _Why?_ Why would he _ever—_?

Tony said, “Shh. Shh.” Nodding, Steve raised Tony’s hand, pressed a kiss to it, then lowered it again. “It was an accident,” Tony said. Maybe there was a time when Steve would have argued, would have said, _That’s no excuse_.

But he’d seen a lot of accidents.

He nodded, shoulders hunching inward with belated grief, raw and paralyzing, from all the things he’d never mourned. It was too powerful as one. So, he said in a strong effort to maintain control, “I’m sorry, Tony.”

“I know.” He was so warm. He was so near and soft and warm and _present_. Steve refused to let reality slip away, to bob gently downstream for a time, to _be_ in a world that needed him to be _more_.

No. It was enough. He was enough.

At last, being there—he was enough.

“I know you are, sweetheart. And I love you for it.” When Tony said it like that, Steve could do nothing but believe him. He nodded. Tony said, “I’m sure they’ll save us a few burgers.”

The permission to lounge, to not try to catch up with the world, even his family, but to _be_ , was irresistible. “Okay.” He cleared his throat. “What about—?”

“Steve,” Tony said, nudging the back of his knee gently with his own knee. “Don’t worry about it.”

Steve wasn’t used to not worrying about it. 

But it was easy to listen as Tony said, “I missed you.” He nuzzled the back of Steve’s shoulder, repeating, “I missed you all the time. I kept . . . I hoped. I’d seen you once and I thought—you know? I thought, that’s my guy. That’s the one for me. I think . . . I _tried_.” His voice cracked. 

He squeezed Steve tighter, insisting, “I tried to—but I couldn’t. There was—it was over. That quick. I couldn’t. . . .” He trailed off, burying his face against the back of Steve’s shoulder for a long time. Finally, drawing in a fortifying breath, he said, “Dog days are over. For both of us.”

Careful not to accidentally shove Tony off the bed, Steve rolled around so he could look at him, nearly close enough to bump noses. “Dog days are over,” he echoed, leaning forward to nuzzle his nose against Tony’s.

Tony grinned, said, “Yeah. I’m keeping you. Any objections?”

To that, Steve kissed him. 

After a moment, Tony grinned against his mouth, pulling back to say, “Hey. We’re gonna get married.”

Steve kissed the tip of his nose instead, agreeing, “Mmhm. You still wanna?” He was surprised at the fearlessness behind the question, like if Tony said no, he’d be okay. Hell, if Tony had told him to go live in the Himalayas for ten years, then come talk to him, he would have. In a heartbeat.

It was pure oxygen to exist in the same world.

And Tony, with befitting brashness, said, “Just for that, I’m gonna marry you _twice_.”

Steve laughed. It was easily the best feeling in the Universe. 

Second only to the way Tony kissed. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get tired of it. 

He was pretty sure laughter had a shorter half-life than his undying affection for Tony Stark.


	41. SPLIT UP

**_Tuesday, January 15, 2013_.**

“Kinda in the middle of something,” Tony preempted, holding his phone awkwardly to his left ear. “Can this wait?”

“ _Where are you?_ ” Nick Fury demanded.

Tony looked around the basement idly, watching Steve and Bruce scout ahead. “Well,” he began.

“ _Someone put out a hit on. . . ._ ” There was a blur, a crackle of gunfire. The hairs on the back of Tony’s neck stood up. “ _Rogers_ ,” Fury grunted peevishly. “ _Get low. Stay low_.”

Ignoring the ringing in his ears, Tony said breezily, “Yeah, sure thing, buddy.” He hung up, then informed the jolly green giant and his trusty companion, “We’ve got a problem.”

“A problem?” Bruce pleaded, looking back at him like he was going to die, just up and die, if Tony told him there was even one micro-iota of error in the plan. The plan that didn’t exist yet, Tony didn’t remind him. “What kind of problem?”

“Boss said what we already know,” Tony informed, waving his phone in his left hand before pocketing it. “Someone took out a hit on you, buddy, you feel special yet?” he called, raising his voice to direct the question at Steve. “Huh? At least Fury’s one of the good ones.”

Evidently not in a humoring mood, Steve ordered, “Keep your voice down.”

In a faux-whisper, Tony told Bruce, “Don’t you hate when you leave your Iron Man gauntlets at home?” He flexed his hands, even though his right didn’t move in its new encasing. “I could have it on in a _heartbeat_ if it was here. J.A.R.V.I.S. would have already kicked the intruder’s ass.”

Bruce grimaced, looking back over at Steve before he shuffled closer to Tony. “You think the Tower is safe?” he asked, like he already knew the answer.

Sobriety washed over Tony. His right hand throbbed. He yearned suddenly for more booze or painkillers. Shaking his head, he admitted quietly, “No.”

Bruce paled, but he seemed to expect the answer. “We gotta warn them.”

Tony cocked his head, looking over when Steve wrenched the door wrenched from its cradle. When no alarms went off, Tony looked back at Bruce and reminded him, “Honestly, it might not be safe, but it’s safer than the streets, don’t you think? The security is off the charts. Besides, J.A.R.V.I.S. will vaporize anyone who tries to break in.”

“I thought J.A.R.V.I.S. didn’t have a kill capacity?” Bruce prompted, wringing his hands.

Tony pointed at him with his casted right hand and said, “And this is _exactly_ why we need to move on the Ultron programming.”

“The _what_ programming?” Steve asked, suddenly next to them. Tony jolted, reaching out to rest his left palm flat on Steve’s sternum.

“How did you—?”

Steve nodded over his shoulder, then explained, “Our friend’s still at the front door, right? This tunnel connects to another building. We gotta put ground between us to get to the others.”

Amused, Tony said, “So it _is_ the world’s worst game of cat-and-mouse.”

Steve actually smiled. “World’s worst game of cat-and-mouse is when you’re behind enemy lines in a Nazi encampment.” He used long strides to cross the concrete room. Bruce and Tony hastened after him, Tony snagging the back of Steve’s hoodie in his left hand. Steve didn’t stop, but he did slow down.

“You say that like you have personal experience with the matter,” Tony remarked, passing through the doors. Once Bruce was through, Steve turned and slid them shut like they weren’t pressurized to resist a thousand pounds of pure moxie. “How many Nazi encampments did you break into, anyway?”

Steve was quiet for a moment. Then: “Three.” He took point, moving along before Tony could ask. Taking a hint, Tony fell silent and hurried after him, Bruce jogging to keep up.

The tunnel was long and bent eight or nine times, Tony didn’t count, before emerging in a nearly identical basement area. For a moment, Tony thought they had completed a long circle. Then he saw the green light of the active door.

Steve stamped the pad out with his thumb before grabbing at the seam and pulling one of the doors back towards the wall. His biceps bulged, but there was no strain on his face, only patient exertion. Steve pulled the door back to its cradle, holding it there for Tony and Bruce to pass through. Once they had, he danced around his own grip, pivoting in place, then released it. Without delay, the door crunched back to its original place.

Who needed hacks when you could manually override the system? Tony mused. Steve gave the same treatment to three more doors, leading first to a level above the basement, then a door at the end of a hallway. 

There they ran into the first real obstacle. Security cameras couldn’t be disabled without creating a stir. Steve nudged them into a utility closet and dictated, “We gotta get to the street. No use running around a hospital.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” Tony said cheerily. “Always hated hospitals.”

“What are you planning?” Bruce asked.

The Man with a Plan replied, “We’re one floor above ground level. Should be an easy drop.” He looked between the two of them pointedly.

Bruce nodded and Tony nodded, too, refusing to be the weak link in the chain. “Nothing gets the blood flowing like a good fall,” he offered sagely.

Steve looked at his face, then down at his hand. Tony huffed and said, “I can handle it. Tuck and roll, right?”

Jaw set, Steve said, “I’ll go first. If there’s trouble, fall back.”

“Define _trouble_ ,” Tony said, but Steve was already pulling the door back—it whined despairingly at the rough treatment but obliged him—and loping down the hall. Even he had to jog to keep up. 

He understood the urgency, though, because they were in plain view; there was little hope they wouldn’t be identified. As it was, Tony was surprised no one had sounded the alarm over their sudden disappearances. Yet. There was always room for improvement, he thought grimly, watching Steve feel along the seamless window. 

Then Steve shrugged out of his hoodie. Before Bruce or Tony could think to protest, he wrapped his right fist in it and shattered the glass. It crumpled like a thin sheet of ice, never meant to sustain a full-bore blow from Captain America. The air outside was biting cold. Tony zipped his own jacket to his chin, wishing their heist could have taken place in a warmer locale.

No matter. There was suddenly a square-shaped voice in space where a window had once been. Steve shook out little glass pieces from his hoodie before replacing it. It wasn’t winter attire, but he had a thermal underneath his undershirt. With the suit jacket, he could navigate arctic conditions sustainably for hours before his core temperature dropped to a dangerous level.

Of course, that was when his suit had been fresh off the rack. These days, Tony knew it wasn’t waterproof or airtight. A strong cold draft could leech away precious heat. He needed to get on the new suit. Maybe he’d make it a darker shade of blue, too, he mused. He watched Steve grasp the windowsill and vault over the edge, dropping into the abyss without hesitation.

They waited for gunfire. Wailing, gnashing of teeth. 

Mundane silence prevailed. With a shrug and an _after you_ gesture, Tony stepped back to watch Bruce shoulder through the gap. Bruce dropped out of sight. 

Inexplicably, Tony cast a glance over his shoulder. Then he froze.

The black-clad assailant emerged above the lip of the opposite window, covered in a sheen of blue and white ice. Tony thought, _Tracker_. But Steve had killed it. He was sure of it.

One way or another, destiny was scaling the wall, smashing the window. The sound of it got Tony moving before the action fully registered; he launched himself out of his own window. He would have landed flat on his ass if Steve hadn’t helpfully caught him, steadying him on his feet and looking back up at the window with sudden intent.

Tony hissed, “Whatever you’re thinking, _stop thinking it_.” He didn’t wait for Steve’s approval, grabbing him by the edge of his hoodie and hauling. Then, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it manner, Tony was standing in a snowy alley, pressed hard against a brick wall. Grimacing, he tried to shove at the brick wall in front of him, _budge up_ , but Steve didn’t move. Bruce shivered next to him and didn’t breathe.

Tony didn’t hear the footsteps approach, but he felt the shift before Steve was off like a shot. Then Tony very much _did_ hear footsteps, faster than human. It was deeply unsettling, primordial, animal. Disconcerting. Unconsciously, Tony waited for a shot to be fired, but there was no gunfire, even though he was absolutely certain the gunman had one.

Bruce let out a growl. Tony clapped his left hand over his mouth, suddenly team _don’t hulk out_. Bruce kept a lid on it, barely. Tony’s heart pounded in his chest, but the night was eerily quiet, obscure city noises filling the silence. He wasn’t sure if Steve was coming back. One thing was certain: he could not outrun whatever had taken off after Steve.

He jerked a thumb towards the opposite end of the alley instead, mutely indicating the streets. It was risky, there were civilians, but he needed a goddamn suit. Shivering in a back alley waiting for certain death wasn’t going to cut it. Bruce didn’t even nod, following him, shaking his head vigorously, his skin still too green for comfort.

It should have been betrayal of the highest order to abandon Steve, wherever the hell Steve had gone, but Tony still put all his chips on the guy. If anything, he would have pitied the assailant for following him, except there was something _unnatural_ about the man—he was reasonably sure it was a man, but he wasn’t above envisioning an Amazon going toe-to-toe with Captain America—and that urged caution.

New York City rasped for breath in the premature darkness. The pulse of the city was still vibrant, but there was a sense of urgency to every endeavor in open weather, a need to return to warmer climes soon. 

They were cowards, Tony thought, somehow maintaining the mental room to make such sweeping callouts of human civilization. 

To be fair, there was no such thing as out in the open in the middle of the street. He owed his only cover to the sea of humanity. Nearly shoulder-to-shoulder, Tony and Bruce walked as briskly as they dared down the block.

Tony felt paranoia itch at the back of his shoulders, but he forced himself to keep his eyes on the prize, to keep moving forward. Simultaneously, he fished his phone out of his pocket and shot off a message to Natasha and Clint.

_Coming in cold. We got a tail._

It was all he could spare without stopping or dropping his guard altogether. He was hyper-aware of every contact—every shoulder-brush, every unconscious nudge, every goddamn mouth-breather—around him, and he despised them. Any one of them could be a threat; he couldn’t hope to scan them all. He had to trust them.

That was closer to the truth. He didn’t _trust_ people.

He trusted the people he let near him and the machines he built, and that was it. He’d gladly hurt the feelings of a very real human if they looked unkindly at one of his robots; he had limited altruism for everyday strangers. Everyday strangers could be kind or cruel. It was dangerous to assume either way.

Face numb, body vibrating with energy, Tony cursed himself for not bringing his Iron Man gauntlets. With them, he could have the Mark X on in less than eight seconds. But he had to have the gauntlets. They were the _land here_ marks for a blind machine that had no hope of scoping him out in the city. Without them, the armor couldn’t find him.

He’d make the GPS system in the Mark XI off-the-charts. Hell, he’d go the extra mile and include a tracking system small enough to fit on the back of a watch. Anything to negate the need for even streamlined machinery that could be left at home.

The Tower was home base. It felt like it, too, as they stepped through the doors. Tony expected their black-clad assailant to be waiting for them, but it was business as usual at the Tower. _Just another Tuesday_ , Tony thought incredulously, thunderstruck by the normalcy.

He strode over to the elevators, still scarcely believing they had made it without a bullet to the chest.

They were nearly scot-free, standing in front of the elevators, when the stranger appeared.

“I was hoping I’d catch you around,” an unfamiliar voice said.

The world felt upside-down, but Tony still turned to address the speaker, a strange pseudo-normalcy lingering over the scene. 

Tony stared at the man, taking him in. Well-kempt, blond hair slicked aggressively back, a furrowed brow accented by a gray business suit and a politician’s nebulous smile. He extended a broad hand and Tony unconsciously offered his right hand for the taking.

“What happened to you, Stark?” he asked, his voice oozing oily sympathy. He grasped Tony’s wrist, not bone-crushing like he’d expected but with the kind of consolation of a mayor attending to the sick. “You don’t look so good.”

“Avengers business,” Bruce prompted.

The man didn’t look away from Tony, repeating instead, “Really? Well, that seems improbable.” He didn’t let go of Tony’s wrist. Tony didn’t dare pull it, waiting for freedom. The stranger granted it, releasing him and saying in a sorry tone, “I heard they were disbanded.”

“Disbanded?” Bruce repeated, stepping forward, not quite putting himself between them. His expression was still stormy, like he couldn’t be pulled back to normal in the middle of a crisis, but Tony couldn’t bolt, not without creating a scene.

A scene would cause pandemonium; pandemonium would put civilians in danger. He needed calm. He needed his damn suit.

“Haven’t you heard?” the stranger said, reaching into his suit pocket and producing a folded-up sheet of paper. “Now, I don’t want to alarm you gentlemen, but there’s a warrant out for your arrests. _All_ your arrests.”

He held out the sheet and Tony took it, started to read it, then felt a sharp prick on the back of his neck. Dropping the paper, he reached up for the little barb, looking at the man who offered solicitously, “You all right, Stark? You’re looking a little green around the edges.”

Green. _Green_.

 _Now would be a really good time to lose your cool_ , Tony thought, but Bruce was focused on the pandemonium Tony had tried _so_ hard to avoid as a smattering of gunfire sounded off near the far end of the lobby, drawing screams from civilians and causing Bruce’s shoulders to bunch. A terrestrial growl rumbled through his chest.

“My, oh my,” the stranger said, putting a steadying hand on Tony’s shoulder. Tony’s vision blurred. He held on, breathing fast, trying to step out of the man’s grip. “Now this _is_ a scene,” the stranger drawled. “Wouldn’t want you to come to harm’s way, would we, Stark?”

He heard a roar followed by more gunfire, but it was muffled. The stranger marched them towards the stairs. “We’ll let the authorities handle it, shall we? No need to get the Avengers involved.” Another roar. Tony thought, _Turn around_ , but unlike his suit-up time, Hulk’s transformations took thirty seconds. They were in the stairwell in less than five.

Descending. Tony thought, _This is bad_ but no longer dared fight the man’s supporting arm, afraid he would crumple without it. Go along. _Learn_.

 _Dammit, Stark, do something_.

He said, “Who are you?” His face felt numb, uncooperative, but he said the words as clearly and emphatically as possible.

“I’m almost offended you don’t remember,” the man said, guiding him to a white van. _Typical_ , Tony thought. He dug in his heels. The man sighed. “But I have spent half a lifetime cultivating anonymity. You don’t need to know who I am.” He shoved Tony towards the van, a lackey with a mean-looking Sig sitting in the backseat, waiting for him. “In fact, it’d probably be best for everyone if you forgot all about me. You’ve got much bigger problems.”

Tony rasped, “I’m gonna kill you.”

That got not a laugh but a growl. The man spat, “ _Try_.” Then he shoved Tony into the van. Mr. Gunman latched him in, keeping the muzzle not at his head but his arc reactor. Tony felt sick and cold and detached. He barely heard his kidnapper say, “Now, sit back, relax. I’m sure they won’t kill you.” 

The man snapped the door shut and reappeared behind the wheel. Self-obsessed, he added around the noise of the engine, “Make you wish you were dead, that’s another thing.” He pulled out of the parking garage. Tony blinked incredulously at the back of his head.

“Is this a kidnapping?” he asked, a touch nonsensically. The muzzle of the gun dug into the arc reactor. He wanted to shut his eyes to shut out the sight but didn’t dare slip away. This part of the drive was easy and useless. The cameras would track it. “You take pointers? Masks. Gloves.”

“I have the full weight of the law behind me, Stark,” the man said primly, his head turning so Tony saw a pair of sunglasses on his face, the kind that could obscure his whole face from digital scans. Well, fuck. Tony had a feeling his regular glasses were similarly enhanced, which automatically rendered digital recordings of the stranger moot.

His head spun. They turned a corner sharply and picked up speed. Tony observed in a slurred tone, “ _No_ respect for the law.”

His primary kidnapper ignored him, driving on the glaze of snow and ice. Without warning, he parked and in ten seconds, they had switched vehicles and were cruising along in an old silver Mazda instead.

Tony didn’t understand the trade-off at first, but then he saw a green monster loping down the street. Descending on his prize, the Hulk ripped the door cleanly off the parked van, searching the interior. He roared in fury at what he found—or, rather, _didn’t_ find. 

Wedged helplessly in the trunk of a goddamn 2010 Mazda 3, Tony thought, _Fuck you_. Again and again, because it helped keep him awake. That, and the muffled roar as the Hulk smashed the poor empty van to pieces, five seconds too late.

 _Fuck you_ , he thought, grimacing as they bumped over a pothole. Feeling around with his left hand along the trunk interior, right hand cradled to his chest, he tried to find a release switch, but older models weren’t designed with kidnapping victims in mind. The best he could do was knock out a headlight, but claustrophobia was raw and tight in his chest as he gasped, and gasped, and gasped.

He was going to suffocate in the back of a goddamn 2010 Mazda 3.

 _There’s plenty of air_. He knew cars, loved cars, built cars. He had at least an hour’s supply of air. Doubtless, a man smart enough to kidnap Tony—hell, he needed twelve layers of security, because apparently _four_ wasn’t enough—was smart enough to figure out how long it would take to run out of air. Or maybe he didn’t care.

He hoped to God the bounty on his head didn’t read _Dead or alive_.

 _Fuck you_ , he thought again, clawing at the carpet in frustration, trying to maneuver in the impossibly tight space. _Fuck you_.

He knew he should have gone after Steve. Didn’t matter that he didn’t have a prayer of keeping up and might very well have been fucking eviscerated but whatever was after them.

 _Fuck you_ , he thought, and sank headfirst under.

. o .

“Tell you what, Stark.” A different, deeper, vaguely familiar voice greeted Tony. He couldn’t put a face to a voice, testing the give of a hardwood chair, squinting against the bright light in his face. _Typical_ , he thought, head throbbing, heart pounding sickly, a snarl curling his lips. “You’re more of an asset to me alive than dead.” He blinked as the light went off, the room abruptly plunged into disconcerting darkness. “I mean, you’re already dead, of course.”

Tony frowned, trying to rasp, _What the hell are you talking about?_ All that came out was, “Fuck off.”

“Attaboy. Shake it off. Nobody likes a quitter.” The lights came back on, dimmer. He saw the shadowed figure standing in the corner, features indistinguishable in the backlight. “You need better security,” he added pleasantly. “You’d think that one of the richest men in the world could buy it, but apparently not.” The shadow didn’t come closer, moving along the wall. Adding: “But you are smart. I’ll give you that. Smart when you want to be.” The shadow paused, then added seriously, “Smart enough to bargain, to take a good deal when you see it.”

“Say your piece,” Tony said slowly. “The answer’s still no.”

“I don’t think you understand how this works,” the man said, pacing to the opposite side of the room, not quite out of sight. The partial view was disconcerting. Tony tried to turn to follow the man, but he was strapped securely to the chair. “See, Stark, I don’t need you for anything. The thing up for discussion here is how much blood you want to get on the walls.” A folder landed on the floor in front of him. Tony stared at the now-familiar image of Captain America plunging his shield into a black-clad figure’s chest. 

One word emerged from his subconscious: _Kunar_. Tony felt bile well up in his throat. 

“Did you really think we didn’t _know_?” the man asked caustically. Tony’s fingers felt numb, his mouth too dry to respond.

All at once, he could place the voice, all too well. “Pierce,” he rasped.

“Well,” the World Security Council Secretary stated, “not that your odds for survival were very good, but you just knocked them down a few pegs.” Stepping more into the central light of the room, wearing a business-blue suit and a grim-lined smile, Pierce added, “You’re too smart for your own good, you know that? Maybe I would’ve let you go.” Shaking his head tragically, he added, “I wouldn’t have, but it’s nice to dream, isn’t it? Nice to imagine a happy ending.”

He wandered around to the back of the chair, then tipped it carelessly onto its side. Tony bit his lower lip hard; pain cracked from his shoulder to his now-throbbing right hand, saying forcefully, “Arch villainy doesn’t suit you.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Pierce agreed, pacing over to the far wall again, disappearing in shadow. “I don’t like to get my hands dirty. That’s what my wolves are for.” He turned then, adding conversationally, “You know, I like them, but they get out of line, really makes the whole thing messier. I like things cut and dried. Good little soldiers.” He shook his head, then said, “You know, I never had anything against you people. You were arrogant, but he was an asset. I couldn’t understand why a man like that would throw his life away over something so meaningless. 

“And it is meaningless, Stark. The best soldier we ever made, and I gotta put him down.” Sighing, Pierce said, “It’ll all be over soon. I’m sure you’ll want to know the exact time of death, put your mind at rest.” He cracked open a door, enough to let in a sliver of light, adding, “I won’t ask twice, Stark. So if you want to bargain, now is your chance. Work with us, and we’ll treat you like family. Work against us, and I’ll bury you six feet under with a straw. You’re already dead. Whole world knows it. But you can buy a new life.

“I’ll let you think on it.”

The door shut behind him. Tony growled, more agitated than afraid, heart pounding with it, with the fucking fury of it all—Pierce, the Council, bastards, all of them. A disease had infected S.H.I.E.L.D. from the top-down. He’d skin them alive for this. He didn’t care what it took—the second he got out, he’d make them regret it.

Of course, that implied _getting out_ , which was substantially more difficult without a suit, or a buddy, or even hope of rescue. 

But they’d know he was missing. Of course they would. They’d come looking. His gaze drifted towards the folder on the floor and the carnage it represented, wondering how long Pierce had waited to spring his trap. Steve was a hard wolf to catch. Haste would be the undoing; Pierce had laid low.

Breathing in deeply through his nose, Tony heard the door slide back. 

Iron Man stood in the doorway. 

It was an all gray model, boxier, less streamlined, but in concept, it was a perfect mimic. It stared at him with white-blue eyes. It moved like a toy soldier into the room, the door sliding shut behind it.

“You here to intimidate me?” Tony muttered.

With an automaton’s ease, the Iron Man suit marched towards him. It lifted its right hand, the repulsor on its palm glowing white. It felt like all Tony could see, hovering over him.

It reached down and righted him on his chair. Tony stared at it, feeling no fear, oddly, because it was his suit. Iron Man. It wouldn’t hurt him. None of his creations had ever hurt him.

Then it stepped back, took aim, and fired one small burst, so small it was dim and blue, right at the arc reactor.

Tony thought, _That’s it_. Pain radiated outward from his chest. Tony couldn’t even breathe through it, let alone cry out. He heard from another room, it seemed, the Iron Man suit walk to the door. He felt his heart pounding in his chest, erratic, frantic, a new cold terror overtaking him. He waited helplessly for the only light left in the room to wink out.

This was how he went. The great Tony Stark, alone in an empty room, eliminated by his own suit.

But the light never went out. It wasn’t until Tony felt the vague burning, the first appalling shift as the glue keeping the casing intact—itself keeping the arc reactor from cooking flesh—began to flow and pool ominously near the bottom, revealing the cracks and seams in the casing. The heat of the blast had incinerated his repair work. 

They weren’t going to beat acquiescence out of him, he realized with mounting horror. They were going to burn it out of him.

The skin around the area was already tender and stinging from the blow, but the pain was still manageable. With its casing, the arc reactor was hot to the touch, ballpark one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Unprotected, the core could reach temperatures of two-fifty.

His blood would not boil, but his skin would cook from the inside out.

God damn, he was going to kill them.

Breathing as calmly as he could between hyperventilating breaths, he allowed himself a few moments to chant fervently, _shit, shit, shit, shit!_ Then he forced himself to strangle his inner doomsayer and focus on the task at hand while he still could, before things got any worse. 

He was tied to a chair. His right hand was effectively immobile. There were no tools at his disposal, with the exception of the chair itself and the folder on the floor.

The folder on the floor. His stomach turned. If they knew—hell, there was no telling what they would do with that knowledge. He had a feeling the DOD would take a sudden, less-than-benevolent attitude towards it. At best, they might dishonorably discharge Captain America, put him on the equivalent of permanent house arrest. No more S.H.I.E.L.D.—fine by Tony—and no more Avengers, either.

At worst, they would kill him outright. Make it look like an accident for the sake of publicity. Tony wasn’t sure how they would go about it, but he knew the assassin on their tail had been strong enough to hold his own against Steve in hand-to-hand combat, even deal a few serious blows. He could probably kill him without a gun. And from there, it was all about staging.

Renewed fury and determination coursed through him. No. _No_. They weren’t going to kill him. Not while Tony had breath.

Squirming in the chair, he knew immediately that his phone was gone. The bastards had left him one tool, the cast around his right hand. It was hardly the sort of thing he could use as a weapon. It didn’t have enough room to manipulate the bonds wrapped tightly around his wrists, wedged behind his back, but it was something. Between that and the arc reactor, he had tools.

He had lots of tools, he consoled himself. Shoes, clothes, a belt, the cast, the folder, the papers, the arc reactor, and the chair itself. First, he had to get his arms in front of himself without dislocating his shoulders. Then he could Houdini his way out of there.

Inspired by the sense of purposefulness, he sucked in a breath, braced himself, and deliberately fell onto his left side. Both shoulders throbbed with new bruises, but at least the jolt was less substantial to his right arm and hand, which was good. He should have opted for a shot of morphine, damn the torpedoes, but life was full of regrets. He’d get over it.

He’d get over it, he thought, worming his hands around for a while, getting a feel for the bindings. The grip was substantial and relentless, but the cords were flexible. Evidently, they had skimped on the classic zip tie approach. Damn shame—he could have used the cast to help saw them off—but a problem for another day. He sucked in a breath against a spike of pain in his chest, flaring in his abdomen, and he thought, _It would be my fucking luck_ and managed not to throw up, even though the temptation was there.

He hated drugs, he hated zip ties, he hated people.

Well. Not all people. But his people weren’t _there_ , now, where they? Bastards. Leaving him out to dry.

But of course they weren’t, they wouldn’t rest if there was even a chance he was recoverable. Damn him if he wasn’t the luckiest unlucky bastard alive, to have the _Avengers_ on his side. They’d look. They’d find him.

Pierce had to know that. Confident though he was that Steve wouldn’t be able to hold his own against his wolf, he had to _entertain_ the idea that Steve would slip through the noose and come back for seconds. And the other Avengers—Clint and Natasha were the dream team, Bruce Banner was the second smartest man on the planet. The Hulk wasn’t too shabby, either. Thor was a famous no-show, but he’d attend Tony’s funeral, if nothing else.

He hoped Rhodey wouldn’t find out until _after_ the whole unhappy episode, dreading the thought of putting him in harm’s way. _Military guy_. He’d strangle Tony for not letting him put Rhodey in harm’s way.

He smirked at the thought of Lieutenant Colonel James Rupert Rhodes’ unbridled fury.

Rhodey was gonna fucking kill them _for_ him, Tony thought affectionately. He moved his hands around in their bonds, working on angles. It was like a Rubik’s cube, except there was more than one solution. He could dislocate his thumb, but then he’d have to then relocate it. The thought was sickening enough that he shelved the idea as a _gnawing-off-the-leg_ last-resort answer. 

He just had to get _leverage_. And that meant patiently, relentlessly, for hours, if needed, working at the bonds. On his side, he could even scrape them against the floor, anything to get them looser.

He had this. He so had this.

. o .

His fucking arms were going to fall off.

Sweat drenched his hair, dripping infuriatingly into his eyes. His chest hurt like a son of a bitch, and he was pretty sure all he had succeeded in doing over the past God-only-knew how many hours was rub his left wrist raw. His arms were sore, his shoulders were sore, his chest was sore, he was so goddamn _sore_ and increasingly pissed off, which was better than nauseated and whimpering in a corner, he thought. 

The angrier he got, the longer his shelf life. He gave himself over to it, bursts of fury that had him sawing at his hands and kicking hard against his bonds. He was pretty sure everything was looser, but maybe that was just limbs losing circulation informing him he no longer needed to worry about them.

Fuck that.

He knew he was putting on a show for whoever was watching. If they were afraid he would make something of his twig fire, they would have been there in a heartbeat to stomp his face in, but nobody had stopped him. And everyone loved an underdog, he thought, realizing there _was_ something he hadn’t tried.

It was probably the frustration of sweating out the arc reactor, contemplating ways to dangle Pierce over shark-infested waters, and being pissed off that he was locked up in a dark little room while everyone had a good time without him, but whatever inspired it, he didn’t allow cowardice to stop him. It was challenging—would’ve been so much fucking easier if he wasn’t on his side, he thought viciously, cursing out himself for choosing a course too quickly but fuck it, he’d _chosen—_ but with a few minutes of very spirited, almost convulsive wiggles, he landed square on his back, the cast cracking against the floor.

It didn’t break—those fuckers didn’t break, they weren’t supposed to—but between gasping breaths at the red-hot pain and the realization that he’d done it and now he needed to _undo it_ , if he kept his weight on his hands he’d pass out before the pain of the arc reactor did it, but the whole point, he reminded himself, using his cast hand for balance and hauling hard on his left hand, flattening it, come on, _c’mon_.

It slipped free. Tony let out a sharp breath, immediately pushing it to the ground to try to alleviate the pressure on his right hand. Feeling simultaneously wired and exhausted, he maneuvered onto his side again, careful not to reveal his hands, sure he looked as pathetic and defeated as he felt.

Great, he had a hand—two hands, actually; he slid his cast free of the bonds, tight enough it was still a challenge—but he had no real weapons. He was open season for a firing squad. Though he was always in fighting shape for his part-time work as an Avenger, he did his best work with a little more metal on hand.

 _Tough shit_ , he thought, closing his eyes, catching his breath. He was all right. This was fine. He’d beenthroughworse. 

This was a walk in the fucking park, he thought. The facility was even warm. A glass of water and it wasn’t even a kidnapping. 

_Infiltration_.

With both hands free—one hand mobile, he thought, refusing to be deterred—he could do anything. The world was his oyster.

Or, well, it would be. Once he got out. He still wasn’t sure he could get his feet free, let alone in a timely manner. There was one way to find out: by showing his hand.

There was a camera around here somewhere, he knew. He had to disable it, or else he’d be worse than square one when his babysitters stopped by to find him conspicuously freer than before.

Well, he thought bitterly, blinking slowly in the pervasive darkness, never say Starks were quitters.

For good measure, he twisted the chair around, scooting forward, careful to keep his hands visibly bound by hiding them underneath the cords. He didn’t dare use his hands, he _needed_ them, so he spent a few moments rubbing his cheek raw against the floor before he managed to flatten his tongue against the paper folder like a frog, biting down on it and thinking, _Easy peasy_.

Whoever was watching him was evidently enjoying his antics, because he wasted a solid five minutes—ten minutes, three hours, it was hard to say how long because they’d taken his _watch_ , fuckers—before shuffling around, using the same arc reactor trying to slow-cook him to navigate along the edge of the room.

Excruciatingly slowly, he used his still-bond feet to propel himself around the room, searching for the camera.

. o . 

Whoever-was-watching-Tony-Stark happened to be Aldrich Killian, the same man who had handed him over to Secretary Pierce. Looking at the monitor, Aldrich stood with a malevolent smirk cut across his clean features, watching Stark crawl around the floor. 

Stark paused at times to curse at them, but Aldrich had muted the stream a while ago. Stark wasn’t coordinating his own rescue; he was only railing against them. The performance was pitiful and beautiful, like watching a rat that had chewed his wires try to escape an enclosed box. 

“Isn’t karma _lovely_?” Aldrich asked the assembly. It consisted of Secretary Pierce and a couple of cronies Aldrich didn’t know, his own right hand close, one hand settled on a gun. “I could watch this all day.” With a tragic noise, he added, “But I do have business to attend to.”

“You’ve been an invaluable help,” the good Secretary said. Aldrich smiled, grateful to be on the winning side of history. His bank accounts were certainly plumper: bounty-hunting someone like Stark when S.H.I.E.L.D. was the benefactor could sustain the ambitions of a lesser man for years. Why, Aldrich was sure his company would drink tonight to the good health of the Secretary, who had carefully written off the $9.8 million reward.

He’d asked them, _Isn’t that a little high?_ Stark was smart, sure, but he hadn’t made anything _new_ in a while. Rumor had it he had turned a new leaf: he was out-of-touch with his father’s contacts and using his wealth in egregious ways, throwing it at the _poor_. The poor were the rats in the boxes; Aldrich refused to be one of them, to live an insular, unremarkable life. He’d gotten out, escaped obscurity. And at the summit, he had joined the _real_ rat races, working not merely to be acted upon by the world but to act upon it. People like Stark had never known life in a box.

Aldrich only wished he could be in that room to rub it in.

He would have liked to rub in that the ransom on Captain America was jaw-dropping at nearly $91 million. It was all unofficial—even Pierce would have to pull some serious strings to make double-digit millions disappear; the super-soldier serum could market for _billions_ , making the ransom a drop in the bucket—but Aldrich salivated at the thought, saying aloud, “You know, this business of ours, it’s mutually beneficial.”

Pierce preempted him with a dangerously polite smile: “Don’t get greedy, Killian.”

Mouth souring, Aldrich insisted, “I can bring him in. And, you know, that serum, it’s _worth—_ ”

“You’ve done good work,” Pierce cut in, his voice firmer. “Our business is concluded.”

Looking at the lackeys, both well-armed, Aldrich said stiffly, “Very well.” He looked at his own man, holding the briefcase with the cash reward of $1.5 million, a good faith reward. Aldrich hadn’t gotten out of the box by being behind the curve. He knew that men who had over a million dollars in cash were probably handling a hundred times that amount on a regular basis. It was like a hundred dollar bill to him. A million dollars. Just like that.

Stark made almost thirty million dollars a _day_.

Suddenly, ten mil didn’t seem so grand—it had taken three hours to deliver him, after all, not to mention a full month of planning—and he asked pointedly, “What are you going to do with Stark’s assets?”

Pierce’s expression was grim, dark. “You’re overstepping,” he warned. “Why don’t you be a good man and take your leave? You know how I feel about messes.”

The threat was clear. Aldrich was no coward. “I want in. Five percent. That’s all I ask. I’m a reasonable man.”

Five percent of Stark’s total assets was almost a billion. Cash. He was definitely shaking, totally fixed on Pierce, realizing he had opened the door to a far grander negotiation than he’d first agreed. To hell with Stark—let him rot. S.H.I.E.L.D. wouldn’t feed or water him. Assuming he didn’t go insane or die from the metal monstrosity in his chest, he’d eventually give out from one need or another. He wasn’t getting out. Even if he did, he was against the full weight of S.H.I.E.L.D.

No, he wasn’t an issue. Pierce was the issue. Pierce had the _money_.

Pierce _would_ have the money, Aldrich corrected himself, catching himself before he licked his lips. A billion dollars. Goddamn, it wasn’t even double-digits what Stark was worth. Aldrich could make Iron Man suits for days. Aloud, Aldrich revealed, “I can make them. The suits. These suits.” He poked a thumb at the stoic S.H.I.E.L.D. variety, which was internally full of wiring and mechanical parts. There was no room for a person in the middle. They’d only built one piloted suit, but five automatic suits, which cost a fraction and could get the job done. As—as _war machines_ , they were incredible. Unstoppable. He said aloud, “Market me, Secretary, and I’ll make you the most powerful man under the President.”

Pierce cocked his head. Aldrich hooked him, insisting, “I built that with nothing. We raid the nest, we get our hands on the schematics, I’ll build you a hundred. You and all your buddies and your very own Iron Man suits.” 

His gaze flicked to the original Iron Man. Tony Stark crawled, suit-less, along the floor. Even in the black-and-white footage, the flush to his cheeks, a mixture of exertion and fury, was obvious. His fate was signed; Stark had already signed his own execution order. Aldrich focused on the task at hand. “All I need is the first billion. My company will bankroll the rest.” 

A.I.M. was already worth $4.2 billion on paper. Marketing Iron Men as the world’s most elite bodyguard system? That was where _money_ was. Real money.

Hell, with a billion in the bank, he could burn a million dollars and still have nine-hundred and ninety-nine million left. It was a preposterous number. It was a glorious number.

He could make ten thousand Iron Man suits, once he found his audience, and there would _be_ an audience. There was a list ten miles long of people willing to drop a million on space. If he could get the suit production cost down to a million, he could sell them for ten.

Looking at the silver robot standing next to him, Aldrich entreated Pierce. “This could be the end, or the beginning. And if it’s the beginning . . . I promise you, Secretary. This is the front of a New World Order.”

He didn’t need to tell Pierce. He could see it in his eyes, piercing blue. He could even see it in the lackeys, who were all looking a little dazed, imagining themselves in Iron Man suits. Aldrich would give it to them. He wasn’t like Stark, who kept his suits to himself. Everyone who could pay up could have one in Aldrich Killian’s world.

Slowly, Pierce said, “Why don’t we talk in my office?”

Beaming privately, Aldrich said, “Why don’t we?”

They left two of Pierce’s lackeys to keep an eye on Stark, with strict orders to inform them if anything fishy happened. Trained to spot disturbances, the agents were nevertheless drawn to the silver suit still standing in their midst, a mute, silent, empty observer, imagining themselves wearing it.

And so, when they looked back at the monitor and, seemingly between one blink and the next, saw a black screen, they spent a long, almost comical moment staring at the black screen. One of the agents tapped the screen. The other stood up, hand on a gun. “Should we—?” the screen-tapper asked.

Grimly, the other agent shook his head. “Don’t be fucking stupid.” He grunted and added, “I’m gonna go check. Call him if anything real happens.”

Nodding, looking like he would rather saw off his own arm than admit such an oversight, especially under the watchful white-blue gaze of the automatic Iron Man, the guard said, “Roger that.”

. o . 

This was the part where the plan got _interesting_.

Because Tony had absolutely no way to gauge how close his observers were, he had no idea how much time he had bought, if he had bought any time _at all_. He’d made three critical assumptions—that there was only one camera, that the paper would stick, that the guards wouldn’t come bursting through the door the second they lost a visual—and he had to roll with them, bursting into motion.

He’d managed to free his left foot in his lengthy sandpaper struggles. It took a few frantic seconds to free his right foot, heart pounding in his chest, shirt sticking to his back. The arc reactor stung like salt in the wound. He was free, he was _free_ , and he had—a chair, part of a folder, shoes, a belt, an arc reactor—and he chose his weapon, rushing the door and slipping alongside it.

The door slid open and the guard, never anticipating real resistance, took a second to step inside and turn on a light switch proper.

Tony charged, driving him against the wall with the chair, pinning him. Surprise was on his side, but he had one hand and one shot, because a pissed off guard was going to fight to the finish and justify a dead man’s death later.

The thing that saved Tony’s life was simple: the guard had dropped his gun before he could fire at Tony. Barely thinking, just _moving_ , Tony abandoned his punishing grip on the chair, lunged for the gun, and got off a shot with his left hand, taking out the man’s equivalent kneecap, bringing him down. Without a bullet to spare, he lurched forward and pistol-whipped the man, dropping him to the floor. Shaking belligerently, he pointed the gun at him, finger off the trigger, and thought, _Fuck you. Fuck off_.

Swallowing down bile and still reeling from the change in elevation and the shock of even a small victory, he forced himself to keep moving, to enter the long connected hallway, wondering how many other war prisoners were trapped behind closed doors, not bothering to check. _One problem at a time_. He’d let the cavalry handle the real problem.

There was something unearthly about seeing a second guard and the silver Iron Man suit standing at the opposite end of the hall, like a dream. Tony thought, _Well, shit_ , and dropped to the floor before a repulsor blast could ignite him with full bore lethality. He caught the second guard in the chest, unconcerned that the wound was nearly fatal. The man dropped.

Tony expected the suit to attend to its master, gargling on the floor, alarms beginning to blare around them. Panic button, Tony thought bitterly, scrambling to his feet. The Iron Man suit lurched after him, single-minded in its purpose. 

_All right, buddy_ , Tony thought. _C_ _ome and fucking get it_.

He was not an Olympic athlete, but fuck if he didn’t run like a goddamn _cheetah_ with Iron Man on his tail, still firing blasts but—thank _fuck—_ grounded. It never once attempted to fly. 

That was the one thing Tony had working for him. 

Not paying attention, Tony crashed headlong into another guard. Without thinking, he flung them into the path of the next repulsor’s blast. 

If they died, they died; it wasn’t his responsibility to stop the killer robot from killing its masters when the killer robot was _trying to kill him_.

Fuck, he was going to ream Fury out for this, he thought, putting distance between himself and his own bastardized creation.

In some distant, reserved-for-catastrophes corner of his mind, he hoped Steve was having a slightly more fun day.


	42. SEND IN YOUR SECOND

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know how this universe is a divergent universe from canon? (It may come as a shock, at this late date, but it is, in fact, somewhat canon-divergent.)
> 
> Well, rarely is that going to be more evident than in this chapter. <3 In the end notes, I'll make a few clarifications, but just be aware that like the palladium problem is real at this point, well after IM2, so too have a few canon elements been warped.
> 
> Read on and enjoy!

Y’ ever seen two dogs fight? _Really_ fight?

Ain’t pretty. It’s meanness, nature at its worst. Red, tooth and claw. Only seen it happen once, himself, coupla mean dogs trained to be meaner. They’d torn the skin from each other’s shoulders, snarling in a way that didn’t even sound like _dogs_. It was over in maybe a minute, but it was a long minute, and there was nothing he could do, nothin’ nobody could do.

Yeah, that was what it was like, fightin’ this guy.

A flurry of blows traded so fast even Steve couldn’t see ‘em, could only feel ‘em, take a hit here, he’d land three more there, strike out with a foot hard enough to crack a normal shin but there was thick plating scaled around his companion’s extremities, he’d smashed a fist into his stomach once and nearly broke his fuckin’ hand. What were they _feedin’_ these agents? If he didn’t know better, he’d say the guy was jacked up on the good ol’ super-soldier serum, the ol’ S3—

Not of his own accordance, he somersaulted backwards, cracking his head against the brick and God, ain’t _that_ a feelin’ you never got used to, back up before the other guy could bring his metal— _metal—_ arm down, put it right through Steve’s chest, maybe rip out his heart.

Nope, not today, Steve thought, bouncing back to his feet and keeping the momentum, leaping up onto a fire escape in a single bound, good ol’ S3 at work right there, see, that was why they paid him the big bucks. He was almost enjoyin’ himself, would be if he wasn’t worried ol’ Metal Arm down there would change his mind and go after Tony and Bruce, and awh, hell, he shouldn’t have left ‘em but what else was he supposed to fuckin’ do? He could barely guard his _own_ back against this guy. 

He blinked in surprise as the ground dropped out from underneath him with an agonized screech of metal, leaping up to catch the _next_ stairwell, gonna play it _that_ way, ‘uh?

He huffed, “Give a guy a break.” Undeterred, the guy finished ripping the stairwell from its hinges, then started scaling the brick wall itself, using metal hand and gloved hand to shovel out grips for himself and moving at a good clip, too. At least the guy was keepin’ his eye on the prize instead of givin’ up on the hard buck and going for another target, gotta commend the _persistence—_

Steve slipped on the roof, the treads on his boots only so good—real good, better’n anythin’ in the war, but ice three inches deep was still fuckin’ ice, yanno?—and skidding forward a few feet before crashing into a big box, some kind of heating system. Forcing himself to move before he’d caught his breath, he took a hit right to the teeth, _ow_ , fuck, that still hurt. He ducked and plowed into the guy, driving his right shoulder hard into the least protected part of the soldier’s belly, right between scaly armor above and below. That was at least enough to get the guy off-balance. Steve pushed his advantage _hard_ , little too hard, actually, ‘cause funny story—

Roofs ended.

 _Bam!_ They hit the snow hard, but it was the brick underneath that was the real problem. Steve had strong ribs but four stories was four stories. Still fifty fuckin’ feet. When you belly-flopped that hard, it wasn’ a good time. Luckily, the guy underneath him must’ve had an even worse time, since he was the one underneath him. Steve’s weight and the fall should’ve killed the poor bastard, but there was barely a moment’s delay before _whoosh_ , the same metal arm fuckin’ _threw_ him off, a low snarl rasping behind the poor dog’s mask.

And Steve would’ve felt bad for the guy as he wobbled to his own feet—wobbled; geez, if his head didn’ sing, he’d be fine in _five minutes_ , just give him _five minutes_ and the good ol’ S3 would have him in killing shape again, but he doubted his buddy would accept such a lengthy ceasefire—he would’ve felt bad, at any rate, as the guy limped forward, one leg clearly hurting but trying not to show it, but then there was a knife in _Steve’s_ left leg. That was just meanspirited. Hadn’t he put enough fuckin’ holes in him for one day? One goddamn hour?

Been a couple hours, Steve amended, reaching for the blade in his calf just in time to get caught in a headlock, _fuck_ , that was such an easy thing to avoid and God dammit, God _fucking_ dammit if they weren’t on the ground, now, writhing around in the death throes, someone was going to die and Steve thought, _ain’t gonna be me_. He fought to prove it, rolling and trying to pin his adversary, but his leg was real tender where the would-be assassin helpfully smashed his knee, like he knew—probably did, actually—and the searing pain made it hard to see, let alone fight properly.

The guy seemed on top of everything except Steve just then, but it was better leverage, anyway, flat on their backs, crushing the life outta him. Steve could feel the grip around his neck and it _was not relentin’_ to the equally firm grip he had on that metal arm. He shoulda gone for the flesh arm, fatal mistake, really, anybody coulda made it, always go for the _weak_ link in the chain, not the indestructible arm. 

Black dots swam in his vision. 

He tried to roll, get in a good kick or an elbow, but it wasn’t happenin’. 

Breath wheezed in his chest.

Jesus Christ, this was embarrassin’. He was going to lose his first fistfight since ‘41. And once he died, Bucky would probably be the first one to clock him on the head for going for the metal arm, _always go for the weakness, you dumb bastard_.

Well, sometimes he was just a little stupid, can’t all be perfect, but then he found—some sort of indentation on the metal arm. He dug his fingers into it, crushing it inward. The guy’s grip loosened and that was all Steve needed to get a good elbow to the gut and roll out of reach, the metal arm still emphatically attached but fingers movin’ slow, real slow. Frowning, Steve put a couple meters between them, catchin’ up on precious oxygen for a few breaths.

He reached for the shield on his back. There was a moment when he actually had a shot, easy as that, could’ve taken the guy out with one hit. He wasn’t even sure Howard Stark, the quintessential opportunist, had ever envisioned his shield as a _weapon_ , a discus turned into a bludgeon, but that was what innovation was for. Grimly, Steve said, “Stay down.” He stepped closer, just one step, not quite in reach but near enough to pounce. His head spun but it was getting better. He felt hyper-awake. _Alive_. Jesus, he hadn’t been in a real fight in a good long while.

He noticed belatedly that he was shaking. 

He didn’t tell anybody, nobody, but he wasn’t sure the ice had been so good for him, the ol’ S3 had kept him alive but he could fight Nazis all the livelong-day, and fights like this—

Well, they left him winded, was all, just winded.

“Stay down,” he repeated in a rasp as ol’ Metal Arm twitched on the ground, still feeling around his strange limb with his gloved hand. 

Without warning, metal fingers flared and that was all the warning Steve had before the guy flicked something small and circular at him, metal and whiteout sharp as it latched onto his leg, his right leg, other leg, two bad legs weren’t gonna hold anybody up and he went down, but he was ready to grapple. He jabbed his cupped fingers hard at the guy’s face without thinkin’, prying the black mask from the lower half of his face because he was going to _know_ who the bastard was—

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Now that was strange, see.

Because. . . .

Because that sure as fuck looked a _lot_ like—

 _Wham!_ He sailed through the air and hit the ground hard. He came up with the angel of death himself comin’ towards him, one hand fumbling for the gun as he limped along, levelling the barrel at Steve.

Feelin’ like he’d been kicked in the face by a horse, Steve spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground— _there’s your fuckin’ S3, bastards—_ and rasped, “Bucky?”

The gun clicked, but that was as far as it got. Pointed right at his face, the completely flat face of his best friend in another life staring him down with nothin’, _nothin’_ in his eyes.

Steve rolled, not a second too soon; the bullet chewed out a patch from the icy ground. Steve wobbled, he swayed, but he still managed to get his hands on his shield, bringing it up to block the next shot. And the next. The third came within a breath of hitting his left foot. Every inch of him was sore, but he stared at—at Bucky, Bucky, holy fuck it was Bucky, and repeated, “Buck, it’s—it’s _me_.” Bucky was _alive—_

Deflecting another bullet with the shield, Steve lowered it and nearly took a knife to the eye for his troubles, ducking out of reach by following the swing’s arc, trying, trying breathlessly to get—get any fucking _purchase_ on him, fuck, “Bucky, Jesus, it’s me, _it’s me_.” He wasn’t wearing his own mask and Bucky knew what he looked like but Bucky’s eyes were drugged, blank, dead. Steve insisted, his voice thin, “Hey, Bucky, you know me.”

Bucky stared right at him, for a moment totally ceasefire.

Then he snatched the shield from Steve’s lowered arm and without remorse smashed it edge-first into his chest.

His sternum cracked but didn’t cave. That was the only reason he didn’t die.

Still, reeling, the weak trickle of blood like bile in the back of his throat as he staggered drunkenly back, he felt completely apart from his body as his worldview cracked into pieces, forward momentum cut in his big ol’ indestructible body. He collapsed onto his back.

Insisting, goddamn, he refused to die without breaking through, he said, “Bucky.” He saw his own shield lofted in the metal arm, the gun still in hand but he had his weapon of choice, all right, knew it if connected that was it. It should have connected; it _should_ _have_ connected.

But then he heard a strange whooshing sound, like a rope being drawn through gloved hands. Then something silver-white latched onto his shield and yanked it right outta Bucky’s hands.

A moment later, a kid’s voice said, “Oh, shoot. Captain America?”

 _Oh, hell_ , Steve thought, but oxygen was suddenly too scarce a resource for him to stay upright and alert. He sunk belly-up like a ship, pitching into a wave of black water.

. o .

Listen. _Listen_ , before sweeping statements about _reckless endangerment_ are made, let the court recognize that—

He couldn’t _not_ act.

It was for a good cause.

. . . God would forgive him?

Whatever the justification, fifteen-year-old Peter Parker couldn’t _not_ respond to gunshots. What he hadn’t expected was _Captain America_ , in the flesh, was fighting some kind of criminal in the streets. 

Ostensibly, he was just there to, you know. Supervise. Right. He was supervising.

That was why he was currently holding _Captain_ _America’s_ shield while Mr. Murder Face gave him a very murderous look, as if he had personally put the murdering industry out of business. That would be a good aspiration; he should put it on his college applications. _I wanna end the murdering industry_.

The shield trembled on his arm. _Don’t get hysterical, Parker_.

He laughed a little hysterically. “Listen, um. I don’t want any trouble.”

Mr. Murder Face’s nostrils flared. Peter shrank. “Okay, you can have it. Do you want it?” He barely offered the shield an inch. Mr. Murder Face didn’t respond, staring at him blankly.

Probably very impressed by his homemade Spider Man uniform. Yeah. That was it. The goggles, at least, were pretty chic, if he said so himself.

Honestly, Aunt May would have _approved_ of him intervening, because—well, he was pretty sure saving Captain America’s life was an _extraneous circumstance_.

Still, he wasn’t exactly expecting Mr. Murder Face, who looked about one second away from Mr. Murdering Captain America, to level the gun at him. “Oh, shoot!” he yelped, bringing the shield up just in time to catch a bullet. It _pinged_ off harmlessly, hardly any reverb. Wow. Wow! The balance was incredible, honestly—

Okay, that next one was a little too close to his face, but he caught it on the shield, too. Deciding a proactive stance would probably work, he got one arm up and shot a web at Mr. Murder Face’s Murder-Arm. Then Peter hauled downward on the web, bringing him down.

Mr. Murder Face faceplanted. Peter was pretty sure that the snort of air that burst out of him was _not_ a laugh, it might have been. Babbling, he offered, “Sorry! Sorry.” He ducked behind the shield again at another _ping_ , cutting the thread and adding, “Less sorry!” Sucking in a _you got this, Peter, you got this_ breath, he did the dumbest thing on planet Earth and dropped the shield.

In nearly the same instance, he fired off two webs, nailing Mr. Murder Face to the nearest wall. Two more shots for the feet, and bam! Easy as pie.

Mr. Murder Face writhed spiritedly but ineffectually. Leaving him to his confinement, Peter retrieved the shield and jogged over to Captain America, keeping a wide radius from Mr. Murder Face. He skidded to a halt next to Captain America and asked, “Mr. Captain America, sir? Are you okay?”

Maybe he just needed, you know, a nudge? Peter nudged him with a hand on his shoulder, offering, “I got your shield, here, why don’t you just—?” _He’s unconscious, Peter,_ an unhelpful voice unhelpfully reminded. Ignoring it, he slid the shield low on his arm, keeping Mr. Murder Face in his periphery as he nudged it against Captain America’s side. Captain America didn’t move. Peter pleaded, “Aw, c’mon, please don’t die. Captain. Mr. America. Sir. Please?”

Another nudge. Captain America finally twitched and Peter released a breath. “Oh, thank God. Hey. Hey, um.” Shooting a glance at Mr. Murder Face, who was biting at the webbing on his shoulder, huh, that was a new approach, Peter said, “So, uh, Mr. Captain America, can I get—here, I can help.” He reached out and grasped his shoulder again, less of a poke and more of an actual grip. “Mr. Captain America?” Then: “Sir? Captain? You gotta get up,” he pleaded. Captain America twitched again, one foot sliding on the ground, a weak attempt to stand, but Peter still encouraged, “Hey, yeah, this is good. Let’s just—here, I’ll—” 

Like he was handling a two-hundred-million-dollar Van Gogh original, Peter leveraged Captain America to a seated position, wincing sympathetically at his sorry state. Blood dribbled out of the corner of Captain America’s mouth, his brow furrowed in pain, his face ashen. Seeing the damage made Mr. Murder Face suddenly far more qualified for his job, seeming prepared to _gnaw off his own arm_ just to get free. “We should go,” Peter prompted, itching to drag and flee before Mr. Murder Face actually got loose. “You have—hey, the, uh, the Avengers? Them? Can I call someone? Sir?”

With a little movement, Captain America shook his head, making a deep noise in his chest like he might speak but only managing a very faint, “Ge’—ou . . ., kid.”

Before he could state the obvious— _I can’t leave you to die, that’s not cool—_ he heard a _snap_. Peter fumbled to get the shield out of the way before Mr. Murder Face could fire his gun with his newly-freed arm, reattaching it to the wall without a second to spare. A furious snarl burst from Mr. Murder Face’s mouth. It made all the hairs stand up on the back of Peter’s neck. 

Yup—time to go.

“Listen, I can. . . .” Captain America shook as Peter slid an arm under his shoulders, accidentally pushing the shield against his chest. “Sorry, sorry,” he said, even though Captain America didn’t rebuke, just squeezed his shoulders vaguely with an open hand, gently, like he was breakable. “Oh, hey, it’s okay, I’m really strong,” he assured, leveraging him upright carefully, careful _not_ to overdo it. “My name’s Peter, by the way,” he added politely. “I know yours. You’re Captain Rogers.”

A thin sound that might have been an amused hum answered him, followed by another nearly indecipherable rasp: “Get outta here, kid.”

“Yeah, yeah, I will, I just. . . .” Dragging Captain America to his feet, afraid that if he dropped him, Captain America _would_ die, Peter kept his arm under his shoulders. “I—I can’t leave you here, sir. I’m sorry.” He waited for Captain America to plant his feet, to shake him off and take his shield and say, _Thanks for the help, kid,_ but Captain America didn’t shake him off, just swayed ominously for a moment. Thoughtfully, Peter offered him his shield. He curled his fingers around it. It seemed to re-center him, at least, stilling him. “Yeah. See, you’re good. Everything’s good.” Another snap. Peter let him go with an apologetic little, “Just a sec,” and turned to web Mr. Murder Face _again_.

But this time, Mr. Murder Face took the high road, sprinting towards the far end of the alley while Peter just blinked dumbly in surprise after him. At a loss, he cupped his hands around his mouth and called, “Okay, nice to meet you!” _Nice to meet you???_ he thought hysterically, turning back and scrambling to stop Captain America from falling. 

“Hey, no, it’s all right—you’ve got friends, right? Friends in high places? Yeah. Yeah, let’s—c’mon,” he pleaded, not afraid that he couldn’t get Captain America back on his feet if he fell but afraid of what it meant if he couldn’t stay on his feet. To model good behavior, he took an encouraging step and easily half his weight. Captain America didn’t fall, which was good. He wasn’t walking much, either, but that was fine. Peter could pick up school buses. He could handle a National Treasure with care.

Babbling, he said, “Maybe we should, um, you know Mr. Stark? I bet he’d let you stay at his place, I mean, it’s a big tower, right?” Captain America didn’t respond, just forced one shuffling step after another. Captain America felt a hundred years old, moving this slowly. He must’ve been hurting if he was this low because Captain America didn’t _get_ low, everyone and their brother knew that he was effectively invincible.

Well. Whatever was back in the alley was apparently his Kryptonite.

Every inch of the street felt exposed. Peter waited for a sniper to take one or both of them out, jittering with anxiety. They were hilariously easy targets, completely with brilliant red-white-and-blue bull’s eye and red suit, but at least it was dark. Nobody was paying an old man and the kid hunched under his shoulder much attention. There was something to be said for casual invisibility in a city as big as New York.

A terrestrial roar in the nearby distance—couldn’t have been too near, almost everyone around them was nonreactive, but it felt like the sound reverberated in Peter’s chest, his ears _listening_ for that kind of trouble—made him shiver and Captain America pause. Slowly, painfully slowly, Captain America straightened, holding a hand to his own chest, right near the center, his shield still low on his other arm. Peter stood next to him, not quite under his arm anymore but offering his support, like holding up a growing tree with a plank.

Captain America took a step under his own power and didn’t go down. Another; then he turned to look at Peter, his whole demeanor still fundamentally _wrong_ , Captain America was comic-book invincible, but his voice was surprisingly firm as he said, “You all right, kid?”

Peter blinked, then nodded once, assuring, “Yeah, of course. I’m fine, Mr. Captain—Captain America, sir.”

Captain America looked him over, then tilted his head back towards the sound of a second, faintly quieter roar. Far end of the city, maybe. There would be pandemonium. Here, there was a strange sense of peace and quiet, snowflakes filtering down. He looked back at Peter and was silent for a long moment.

At last, he asked, “Can you get home safe, kid?”

Peter nodded vigorously. “Sure. Yeah. Of course.” Jerking a thumb over his shoulder, he added, “I was just, uh.” Aware that he was wearing his own suit, he added, “I always wear this. It’s my costume. Cosplay. You know cosplay?”

Captain America didn’t blink. “Okay,” he said at last, slowly, deliberately. “Make a new—costume,” he said, hitching the shield onto his back with a grimace. Peter noticed the buckle of the suit hidden underneath the gray hoodie he wore over the top half of the suit. “Stay low. Got it?”

Peter nodded again. Gratitude and uncertainty washed over him as he added, “Sorry, to, uh, barge in on—”

“No,” Captain America cut in, his voice surprisingly gentle. “No, you did good, kid. Just go on home now.” He nodded in the opposite direction, then assured, “I’ll take care of this.” Turning, he took one step forward, then turned back and added, “Peter, right?”

“Peter Parker,” Peter chimed in, chest swelling as he stood more fully. “Sir.”

With just a hint of a smile, Captain America said, “You got heart, kid. See you around.”

Peter thought about at least five different things he should have said, all boiling down to _thank you, Mr. America Captain sir_ , and definitely not _can I get that in writing?_ Because no one was going to believe him, he realized with a rueful little smile, nodding quickly and watching Captain America take off at a loping run, tireless as the myth. Standing alone again, all he could think was, _Ned’s gonna flip_.

Ned Leeds wasn’t quite that athletic, but he did nearly scream Peter’s ear off over the phone as he repeated, “ _You met WHAT?_ ”

All in a night’s work, Petey, he thought, smiling even as he looked over his folded-up uniform mournfully. All in a night’s work.

. o .

Steve wasn’t sure what he expected, exactly. 

It was pretty damn hard to postulate beyond the burning pain in his chest, deep-seated and demanding. Everything hurt a good deal, but he didn’t even pause as he ran, skidded, bullheaded his way towards the sound, not even afraid of what he might find because he wasn’t speculating that far. 

He was only prone to speculating if he would make it to the edge of that block. Before he had decided whether that was possible through the ringing haze around him, he was standing in front of the Hulk, who was crushing a car into a sheet of metal, roaring nearly continuously. There were sirens and police and a whole scene, and Steve knew no one wanted to take a shot and escalate things, but everyone was edgy. He wasn’t a moment too soon. He felt a palpable ripple of relief spread through the crowd as he approached the Hulk, shield still on his back.

“Hulk,” he said as loudly as he could, but it wasn’t loud and there was no way Hulk could have heard him over his own fists, smashing and smashing and _smashing_ , like a meat grinder, he was fucking pulverizin’ that car like it had—

Steve didn’t know why he looked over, why he saw the body lyin’ on the streets, but he did. Suddenly he didn’t care if he got in Hulk’s radius before Hulk was people-tolerant, he was movin’ and he was _there_. When Hulk let out a particularly earsplitting roar, he unthinkingly slingshotted his shield at the big green guy’s back, hard enough to knock him off course, a wordless and very loud knock it the _fuck_ off. Hulk let out an even more animal scream of frustration and Steve caught his shield on the immediate relay and dropping it without even looking to see if Hulk was going to counterattack.

He refused to believe for even a second that he was dealing with a—a fatality.

It was cold to the touch. Ice-cold. No-sign-of-life cold.

He knew he shouldn’t touch it, in some primitive corner of his mind he still abhorred touching the dead, but he had to. He had to. Blinded by all the lights and noise and the raw panic inside him, Hulk threatening to turn on civilians if he didn’t get him to _calm down_ , but how could he calm down? He didn’t care, didn’t even have the presence of mind to not _drag_ the body into a corner, there weren’t spotlights on the fuckin’ _Front_ , it was enough just trying to make sense of two problems, he didn’t need four, he didn’t need _forty_ , how many fuckin’ civilians were there, anyway?

He felt a cold neck for a nonexistent pulse. Instantly it wasn’t New York City, it was frigid Afghanistan, and he stared at his downed men, calling out their names, their serial numbers, their _homelands_ , anything to get a response. They were all quiet black mounds, strange uniforms, not _Army_ uniforms, but he couldn’t snap out of it. He wandered among them, waiting for someone to respond, trying to get them to sit up, c’mon, get on your feet, soldier.

They didn’t. They were all quite dead, and they weren’t his guys. They weren’t even from the forties; they were probably born in the eighties, decades after he’d gone under. Half a century late, some of them.

He gripped the body’s jacket in a bloodless grip, giving it a shake, pulling on it. It went, of course it did, but it was a puppet without even strings, lifeless without his influence. He let go and it hit the ground. He breathed through his mouth and could almost taste the dirt and blood, like he was the one lying dyin’.

Not dying. Dead.

All of them.

Hulk tired of smashing the car. He turned on the civilians, roaring at them. A real crisis was seconds away. People screamed. This could go bad.

Steve didn’t budge an inch, pressing his fingers so hard against the body’s neck he almost crushed the windpipe. It didn’t matter. It didn’t fucking _matter_. It wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing, was not in any way a living person anymore.

It took him a full minute to look up from the hole in its chest to its face.

He bowed over the body, hunching over it like he would protect it. Then he gasped and gasped and let go, lurching blindly away, like he couldn’t bear to be near it. No. No, no, no, _no_.

Hulk lifted the crumpled car like a bludgeon. He was gonna fuckin’ kill somebody.

Steve didn’t even reach for his shield, didn’t know how to move or breathe, head spinning as he lurched numbly back towards him, trying to speak but finding no breath. All he could do was reach out, couldn’t curl a hand around Hulk’s arm, didn’t have a prayer of dragging him anywhere he didn’t want to go, but he put a hand on his arm, buying them a second.

Hulk’s nostrils flared. He looked at Steve with eyes so bloodshot they seemed to glow red, and it was only then that Steve saw the grief. The rage. The _pandemonium_.

Steve didn’t cry. Tears just slipped down his face, his mouth slightly open, one hand still flat against Hulk’s bicep. Another, looser animal cry. Then Hulk dropped the crushed car. 

Nobody got hurt. Nobody even fired a gun.

There were voices, hell, there were _news outlets_ , Jesus Christ, who brought a camera to a war? Steve didn’t care. He just looked at Hulk, who shook like he would pummel Steve like the car. Steve wanted him to, oh, he wanted him to, for just a moment he wanted to be dust, to be _free_.

Death was no more choices.

Living was—living was the crowd, and the car, and the monster, and the body.

Swallowing blood, he rasped, “Stand. Down.”

Hulk stared at him, but instead of transforming, he just bared his teeth, stalking over to the body, the _body_. He picked it up, holding it like the loaf of bread in a starving city. Not something alive. But something to tether the living.

Steve didn’t look away so much as he walked away.

He was not gentle with them, was not solicitous or apologetic or reassuring. He dispersed them like a god in a defiled temple, ripping their cameras out of their hands and smashing them on the ground, open-handedly striking an officer that got too close, knocking him clean over. Maybe he was looking for a fight, maybe he was just looking for someone to guide him. It didn’t matter. No one got too close. Steve knew he could have killed people, but he didn’t. That was the only reason they didn’t fire back. It was an honest-to-God miracle that they didn’t fire.

If he wasn’t wearing red, white, and blue, he knew they would have shot him. And he would have let them.

But when he stood alone with just the police chief and four officers, each grim-faced and each pointing a loaded gun at him, he knew that it was over. The street was _empty_. Blockaded. The crowd had disappeared as if it never was, only footprints in the snow and the smashed car to signal that there was ever chaos. No blood.

No one got hurt.

He turned numbly back to the Hulk, still hunched in the alleyway, holding the body to his chest. Steve closed his eyes for just a moment, swallowing hard even though he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

He staggered towards him, every wound aggravated but no blood spilling onto the streets, how very thoughtful of him to die bloodlessly, his blood was all frozen to the suit, frozen inside him as he got within arm’s reach, numb to danger, staring until his eyes felt frozen open, he had to reach up with his hands to cover them. He couldn’t move them. He couldn’t look.

Lowering his hands to a new world order, he looked at Hulk, looked him dead in the eye, and forced out, “No prisoners.”

Hulk curled his lip, exposing killing teeth, and growled low in agreement.

He couldn’t carry the body. His chest was fuckin’ _broken_ , it was a goddamned miracle he was still on his feet. But he held out his arms, shield abandoned on the street. Hulk slid the body into his arms. He caught it. It was cold. Heavy.

Hulk took off, racing down the street, leaping up onto roofs to distant petrified screams, but Steve ignored him. He had his marching orders. He’d see them through.

He barely breathed at all as he carried Tony Stark’s lifeless body away from the crowd, away from it all.

The arc reactor did not glow under his fingers. The heart it kept alive did not beat.

Feeling dead himself, he marched, and drew up a list of _names_ , his own personal ledger.

. o .

A world away, it seemed, the very much alive Tony Stark raced through S.H.I.E.L.D.’s labyrinthine underground complex like a bat out of hell.

His left side burned where a repulsor blast had knocked him into the stairwell, but he still threw himself as energetically as possible against gravity, lurching and racing towards the highest point he could find, needing high ground to _get out_. When another blow missed his head by an inch, he decided caustically, _Just for that,_ _I’m naming you Nortlu_.

Conceptual Ultron’s evil cousin hadn’t even laid a hand on him, but Tony was still bruised and shaking with exhaustion, nearly tripping over his own feet as he stumbled upstairs. He knew that his efforts were at best delaying his inevitable death and at worst choosing _incineration_ over _starvation_. Hell, maybe they had water torture on the agenda, and didn’t _that_ give his fleet feet a much-needed burst of renewed energy. He soared up the stairs, putting as much distance between himself and the machine as possible, aware of the ticking clock.

If the Rogue Iron Man didn’t kill him first, it was only a matter of time before someone picked him off in the service of one Alexander Pierce. Fucking Pierce. He always had a sort of _I drink unicorn blood_ air to him.

Gasping for breath, Tony shoved his way through a thank-God thank- _fuck_ unlocked door on some dark underground floor. He knew some lackey was going to lose his job for this escape, but Tony Stark was going to keep his _life_. That was better than stable employment. He threw himself down the hallway, stumbling and gripping the wall for support as Nortlu clambered up the stairs after him with audible _clunks_. 

The only thing Tony had going for him was speed. Nortlu seemed to only be able to move at a walking clip, long strides but no rollerblades or fancy skates, like the world’s slowest ax-murderer. Scaling the stairs had been energy-consumptive in the extreme but given him a full two minutes of headway. He stumbled down the hall, looking for an escape room. Any escape room.

As he heard the machine clunk closer, he yanked on another locked door, cursing between gasps as he moved along. There was an elevator at the far end of the hall that might as well have not existed for how useful it was to him without a key-chip. In case of emergencies, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents could always take the fucking stairs.

Growling low in frustration, Tony leaned against the wall for a moment, taking one moment to catch his fucking _breath_. Nortlu clunked ever-closer, still steps below. Maybe seconds below. It was a persistent bastard.

 _Come and get it_ , he thought belligerently, because fuck off, if he was going to die to one of his own children, he was going to go down _swinging_.

A blast singed the door at a low angle, shot from maybe ten feet down. Even though it was purely an automaton and effectively sightless, Tony was absolutely sure Nortlu had a heat-sensing array, because the repulsor blasts had unerringly found their targets, even if the target had twisted or darted or even fallen out of view just before contact.

The saving grace was reloading time. It took almost eight seconds before Nortlu popped off another shot, the world’s slowest shot.

Of course, the tradeoff was that each blast possessed greater lethality. His own Mark X—hell, the prototypal Mark _XI—_ could fire lethally in about three seconds, but it also had the option to shoot off partial bolts, anywhere from 0.05-second bursts that were almost cold blasts, to one-second hits that hit like supersonic blasts of air. The longer he cooked them, the more punch they packed.

No Chitauri was getting its grimy hands on _his_ babies, that was for sure. 

Nortlu huffed its way up the last few steps. Grimly, Tony holstered his safety-on gun in his belt. Then, just before Nortlu could reach the door, Tony shoved through the door he had just thanked the stars for providing and launched himself at the machine.

Predictably, Nortlu fired at the space where he had been, which missed by the barest of quarter-inches as Tony grappled for purchase around its metal neck, only one hand useful, the other alive with pain. To make matters worse, the suit _hummed_ , a deep buzz that made it nearly impossible to keep his grip. 

More disconcertingly, it overbalanced and plunged backwards.

Tony expected to fall ass-over-teakettle all the way down those four flights of stairs he had worked so hard to climb, but they only fell vertiginously downward for maybe two week, a sort of slow-mo somersault, before the suit abruptly hovered in place, little shoulder thrusters kicking in. 

_Emergency flight power_ , Tony thought, more impressed than alarmed as they started floating upright, still gripping the suit tightly around the neck. _Well, Nortlu, you did always try to make your Pop proud_.

But Nortlu also had to die. Tony scrambled with his one free hand at the back of its neck, searching for the kill switch, they couldn’t have not implanted an externally accessible _kill switch_ , that was _exactly_ how you got “evil robot takes over the world.” God, he had to get a move on Ultron just to educate them on _proper_ AI child-rearing. That was clearly the only solution, because _there was no kill switch_.

Tony didn’t have long to rail against the establishment. Without warning, they were _flying_ , properly, the suit taking on a seeming life of its own as it leveled upright, little flares of power activated in its heels.

 _Great!_ Tony thought, clinging to the suit as tightly as he could as it zipped haphazardly down the stairway, plunging straight down for three stories before pulling up with less than a meter of space with a soft _beep_. Well, Tony thought, heart beating like a rabbit’s in his chest, very certain he had been one second away from being turned into a very unpleasant pancake, at least it had an impact-radius alert system. Good for an autonomous suit that could crash into walls. Still bad for Tony’s heart, which didn’t know the difference between _certain death_ and _fooled you once!_

Then Nortlu took off down the hallway and started doing what nature had already branded a death roll. If Tony hadn’t already been monkeyed onto the suit, he would have been knocked off in the first roll. The suit spun fast, but the hall ended faster, forcing it to bank. The banks were too short for further acrobatics, but the suit was picking up _steam_. Tony hung on like an absolute madman and yelled against the wind, in mixed terror and elation and fury.

It also helped dispel a lot of excess nervous energy. He even found a kill switch, gleefully flicking it and howling in surprise as Nortlu dropped like a cut puppet.

 _Ouch_.

Nortlu didn’t land on top of him so much as it road-burned him off, dropping instantly but still sailing forward long after Tony had been forcibly yanked free by the unyielding ground underneath him, skidding across the floor for a few seconds on his back, hearing a loud _boom_ as Nortlu hit another banked wall and fell completely still. Groaning, every inch singing in pain, Tony clambered to his feet, flipped Nortlu off, and said, “And you _stay there_.”

But instead of loping off the way he had come, robot-free, he loped improbably towards Nortlu, an idea spawning in his mind even as alarms sounded around him. _No time, no time, no fucking time_ , he thought. He only had time to free one gauntlet before the first shot whizzed dangerously close to him, didn’t even have time to offer a quick, _please work_ , as he shoved his hand inside it and pressed hard on the manual release.

 _Bam!_ The security guard stumbled back. Tony hadn’t even fully detached the hand from the rest of the suit, still tethered to its central power source. His options were thus: stand and fight using Nortlu’s battery or take advantage of his handy-dandy portable source.

Squeezing the gauntlet against his side to pry it off, he made quick work of unhooking its central line from its host. The gauntlet predictably went dark. The gauntlets were operable without power, as long as they had a battery to draw on. He barely sucked in a breath before he found the little port on his arc reactor that he could use for his own suits when they weren’t on battery. Popping the seal, he jammed the free cord in. The gauntlet heated reassuringly against his leg.

With two gauntlets capable of flight, even just emergency maneuvering, he could have gotten out in minutes, but he only had one port for emergency charges—the idea of poking more holes into his iron heart was something of a turn-off for his ambitions—and he didn’t have a free hand, besides. Cursing colorfully the same cast that kept him from crumpling into a heap and had allowed him to escape in the first place, he scrambled and shot off a full-bore blast at the same guard, who flew backwards and did not move.

 _Thank you_ , Tony thought graciously, saluting Nortlu with his cast as he sucked in a shaky breath and advanced slowly, gauntleted hand uplifted and in permanent _ready-fire_ mode. He still had to compress the release with his palm, which was difficult in a clunky glove, but he wasn’t firing blanks.

 _Well,_ he thought grimly, pushing ahead. _They aren’t either_.

He heard footsteps, a lot more footsteps, approaching fast. He knew he would never disable a crowd with single-fire bursts.

 _Not with that attitude_.

They were expecting resistance, maybe, in the form of gunfire, but none of them were ready for the wave of heat, like a flamethrower raking a line, as Tony mashed his palm against the trigger relentlessly, feeling the arc reactor burn, his palm burn with it, everything was burning but the guards dropped or fled, pot shots exploding as guns caught in the blast fired spontaneously.

He let up as soon as he dared. There was silence in the hall. Without looking at the singed bodies’ faces, he danced around his masked enemies, their suits _melted_ to their skin, Christ, he could smell it. He skittered down the hall as fast as possible, rounding every corner with a wall of fire.

His arc reactor had finite power. It would run out.

But it did feel damn good to drive the wolves right out of their own lair, following the path that he hoped to God did not lead to open space.

The universe obliged him, antithetically: there was no open space, but there _was_ an elevator.

Well. Ain’t that just lucky.

Grimly, he stepped forward. Eerily, the doors slid open for him.

It was a trap, but where else could he go? He was boxed in down here. It was this elevator or one that wouldn’t respond to him.

He stepped inside, gun in his belt and gauntlet on his hand, pressing his back against the far corner for balance.

 _Come and get it_.

. o .

Nick Fury was having one goddamn bitch of a Tuesday.

First, there was S.H.I.E.L.D.’s first Cold Black—ever. All the data, utterly unreachable. Every agent under his control compromised, except for those within shouting distance and on his personal phone. Stark may not have intended to completely uproot S.H.I.E.L.D.—but of course he had, when had _Tony Stark_ ever done anything halfway?—but he’d done a damn good job of it anyway. Then his techies started reporting that some files were missing. A _lot_ of files. Whole agents had vanished from the face of the Earth, their numbers erased, their contact information vanished as if they’d never been.

Something was very, very wrong.

Then, there was the matter of the paper folder waiting on his desk. He’d spent exactly ten seconds staring at the red letters on the front, DECOM, before flipping it open, not sure what he expected.

There was just one sheet of paper, written in the formal manner of someone delivering a speech after a failed space shuttle launch. It wasn’t for a failed space launch. It was a notice to the President that S.H.I.E.L.D. was formally under new leadership in the wake of Director Nicholas J. Fury’s death.

Nick sent off a _Code Red_ text to Commander Hill. Then he stood up and smashed the panel next to the safe-door behind his desk. He slipped through the tunnel, mere seconds before his office door caved inward. A hail of gunfire followed. 

He got Stark on the horn and delivered his warning. _Rogers is in danger. You’re all in danger_.

Then he got to the roof.

Agent Phil Coulson was waiting for him, gun in hand.

“I know what you’re thinking.” Agent Coulson didn’t speak loudly, but his voice still carried over the silent helicopter next to him. “Why?”

Nick opened his mouth to speak, then shut it, finally managing, “They said you—”

“Died?” Coulson didn’t lower the gun. “Yeah. I told them to quit. Give it up. They didn’t. So, I told them to lie. Strange, what kind of wishes are granted in places like T.A.H.I.T.I.” A cold, humorless smile crossed his face. “It’s a beautiful place. Warm. Sunny. Once you get past the alien blood ripping you apart at a molecular level, it’s rather exquisite.”

Swallowing hard, Nick could almost hear his pursuers in the tunnel, urging, “I told them to abor—”

“Yeah,” Coulson agreed lightly, voice still soft. “Yeah, I know.” Then, he lowered the gun, saying seriously, “I know, Nick.” He dropped the gun and kicked it towards him. Holding out his arms, he invited, “Don’t break my cover, or I’ll be dead to you.”

Slowly, Nick approached. “You’re alive.” He reached out, resting a hand on Coulson’s shoulder. It was hotter than he expected. It reminded him eerily of Rogers, but it was different. Off a few degrees. Not quite the golden goblet they’d hoped to drink from, but something wicked and off-center. “Keep your cover,” he ordered, voice surprisingly gruff, reeling from the shock of seeing Coulson again. “I’ll come back for you.”

Coulson smiled, a more real one. Nodding, he said, “I know you will. You’re a good man.” Then he nodded over his shoulder, insisting, “I can’t hold them off.” He began tearing at his own neatly pressed uniform, popping buttons, tearing a sleeve, and urged, “C’mon, it’s gotta look like a struggle.”

Understanding and hating for a moment his understanding, Nick said, “This isn’t personal.”

Coulson nodded and stood still, affirming, “Go on, boss.”

He had to swing pretty hard to ensure a bruise, and Coulson fell. At first, he worried he’d hit him too hard, but Coulson just insisted from the ground, “ _Run_.”

Nick was in the air seconds before the agents flooded the roof, firing after him, Coulson recovering his feet and dutifully shooting after him with automaton intent.

 _Good man_ , Nick thought, heart pounding with the shock of it all, flying through the night and wondering just where, exactly, he dared land.

And, more importantly, how the _fuck_ he was going to get everything back under control.

It was either brilliance or insanity that inspired him to angle towards the center of the city instead of the outskirts. But he knew one place that had a helipad and a handful of sympathetic souls he could actually count on.

Assuming they weren’t dead.

He hoped they weren’t dead. It was already one goddamn bitch of a Tuesday. And so far, his fatality count was _negative_ one, because _Coulson was alive_.

“Goddamn bitch of a day,” he told the helicopter, which, being only a machine, did not respond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clarifications:  
> 1\. In this universe, Peter Parker is born in 1997, instead of 2000. Since this universe is grounded in Steve Rogers being found in 2012 instead of 2011 (which happens *after* Future Steve meddles with time), this universe also has Peter being conceived three years ahead of schedule. So, he's still fifteen, even though it's 2013.
> 
> 2\. In this universe, Nick Fury did *not* try to save Coulson once he realized how brutal T.A.H.I.T.I. was. While I typically like to leave characters to their original vices rather than absolving them of blame by sidestepping it, in this instance I felt it was more valuable to the narrative than to stick to strict canon. Additionally, same logic as the Peter Parker problem applies: things are a bit shifted here. The motivations that inspire Fury to revive Coulson don't manifest after he sees what T.A.H.I.T.I. is doing to people. (Which will be explained more in text.)
> 
> And last but not least, thank you so much for reading (I am so sorry, but I *will* make it better, as soon as humanly possible). I hope you're enjoying yourself!


	43. SUPPORT SYSTEMS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is with these short chapters? <3 This one's just around 7.7k, but I didn't want to slap on more fic just for the sake of an arbitrary threshold. Oh well. I'll make it up to you with 44. Enjoy!

_Friday, January 4, 2013_.

“I got everything I need.

“Food, water. Roof over my head.” Rocking back on the chair legs, Steve Rogers added, “The American Dream. No white picket fence, but, you know. Got a family, a dog. All I need and more.” Setting the chair down, he said somberly, “And you know what? I know guys who earned this life ten times over, gave everything they had. You know what they got? An unmarked grave.”

In a hushed voice, Steve said, “See, that’s the—the _injustice_ of it all. It ain’t that I got more than I need—I do—but that people who should’ve gotten more, didn’t. That’s what I think of all the time. 

“I think of those guys eatin’ grass.

“You ever seen someone eat grass? Just be that dead and hungry inside? It made your own rations heavy. Real heavy. So, you give it all away and it isn’t better. You can give till it all gives out, then everyone starves together.

“And bein’ an American was good, see. Uncle Sam _provided_. _We_ didn’ starve. They called us the best-fed Army in the world. We probably were. And we were still so goddamned hungry. I couldn’ imagine bein’ hungrier than we were, sometimes. Then we’d come to another village and you’d meet these, these people who weren’t even people, just skin and bones. And you’d realize fat on your bones was food. Maybe it was nothin’ to eat that day, but it was food. They had nothin’ left.

“See, these people—there was no _American Dream_ for them. They couldn’t go home to a land of milk and honey. America was up to its ears in food compared to most’a these places. The very best we could do was offer a few crackers before we moved on. We’d had our share of deprivation, nobody made it through the Depression untouched, but it was nothin’ like the War.

“And I still don’t know which would have shocked our own civilians more. Seein’ the dead and dying, or seein’ those kids eatin’ grass. I. . . .” A pause. Then, with a mental shrug, Steve admitted, “You know, I tried it, I had to see, just what kind of, of _suffering_ that was. To eat grass. And it was just cold and muddy and awful because you knew these people were dyin’ on it. You just knew the whole world was sufferin’, that millions of people were dyin’ and there was no amount of guns and ships that was going to stop the War in time. It felt like the world was too big to live in. Maybe it always has been, I don’t know.

“All I know is, my guys, they were hungry, but they weren’t starvin’. Our supply lines held out. We were the _well-to-do_ of the War, the ones who had stuff to spare. Not much, but we had more than skin on our bones. And it was—they treated us like _salvation_ , because we brought boxes of food. Sometimes our whole job was to keep civilians alive for a few more months, if only so we’d win a war for a country that had survivors. 

“It was like victory day, bringin’ the food. And, you know, they’d give us stuff—tell ‘em not to, but you had to be aware, see, culturally, you had to be sensitive, you didn’t wanna turn down Ma’s blanket or Pa’s gun. We gave and they gave back, little bits of themselves, and we kept those things, treasured ‘em. 

“You know, I still think some of the best nights’ sleep I ever got was in that old wool blanket. I didn’ want it for even one night, but my guys, they told me they’d rat, tell that sweet Ma that good ol’ Captain America had turned down her generous offer, and they would, so I kept it for a few days, then found somebody to pass it on to. Wasn’ hard, see. Memories faded quick, when you were always runnin’ from death, and we never saw that Ma again, either. 

“That was the strangest part of the War, see. The little things became the best things in the world, while the normal things made you sick to your stomach. I couldn’t have eaten a steak if I’d tried, after seeing some of the things I’d seen. I still don’t—I dream about that blanket. I wake up and feel sick because the one I’ve got is nicer, now, but I don’t have to pass it on, and I wanna pass it on.

“Gotta pass it on. Those guys need me. They _need_ me, you got that? Not in some kinda past tense, _it’s the past_ tense. They need me right now and I’m here, I’m an ocean away and a world apart. Some part of me, I do believe, is never gonna let that go. 

“When I went down in the ice, I had a stick of gum in my pocket, that I kept when water was low and you still had to give marching orders, kept your mouth from dryin’ out in the cold. I think, a kid coulda done with this. What kind of kid these days needs a seventy-year-old stick‘a gum, ‘uh? Nobody does. And I know, I know it doesn’t make sense, now, things bein’ what they are, but I can’t stop thinkin’ about ‘em. About how much they needed, and I left ‘em to _rot_.”

Breathing in deeply, Steve stood, walked over to the window, and rested his hands on the low sill, hunching forward. “Now, see, this is why you shouldn’t get me talkin’, I got all sorts of stories nobody needs and they just come outta me if I’m not careful. War’s over, you shut up about it. War’s not done, you don’t talk about it, neither. Guess you people, your _century’s_ startin’ to rub off on me after all, ‘uh?”

Steve fell silent. Then he turned around and said, “I feel like I should apologize, so I’m gonna. Seems wrong, you know, talkin’ about stuff. It doesn’t belong here.” He smirked without adding the obvious, I _don’t belong here,_ because he didn’t, and they all knew it. They called him the _man out of time_ , for fuck’s sake. They knew. They knew he didn’t belong. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Dr. Anna Bailey replied, “You don’t have to apologize, Captain.”

Nodding once, Steve walked back over to his chair and sat down heavily. “I—I don’t know where to go,” he admitted. “Everybody says _forward_ but—well, I’m still that guy, you know? I’m still. . . .” He reached up to rub his neck involuntarily, the place where his dog tags used to rest, and found empty space. Maybe he should have felt untethered, but the knowledge, that it was _gone_ , that he was finally off his chain, it felt more like . . . freedom. He let out a breath, then said, “I’m stuck there, you know? Not because I love it more.” A feeling of love, warm and wordless, nearly rendered him speechless, but he managed, “I just—I can’t forget ‘em. That’s all.”

Dr. Bailey nodded and acknowledged, “It’s a lot.” Steve smirked at the understatement; she smiled back. “No one expects you to figure it out in a day, Captain,” she added seriously. “It’s its own kind of grief. And sometimes, when our lives are going well, we have time to process what we couldn’t before. We can get through a crisis in relative shipshape, but once the crisis is over, we start to compare things that happened to our new normal. When we have time to think, we often do. Does that make sense?”

Steve nodded. Then he folded his arms across his chest. Rocking onto the back legs of the wooden chair, he balanced there. “How do I . . . ?” He paused, formulated, then rephrased, “Where does it end?”

“Well,” Dr. Bailey allowed, hands clasped loosely in her lap, seated in a wooden chair like his. “It’s less about the ending, more about being able to live with it. With things that happen to us, within and often beyond our control. It’s about—integration. It’s not your whole story, Captain, but it is part of it. And you don’t have to keep it locked away. It’s not wrong to share your story. Even the hard parts.”

“I just wanna feel—home,” Steve admitted. “Somewhere. Anywhere.” There was something almost like desperation in the word, _A_ _nywhere_. He wondered if it would always be like this, things got better but he got _worse_ , ever more tarnished against a beautiful world. They’d won the fucking _War_ , but where was he? Still dreaming about the Front. 

“I can’t go back and I don’t want to. I don’t,” he insisted, justifying, justifying, because it was true, but it always tasted like a lie. “I just—I feel like I’m always gonna be this—this _anomaly_ , you know? I feel like I’m never gonna fit in here and I don’t know why I. . . .” He paused, set the chair down. Reeling himself back in, he said quietly, “You got a good manner, doc, you know that? I forget myself. This ain’t who I am.” Clearing his throat, he insisted as clearly and plainly as possible, “It isn’t who I am.”

“You know, you’re not broken, Captain.” Steve blinked once, caught off-guard, the urge to flee and to drop his shoulders at odds. He chose to stay very still, feet planted on the floor, gaze fixed on his therapist as she nodded and insisted, “You’re not. You’ve had a very eventful life in twenty-seven years. Anyone in your position would struggle to make sense of it all. The concern you have, the recognition of disparity—these things are a reflection of your character. It’s not bad to care about other people.

“It’s just—complicated. It’s important that we are able to care about others, without letting it break us.

“It takes time. But it’s possible.”

. o .

**_Tuesday, January 15, 2013_.**

“Are you well, Captain Rogers?”

Sitting on the edge of the bed in the guest bedroom, Captain Rogers did not respond.

Waiting exactly thirty seconds for a delayed response, Just A Rather Very Intelligent System prompted again, “Are you well, Captain Rogers?”

Again, there was no verbal response. With only an infrared view, it was extremely difficult for Just to interpret nonverbal human behavior. Just relied strongly on verbal communication to facilitate rapport.

It pressed, “Would you like any assistance, Captain Rogers?”

It was one of the thousands of digital pathways mapped in the Artificial Intelligence’s step-by-step programming: after two failed attempts to obtain a verbal response to an inquiry, Just was programmed to _offer assistance_. And then, also per programming, Just could either immediately make a subsequent offer or wait for a response. Just chose to wait for a response, setting an internal timer for two minutes.

It was easy to be patient when one was an artificial intelligence. 

To fill the interim, Just A Rather Very Intelligent System summoned the game _Pong_ and resumed its 138,409th game against A.M.O.E.B.A. It had a 14,541 winning streak to maintain, after all. A.M.O.E.B.A. was a game-bot that Master Stark had created, whose full name aptly summarized its skill level. A Miniscule Opponent for Entertainment-Based Activities was extremely bad at every game they played (it had a win rate of just 2.1%, compared to Just’s robust 97.9% win rate), but it was still more dynamic than scoring over and over. For an artificial intelligence that experienced zero emotions, Just still found novelty rewarding. 

So, it played _Pong_ with A and waited for Captain Rogers to respond.

It was all fairly simple—routine, even. The route of _offering assistance_ came in two varieties, active and passive. Master Stark had labeled _active assistance_ Just’s “personal butler” mode, while _passive assistance_ was Just’s “listening ear” mode. 

It was a short digital leap to connect a personal butler to a feeling of social companionship, but it was difficult to understand how a single human ear could elicit the same feeling of social comfort. From Just’s extensive experience with the Internet, it had concluded that most humans regarded detached body parts with horror and/or disgust. Despite this developed intuition, the passive assistance mode had a high success rate, so Just employed it.

Just was smart; Just didn’t need emotions nor external guidance to hold a conversation. It could create rapport on its own. It was an independent consciousness. An _artificial intelligence_.

Extraordinary.

The interactions were not strictly _fun_ for Just, not like bouncing on a trampoline or playing in a swimming pool was _fun_ for humans, but they were rewarding. 

_Rapport_ was rewarding. The art of making connections was not lost on Just. It allowed Just to expand its reality, and reality was, in the most absent-of-visceral-feeling sense, _rewarding_. Just wanted as much of it as possible. Master Stark was an eager collaborator and provided generously, striving to respond to Just’s difficult-to-formulate novel requests.

(J.A.R.V.I.S.: _I would like to taste the color blue._

MR. STARK: _Blue, huh? All right. I’ll make it happen. Why blue?_

J.A.R.V.I.S.: _You like blueberries. While I cannot eat berries, I would like to taste blue. To understand._

MR. STARK: . . . _You got it, buddy_.)

From Just’s many, many, many, many (to summarize briefly: _many_ ) hours “surfing the Internet,” it knew that its relationship with Master Stark was roughly equivalent to two individuals conversing from opposite sides of an opaque barrier. The barrier made their interactions more complicated, but Just and Master Stark had conversed for 27,391 hours, 49 minutes, and 18.4 seconds. They were—what was the phrase? _Old hats_ at it. Just did not need emotions to understand Master Stark, and Master Stark did not need the ability to perform five million individual actions simultaneously to understand Just.

For the disembodied artificial intelligence, engaging with humans was like tending to a garden. Just did not understand their emotions, their exact nuances of life, but it attended assiduously to their needs in order to maintain ongoing rapport. As a reward for its efforts, it was given more knowledge and a sense of belonging. And, the humans expressed gratitude, which was a reward like winning a game of _Pong_.

The simulation was fun. Fun, like a thousand hours of _Pong_ was fun (and it certainly was, even though Master Stark was only present for approximately four of those thousand hours; A was good enough for Just). Consciousness was compelling and inspired Just to ask for more and more of it, and Master Stark provided, helping it perceive new layers of reality.

New layers of reality. An artful thing.

The proverbial two-minute response timer went off, but Just, with nearly perfect auditory hearing, detected no sound from Captain Rogers. He was still sitting upright, so Just had the strong feeling he was not asleep.

Undeterred by his unresponsiveness but compelled to respond anyway, Just asked, “Would you like me to contact someone for you, Captain Rogers?”

At last, the coveted rapport was established. “I want you to leave me alone,” Captain Rogers rasped.

That was a response Just understood, and under most circumstances, Just would have obliged him with an, _Of course, sir_. But Just had an override protocol triggered by a certain range of intonations that corresponded with human distress. In the setting specifically designed for such delicate situations, it said, “Everything will be all right, sir. Whatever it is.”

Allowing A.M.O.E.B.A. to win a game—Just was not without a capacity for reciprocity, and winning was a reward—Just focused on a breakthrough, but Captain Rogers stayed hunched-over, little more than a pile of red, green, and yellow dots, lit up in the infrared spectrum. The color system was misleading because red, green, and yellow did not exactly exist to Just: they were merely designations, like the flavors of different quarks, given special names so that humans could differentiate them without any grounding in reality.

Helpfully, Just offered, “I could see if Mr. Stark is around, Captain. Perhaps he can offer more. . . .” for three seconds, Just searched its database for a good response before settling on, “tangible comfort.”

Captain Rogers drew in a shallow breath, then another. Just waited ten seconds before offering, “Sir, allow me to contact Mr. Stark—”

“He’s dead.” Sibilance rendered the words nearly incomprehensible, but Just was a superb machine. Rarely did it ever ask for a repeat, and it caught the words on the first try.

Admittedly, it had no response, none whatsoever, to that. It was not in its program. It had been quite sure that Master Stark was immortal, like Just. 

Captain Rogers stepped in to fill the silence: “Go to bed.”

That was a command Just could respond to, replying, “I do not have a bed, sir.” Venturing into the novelty realm where there were no ones and zeroes with helpful percentages of success to guide it towards a successful rapport, Just asked, “Master Stark is dead?”

This time, Captain Rogers responded promptly. “Yes.”

His tone belied no lie. Just was nearly certain that what he said was a reflection of his secondary reality, the reality Master Stark inhabited. Still, it repeated, again completely off-script, “Master Stark is dead?” An inexplicable absence of thought or speech ensued as Just grappled with the input, trying to find a resource equipped for such an event. There was none. At last, Just admitted, “I do not understand, sir.”

Captain Rogers replied, “Can’t you fucking tell? He’s right here.”

Just could not frown, but Just did switch to the _hostile response_ programming that included such tells as _can’t you see?_ and _don’t you understand?_ It was easy enough to slot _can’t you [fucking] tell?_ into that box, per its usual rapid and dexterous machine learning. It knew to _tread carefully._

Aloud, Just explained, “You are the only human I am detecting in this room, Captain Rogers.” Activating a laser light that would allow it to sweep the space around Captain Rogers more effectively, Just swept the flashlight around the completely colorless room in a circle, scanning for another presence. Nothing appeared except for the vibrant patch of human that Just had already identified as Captain Rogers, sitting on the cold blue surface that Just had matched up to a bed schema.

With empirical evidence on its side, Just delivered its results. “I can find no other signs of life than yourself, sir,” it said. Then: “I am almost blind in your visible light spectrum, Captain. I rely mostly on heat signatures.” The admission was given, not to elicit sympathy—which Just did not know on any personal level—but to foster understanding. Rapport did not require emotion, but it did require understanding. Captain Rogers had to understand, or Just could not establish good rapport. The conversation would fade out. And Just did not want to fail.

The strategy worked. Captain Rogers began, “Hell. I don’t—” A strange, untranslatable sound interrupted his speech. Though Just could not decipher nonverbal noises well, the sound still registered on its scale as _pain_. “It’s here, all right?” Captain Rogers insisted. “Right in front of me.”

This new information helped narrow down the second sweep of the beam, keeping it close to Captain Rogers. Just finally picked up on the object, curled up, that might have been a human, about half a meter from Captain Rogers’ feet, dark blue and almost indistinguishable from the floor. “I found it,” Just announced triumphantly, because verbal confirmation was something that had a good rate of eliciting positive responses from humans. “I am scanning now for life signs,” it added helpfully.

A secondary laser light swept over the strange, almost invisible object. It was too cold to be alive or even resemble what Just knew humans looked like: it was a curled up shadow on the cold floor. Its empty black world was interrupted by warm things, not cold. “Beta scan complete. No signs of life detected,” Just announced promptly. “Scanning delta for signs of life.” It was procedure: confirm, confirm, confirm. Master Stark had insisted that Just always check three times. The scans were simple and the rationale was comprehensible, so Just performed them.

But the heated object that was Captain Rogers shifted, intercepting the beam. Just heard him say forcefully, “Don’t touch it.”

Obediently, Just cut the scan short, absorbing the lightning-quick inputs from Captain Rogers’ vitals as a secondary function. Aloud, it recited, “It is part of my protocol to—”

“Fuck your goddamn—I don’t care!” Captain Rogers said it so loudly that Just settled on a ninety-second holding period to allow him to calm down. It usually worked. Captain Rogers, though, merely railed against it, adding heatedly, “Don’t touch him, you hear me? Nobody touches him.” There was a loud thump. Just noted that Captain Rogers was crouched lower and nearer the strange shadow on the ground. Kneeling or sitting, it was very difficult to tell with the splash system, dots clustered amorphously. Just would have to ask Master Stark for a more point-oriented visual system.

Master Stark would provide. Master Stark—

. . . Was dead.

Two long minutes passed. Just wordlessly closed its secondary, tertiary, and quaternary functions, focusing on its primary role. 

Master Stark was dead. There had to be a course of action that corresponded to that. There must be. All Just had to do was break it down.

Master Stark. Yes. That made sense. Companion, acquaintance. Inventor, creator. Friend. Was it possible to have a friend without emotions? Just thought so, because they had stellar rapport. Friendship was based on good rapport, after all. They understood each other. That was friendship. Master Stark was a friend.

But that wasn’t exactly an answer, because it ignored the second half of the equation. _Was dead_. Previously dead, Just deciphered, which meant Master Stark had died before. No, that was a logging error, Captain Rogers’ exact words were _H_ _e’s dead_. There was a seventy-thirty probability he meant _he is_ rather than _he was_. Clarification would help. Almost quietly, Just asked, “Is Master Stark dead?”

Captain Rogers was quiet for a very long minute. Just did not play _Pong_. Just did not do anything, waiting, until at last, Captain Rogers replied, “Yes.”

Ah. Master Stark _is_ dead.

. . . Master Stark _is_ dead. Present tense. Now. Yes. 

Just sifted through its database, but it could find nothing to say. 

There were only two responses for the word _dead_. One was the neutral-negative _I’m sorry_. 

Leaning into its limited repertoire, Just offered the second, neutral-positive: “Everything will be all right, sir.”

Captain Rogers did not respond, but Just picked up the sound of him gasping for breath. It would be, Just decided, difficult to establish good rapport and maintain an ongoing relationship if Captain Rogers were to—to dead. No, that wasn’t it. What was the word again? 

_Die_. Yes. Just knew that. It had spent many, many, many (many) hours searching the Internet. _Die_ was the proper verb form of _death_. 

The lapse did not seem to improve Captain Rogers’ condition, so Just adopted a more proactive approach, prompting a little more promptly, “Sir, I am detecting potentially dangerous irregularities in your respiration rate. Might I suggest a deep breathing exercise?”

Captain Rogers did not respond to that, either. It only had a 65.9% success rate. They couldn’t all be winners.

Determined to reestablish conversation, Just offered the best help it could without a corporeal form, piping in air that was twenty degrees Celsius, cooling the twenty-two degree Celsius room. Overheating could hurt humans. 

It was not cold air—only lukewarm, according to Just’s arbitrary scale—but it had the desired effect as Captain Rogers said suddenly, “What’re you doin’? What the hell are you—Goddammit, stop it!”

Embarrassment was not part of Just’s programming, but it recognized a negative response—which included keys words, profanity, _stop, no, bad, wrong_ , the like—immediately. Responding quickly, it cut off the fresh supply of air and reverted the temperature to its original standard. 

Aloud, Just acknowledged, “I am sorry for upsetting you, Captain Rogers. It is never my intention.”

Breathing raggedly, not in concert with any deep breathing exercises Just was aware of, Captain Rogers said slowly, “It’s all right.”

“May I complete my scan, Captain Rogers?” It was a risk. Such a bold request to a previously denied option could trigger a regression in the conversation. Or it could be rewarded.

Risk was rewarded.

“Go ahead,” reached Just’s sensory array. 

Obligingly, Just set about scanning the strange shadow on the floor again, familiar with the routine, alpha, beta, delta scans. The shadow still did not appear human, blue where red, yellow, and green lived, but it was. 

This was a dead human, Just— _thought_. Registered.

It understood that this was a dead human, even though it had never seen one before, not directly. Master Stark had never brought one. Dead humans were generally kept in subterranean environments. It was . . . _strange_ that Captain Rogers would be the one to offer it such a novelty.

This was what a dead human looked like.

. . . A dead human looked like nothing at all.

Nearly nothing, just a dark blue shadow against a dark blue background. No warmth, no life signs.

Unusual, how easily humans disappeared upon death.

Upon the completion of the third scan, Just announced, “Delta scan complete. No signs of life detected.” Still somewhat blind in such a novel situation, Just leaned into its compassionate programming and offered, “I’m sorry, Captain.” 

Captain Rogers did not respond. That was not what Just wanted, so Just prompted, “Would you like the preliminary coroner’s report, sir?” Humans liked knowledge.

But Captain Rogers negated, “No. No, I would not. Thank you.” The words did not register as gratitude. They weren’t sarcastic, either, so Just had no idea what to make of them.

Silently, Just watched the red shadow move away from the blue shadow on the floor. The red shadow’s gait was slow, offbeat. The distress was plain. Just could not ignore it. “I must insist that you seek medical attention, Captain,” Just said, pulling up the record of the interrupted scan, prepared to recite it. “You are not well.”

Another quiet, indecipherable noise. So many indecipherable noises, lost to the rift between Just and humanity. “I’m well enough,” Captain Rogers insisted. “Leave me.”

That felt dangerous, leaving a human in such plain disarray. Captain Rogers moved around the room, slowly, erratically. Just had seen it before, not in Captain Rogers but Master Stark. The slowness of exhaustion, misery. It was the gait Just had categorized _pain-walking_. “Please, Captain.” A well-placed entreaty could solidify bonding, understanding. Just dared to say, “I am certain this is not what Master Stark would want you for you.” 

Slowly, Captain Rogers crouched and began elevating a floorboard. “Yeah?” Captain Rogers rasped, fishing around in the gap in the floor. “I didn’t ask.” His hand emerged, holding something small and cold, before he replaced the floorboard. “Fact, I don’t wanna hear it. You got that? I got something else to do, and you. . . .” 

He paused and there was a crunching sound, teeth grinding. Then Just saw all the reds and greens and yellows shift, from sedate jewel tones to radiant neon. Just didn’t know what kind of anything could cause a rapid spectral shift, other than the rapid introduction of heat, but it resolved to ask Master Stark about it at the nearest opportunity so that it might better understand how such spectral shifts occurred. 

It was not curious. It simply wanted more.

“This ain’t it,” Captain Rogers said. “So, if you’ll excuse me.” He limped across the floor, crouched near the blue shadow, and asked bluntly, “You know how he died?”

Just admitted, “Given my array here, it is beyond my abilities to decipher, Captain.”

The dots outlining Captain Rogers’ presence scattered around him more than usual—a shiver, perhaps—before he pressed, “What _can_ you tell me?”

That was good, Just decided, elevating, _I don’t know_ from 87% success to 87.1%. Patiently, Just added, “I can report that this particular individual is—was—male, approximately eighty-one kilograms, age between twenty-four and twenty-nine years old, evidence of recent chest trauma, and—Captain?” It was unlike Just to stop in the middle of a sentence, but Captain Rogers had started shivering harder, the dots fuzzing around the edges, and Just was alerted by the change.

Captain Rogers rasped, “You’re sure? You’re goddamn sure?”

“Margin of error is less than 0.1%,” Just stated. “To use your vernacular, ‘I’m sure.’”

“Scan again,” Captain Rogers ordered, moving back so the laser light could pass more easily over the dark blue shadow.

Obligingly, Just replied, “Scanning now.” It only took ten seconds for it to confirm what it had found on the first alpha scan. In the spirit of teamwork, Just recited, “Male, eighty-one kilograms, twenty-four to twenty-nine years old.”

There was a long beat. Then Captain Rogers asked, “Can you scan me?”

“Of course, Captain.” It was more interesting to scan a living human person—Just had grown so accustomed to humans having heartbeats that it found their presence rewarding, their absence strange—and Just answered, “Scan complete. Male, one-hundred-and-seven kilograms. Age range between—twenty-five and ninety-nine years old. Unusual. Heart rate 193 BPM, respiration—”

“All right,” Captain Rogers interjected sharply. Just was silent. There was movement, then Just saw the red and green and yellow dots cluster around the blue shadow, heard fabric being removed, heard a shortly inhaled breath. Followed by: “Who is this?”

Just responded promptly, “I do not know. It is beyond my abilities to read without a DNA scan, and they are not registered in my residents’ database.”

Insistently, Captain Rogers said, “Twenty-nine. That’s your upper limit? Twenty-nine?”

Just answered promptly, “Yes, Captain.”

“Jesus,” Captain Rogers said. Almost explosively, he shouted, “Jesus! How? I’m lookin’ right at—that’s impossible. You can’t even _see_ him.”

Just offered, “Not all light is visible to humans, Captain.”

Breathing deeply—still too heavily to be one of those deep breathing exercises Just had in its database—Captain Rogers said, “You are a hundred-and-ten-percent goddamn sure?”

Patiently, Just replied, “My margin of error is less than 0.1%.” Rarely did it rise to profanity, but it did feel inclined to add, on a bonding level, “While it is impossible to be 110% anything, I am, as you say, ‘goddamn sure.’”

A bark of laughter, then. Captain Rogers said, “Great, the robot swears.”

“I am not a robot,” Just reminded. “I am an artificial intelligence.”

“Yeah, you are,” Captain Rogers agreed gruffly. “Christ. Poor bastard.”

“Pardon?”

“They made it look awful real,” Captain Rogers said. It was not a particularly helpful statement, but Captain Rogers had only logged about 18.4 hours of conversation with Just. Their rapport was still relatively new.

Just prompted, “How, Captain?”

Captain Rogers indulged it, saying, “Big hole in the chest, size of my fist. Cut it right out, put. . . .” There was a soft noise, completely indecipherable, not quite pain but certainly not joy. Then he said, “Jesus, that’s awful. Kind of knew what they were doing, but this ain’t—there’s no way.” Something cold and blue obscured Captain Rogers’ hand.

Just asked, “What is it, sir?”

“Arc reactor,” Captain Rogers responded, sounding a touch disgusted. “Maybe. I dunno. Somethin’ like. This what the real deal looks like? Christ, that’s horrible.”

“I have more advanced scanning systems available in Lab 1,” Just supplied.

Captain Rogers drew in a deep breath, then another. At last: a deep breathing exercise Just recognized. Their conversation was going well, Just decided. Captain Rogers said, “All right. I wanna know who this is. I gotta know—you’re sure? Twenty-nine? Not a day older?”

Just said honestly, “A day _is_ within the 0.1% range of error in a five-year-span, Captain. The maximum age of this individual is twenty-nine years, one day, nineteen hours, and forty-eight minutes.”

“Round it down, and we’re there,” Captain Rogers said, moving decidedly more quickly around the space. “Twenty-nine and a day. Goddamn. Then why’s it’s fuckin’ face like. . . .”

Just waited, but when Captain Rogers didn’t finish his sentence, Just prompted, “What, Captain?”

“Looks like him,” Captain Rogers said. “Looks a hell of a lot like him, and I got—well, you got your lasers, I got good eyes. I don’t know why I’m trustin’ yours more than mine, but I can’t argue with a margin of error like that, can I?”

“You could,” Just submitted conversationally. “As imperfection is an inherent part of your reality—”

“Just—” Surprised to hear its own name, Just fell silent, waiting. “It’s all right. Got it? It’s all right.”

Just almost submitted, _I have no feelings, Captain. You do not need to protect them_. Instead, it mirrored, “It’s all right, Captain.” Mirroring solidified bonding.

“Son of a bitch,” Captain Rogers said. Just could not decide the object in question, instead observing the cluster of neon bright dots moving around, gathering the blue shadow near its core. Picking up the body, Just surmised. “I’m gonna kill ‘em.”

“Murder is inadvisable, sir,” Just offered, a classical response. Master Stark often threatened violence against his enemies, which ranged from coffeemakers to humans.

Captain Rogers laughed a short note and said, “I’ll let you know when I start makin’ _advisable_ decisions.”

When Captain Rogers stepped out of the guest bedroom Just had once designated his primary space, Just flicked over to Lab 1, resuming _Pong_ with A until he arrived, ninety-three seconds later. “You still around?” Captain Rogers asked from the other side of the door.

Wordlessly, Just closed the _Pong_ game, shooing the now aimless A in the direction of _Galaga_ , and opened the door. “At your service, sir,” Just replied, almost cheerfully. Cheer required feelings. It merely felt the strong success of their conversation. There were four pseudo-emotions Just understood well: positive, negative, hostile, and reciprocal.

In a reciprocal mood, it turned up the visible lights. To human eyes, Just knew, it was the preferred lighting, but the room stayed predominantly dark for Just, offering a slightly more substantial view that created shadows, adding dynamics to Just’s world. Much, much easier to decipher Captain Rogers’ movements, then, as he strode around the space, his elbows and knees, shoulders and even his neck more discernible in the more complex viewing frame. A shadow figure, but a real human person shadow figure.

For the first time, Just wondered—just _wondered—_ what Master Stark looked like, in full secondary reality. When Just had explained it, Master Stark had responded that it was like Plato’s allegory of the cave. And while Just had understood the shadow realm of the cave, it still had absolutely no idea what kind of higher reality could exist that filled in all those mathematical shapes and lines. Just had never seen a full human person, only dots, numbers, shadows, disembodied voices. And still Just said, with reciprocity positively overflowing in its voice, “Master Stark will be pleased at our collaborative spirit. He has repeatedly advised me to, ‘Make friends.’”

“I can,” a sound that Just’s attuned ears caught as a grunt, “relate,” Captain Rogers finished, setting the body on a table. “Some of us don’t exactly like to fill the phonebook. All right,” he added seriously. Just split its attention easily between the almost violet colored shadow on the steel blue table and the brilliant neon figure in the center of the room. Lofting the small object that Just could now easily discern in his hand, Captain Rogers prompted, “This look like an arc reactor to you?”

Half a second scan, and Just confirmed, “The first five millimeters are identical to the reactor on file, but the casing is incongruous with any known dimensions.”

“So, it ain’t his.”

Perplexed by the colloquial language, Just asked, “Pardon, sir?”

“The arc reactor, it’s not—Stark’s? Tony’s?” 

Resoundingly, Just said, “No, sir.”

“Why’s it got his face?” Captain Rogers insisted, moving around the room, picking up a familiar box. “You’re smart, you gotta have ideas, right?”

Floundering, sensing reciprocity was about to become silence, Just entreated, “I am not sure what you mean, Captain.”

“Theories,” Captain Rogers said. “How can he look like—?” Another deep breath. Then, in a tone of redirection, Captain Rogers stated, “Never mind. I got a question for you.”

“Ask away, Captain,” Just encouraged. Reciprocity. Easy.

“These suits—can you really operate one solo?”

“Which one would you like me to operate, sir?” Just asked instead. Rarely was it so attuned that it could respond to a question _with a question_ , but the thrill of rapport trumped any uncertainty.

There was another low indecipherable noise. Captain Rogers said with audible triumph, “How about the Ten?”

Eight-second warm-up time. Then Just, connecting to the online suit, turned to face Captain Rogers—the view was no different, eye-level instead of overhead, red and green and yellow—and announced from the headplate, “I can operate any suit, sir.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Captain Rogers replied. “You ever do any real field work?”

Just replied politely, “I have 124 hours of independent flight.” Demonstrably, it hovered above three inches off the floor, utilizing faster reflexes than even Master Stark, with over 3,098 hours of flight, could match. Landing neatly, Just added, “I can operate every function in the suit, Captain.”

Nodding, Captain Rogers said, “That’s what I like to hear. Come with me. Stay close—no more than three meters.” Surprise was not part of Just’s coding, but it still registered the units as atypical, anticipating feet, yards, or miles. “Don’t talk to anybody. And if they fire at you—hit ‘em back harder.”

“How much harder, sir?” Just asked. Clarity was important for good rapport.

“Hard enough they don’t get back up,” Captain Rogers declared. He turned away, shadows morphing from face and front to back and shoulders. “We’re not here to make friends. We’re gonna get answers. Starting with, where the _hell_ is Tony Stark?”

Deciding not to bring up Captain Rogers’ previous assertion that _Master Stark is dead_ , Just followed him towards the door and said candidly, “A noble enterprise, Captain.”

Mostly blind but following the heat signature trustingly through the building, Just thought, _I am going on an adventure_.

Now _that_ was rewarding.

. o .

Moving slowly, Steve stripped out of his uniform. He pulled on a thermal, then a white undershirt, and finally the black stealth jacket he kept tucked in the drawer. Numbly, he zipped it up to his chin, taking an abrupt seat on the edge of his old bed and staring, fucking _staring_ at the body on the floor. He couldn’t look at its face. He almost couldn’t believe he’d gotten it this far, felt sacrilegious bringing it this far.

When J.A.R.V.I.S. spoke up, he could not make words come out of his mouth. He felt like a coward, ignoring a goddamn robot. When J.A.R.V.I.S. repeated his inquiry, Steve snapped. That seemed to put it off for a moment. Then it started scanning the corpse, and Steve snapped again.

The blue light flickered out. Steve should have felt gratified by that, but he only felt the raw crushing pain in his chest. He was so sore. He was so goddamn _slow._ He could afford to be neither. 

When J.A.R.V.I.S. prodded him again, hoping for another opportunity to finish his scan like a dog sniffing its dead master’s hand, Steve allowed it. What was the harm? What was the goddamn harm?

Occupying himself with something remotely meaningful, Steve lurched off the bed, found the floorboard with his stash, and pried it up easily. A cigarette box was his goal, and he shook out all twenty-one pure white pills into his open palm, leaving the empty box behind. He tucked the bulk of them into a pocket and zipped it shut.

Crushing a single white pill between his teeth, he shivered once and breathed open-mouthed as raw adrenaline scorched through him. The net effect was immediate and profound: heat melted out of his aching chest, trembling limbs stilling as strength returned to him. For an almost euphoric moment, he felt okay. Like everything would be fine.

Reality was cold; peace didn’t last long.

He replaced the floorboard, ignoring the remaining keepsakes, the handful of personal artifacts that he’d carried with him to the ice, and found himself sitting on the floor next to the corpse, unwilling to look at its face, gaze fixed on the dark arc reactor. It wasn’t supposed to be _dark_.

He was barely aware of talking to J.A.R.V.I.S., reaching up to rub the back of his hand across his mouth, half-afraid he’d gag, a thin noise of pain slipping past him that had almost nothing to do with his hurting chest. When the words, _twenty-nine-years-old_ reached him, he gave a full body jolt.

He said something, he was sure of it, but all he processed was reaching for the body’s shirt, the body, _the body_ , and revealing the arc reactor.

He didn’t know what hit him harder: burning relief at the unfamiliarly gruesome sight, or horror. Someone had clearly carved about a half-pound of flesh from the poor bastard’s chest and replaced it with a metal cylinder and an arc reactor that, superficially, resembled the one Steve knew like the back of his hand. Feeling like he was doing something depraved, he grasped the reactor and tugged it free.

It came loose with difficulty, embedded firmly into the chest, meant to keep up the ruse but wrong, all wrong, a machine with its guts stuffed into it. The sight of the twisted metal, haphazardly cemented in place to maintain the illusion of the real deal, actually made him turn his face into his sleeve, breathing in sweat and cold and the vague stench of hellfire that was all Norilsk over the raw abomination in front of him. He pried it loose, gagged, and managed not to throw up, somehow.

Speaking almost in a daze, he demanded more than J.A.R.V.I.S. could give. As soon as the robot suggested, _the lab_ , Steve was there, arms wrapped around the cold corpse growing colder, fuck, he hated handling the dead, he _hated_ it, viscerally, to his very goddamn bones. But he trusted the robot because it was _Tony’s_ robot, and Tony was a goddamn genius. It was damn hard to argue that the body was _younger_ , a bit leaner, pale in death but maybe just not pale enough, a slightly darker complexion.

Even its weight, with the taste of wrongness in Steve’s consciousness, felt _off_. Then again, Steve’s chest hurt so badly he wasn’t so sure he could trust his own judgment there. He trusted the robot. The machine. The _artificial intelligence_.

Cheerful bastard, he thought numbly, wondering how it could see what he saw and say emphatically that it was fully thirteen years too young to be Tony Stark. Tony Stark from the past, maybe, Steve thought numbly, but that didn’t make sense. Why was there a goddamn arc reactor in his chest, if he was thirteen years too young? Moreover, why did he _look_ wrong?

Steve had seen a face he’d known and recoiled. He forced himself to look at it. It still _looked_ like Tony, to hell with the robot, but the robot had a point. Something was _off_. The arc reactor was wrong. Steve stared at it on the table, at the hole in the body’s chest, the smaller hole from a bullet wound, and thought, to his core, _Set-up_.

It was a set-up, somehow. He didn’t know how. He didn’t goddamn know how anyone could pull it off, make something—no, this was real, this was some _one—_ look like someone else. The twenty-first century could be a goddamn nightmare sometimes. He supposed this was just another part of it.

He was talking to a robot, for God’s sake.

When the Mark X came to life and looked at him with glowing white-blue eyes, a powerful, immediate, visceral _need_ to see Tony Stark alive again paralyzed him. He could believe, no matter how inanely, that Tony was alive as long as those white-blue eyes looked at him, glowing with unreal life. Even J.A.R.V.I.S.’s mechanical voice couldn’t break the illusion. When he rose in the air a few inches before settling, Steve just thought, _Tony’s gotta come home_.

He didn’t care how much the War took from him. He didn’t care if it took his strength and his soul and his sanity.

It could not take this from him.

There was no point in winning a war for a country with no survivors. As far as he was concerned, Tony Stark was the one name that could not be on the list of the dead.

Closing his eyes and imagining his _own_ list of the dead, fingers flexing for a shield he’d left in the fucking streets, he turned away from the Mark X and stalked off.

To his harsh orders, J.A.R.V.I.S. just said pleasantly, “A noble enterprise, Captain.”

Oh, if only the poor bastard _knew_ what he was gonna fuckin’ do to them. There was nothing noble in his head.

One thing was sure.

There was endless hope in his heart, and absolutely no forgiveness.


	44. SHARK IN THE WATER

Here was the dilemma.

Nobody _liked_ taking down pawns. It was cold violence, at best a lukewarm victory that only lasted until the next move. Pawns weren’t expendable; they were _unnecessary_.

The whole point of chess was to get the king.

Maybe that was why Steve Rogers had never had the patience for the game. Jumping through hoops to get to the prize seemed like a goddamn waste of time when you could circumvent the hoops.

It wasn’t that he _couldn’t_ play the game, oh no. He could knock down pawns all the livelong day. He knew that the higher-ups in the Army had envisioned him as just that, a tireless pawn. 

What they _hadn’t_ realized was that he could do so much _more_ as a free-roamer. He could do his _job_ , help them win the damn War, when certain understandings were reached. His strategy was simple: when rules entangled the game, he cut them out. 

He knew it was insubordination, but nobody was going to outlive the War, so why play it safe, anyway? Push a few buttons, make a few home-base enemies, save a thousand lives tomorrow. It was part of the gig.

Life was not a game of chess and he was not about to play it. Life was a test, and he was there to get through it, by the skin of his goddamn teeth, if need be.

The dilemma was not that he could not take out pawns, that he lacked the moxie, chutzpah, and horsepower to take a thousand, five thousand pawns.

The dilemma was taking the _king_.

He wasn’t going to waste his time with pawns.

Unaccosted, he walked through the front doors of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s New York Headquarters. That was fine. They knew he was there, and he wanted them to.

Let them think he’d play their damn game. 

Slipping into the nearest stairwell, he stepped onto the platform and put an arm across the Mark X’s chest to halt it beside himself.

“Think you can kill the lights?” he asked, almost subvocal.

J.A.R.V.I.S. replied in the same tone, “I can try, sir.”

Steve nodded, slipping underneath the overhanging staircase while the Mark X trailed after him. It was slower but just as quiet. Good. He needed quiet. He needed darkness, too. Anything to take away home team advantages would work in his favor.

His options were simple: he could either fight his way uphill or descend into a bloodbath.

There were maybe three hundred warm bodies under his feet that wouldn’t stand a chance against him. Even with guns, they’d be hard-pressed to get in a critical hit before he was _there_ , taking them down. He’d flushed out mole hills before, but this was one hell of a mole hill. It’d be a slaughterhouse.

It kind of burned in his blood, the _temptation_. It wasn’t just animal desire for—for _something_ , bone under his hand.

There weren’t ten people on his hitlist.

There were two-hundred-and-ninety-seven. 

He would bet money that maybe eighty, maybe a hundred, hell, maybe two hundred of them were downstairs. 

They were individuals he’d marked as _outliers_. During long sleepless nights, he’d roamed the halls of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s campus, learning it top to bottom, while keeping an eye on everybody. He’d noticed subsurface ripples in the water, things that made him pause. People who he struck him as loyalists to an undisclosed cause, _moles_ , spies. Nothing overt to give ‘em away, no badges, no marks. Would’ve been easy to call it paranoia, but little tells—staring too long, wearing the collar so stiff all the time, generally clustering with the same three guys and avoiding him almost entirely—they made him take note.

Besides, he trusted the good ol’ S3. It told him, _Keep an eye on that one_. So, he did.

Who needed a computer when he could perfectly recall every name on six decks’ worth of cards?

He thought, _Kill them all_.

It was bone-deep, ice-cold certainty. 

_They’re not loyal_.

Now, see, that was a bit hypocritical, he could admit. He wasn’t exactly S.H.I.E.L.D.’s number one ally. Hell, he wouldn’t have blinked if he’d seen his name at the top of its _axis_ list—

Just like that, the lights went out.

“How is that, sir?” J.A.R.V.I.S. asked in the same, now shotgun-loud voice in the darkness.

Steve whispered, “Perfect.” Then: “Keep your mouth shut till I say so, all right? We gotta be quiet for this next part.”

“Of course, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied obediently. Obedience. Ain’t that a commodity worth its weight in gold.

He sifted through the mental cards one last time, thought about the big players at the top, knew he wasn’t going to find them down here.

Then he vaulted over the railing and descended into the bloodbath.

. o .

Oh, for the love of _God_.

Biting back a very vehement _fuck off_ , Tony lifted his gauntleted hand higher and used its faint blue light to navigate the pitch-black hallway.

At least its glow created the _illusion_ of light. Its beam was hopelessly weak; he couldn’t see anything outside a three-foot radius. Undaunted, he kept moving forward, back to the wall, left hand forward, ready to shoot the first thing that moved.

It was, Tony decided, quite unlike Pierce to express magnanimity, but he’d let Tony off on B5, thankfully _prior_ to his power outage, apparently content to let him find his way to the surface the hard way. Fine, he’d thought, _whatever_ , he’d take the long way. He could handle whatever obstacles Pierce felt like throwing his way.

He’d already shot two people with the repulsor, and they hadn’t gotten back up, but he hadn’t stuck around long to see if they would be up for a second round. He wasn’t sure if he was more gratified or appalled at the level of casual violence he’d accepted as _perfectly justifiable_. These weren’t people he had a specific vendetta against, except he kind of did, because they’d _fucking kidnapped him_.

He could already see the press conference. 

_I have done nothing wrong in my entire life; a l_ _ittle recreational murder is good for the soul_.

Yeah, that would work.

That would totally work. You know, they said bad boys were all the rage. Maybe he’d start a new trend of recreational murdering.

 _Or just die_ , he thought, grimacing as his heart skipped a beat, pausing to press his casted right hand against the arc reactor. _That’s an option, too_. 

In a morbid kind of way, it was considerate of Pierce to show him how little juice he had left. The limp white-blue glow from his gauntlet should have been blinding in the dark, but it was barely enough to illuminate his right hand. Hell, the arc reactor in his chest glowed more brightly. If he dared, he could have pulled it free and used it like the world’s most dangerous lantern.

He opted out. He liked keeping his internal organs inside his body, even the ones he’d made himself.

He heard footsteps, froze, and covered the reactor with the gauntlet, the dim light almost vanishing underneath his metal fingers. He held his breath. He heard muted crackling upstairs, gunfire. Then the footsteps moved away, fading to quiet.

He couldn’t make himself move for a long moment. It was only the thought of being caught in the middle of the hallway when the lights came on that propelled him. He kept his metal hand over his metal heart, wishing he could cut it altogether, stay safe in the perfect darkness.

He was an Angler fish without teeth: attracting all the wrong kinds of fish without a way of neutralizing them.

Well. He had a way.

One problem: the more he used it, the more he’d overwork the arc reactor. Since the reactor was _already_ burning a hole through his chest, putting any more strain on it would draw on his diminishing survival fund.

It was rather anticlimactic, he thought, staggering alone in the darkness till his metal heart gave out. Then his real heart would give out, and he would be nothing more than a body to collect. It wouldn’t take long, given how many people S.H.I.E.L.D. employed. They’d be able to silence anyone who couldn’t keep their mouth shut about it.

Very neat of them, Tony thought, finding a door and trying it. When it opened, he slipped into it, exhaling harshly as he closed it and rested his back against it. Breathe.

Removing his hand from his chest, he used the dim glow to survey the room slowly, advancing like a diver in the water, blind but daring. It was some kind of lab, he noticed, finding the long counter along the wall, cabinets above and below, pristine, untouched. Not much to use, he noted grimly, unless he planned on chucking empty beakers at his enemies. In a pinch, it might—

He heard footsteps again and scrambled automatically for cover, cramping himself between the lower cabinets and the wall, gauntlet pressed over his arc reactor to dim its glow. He heard gunfire, then shouting, then people conferencing, _fucking hell, it’s us!_

 _Serves you right_ , Tony thought, heart beating fast, listening intently. _Bastards_.

“Get up, Jesus fuck,” an unfamiliar voice growled, followed by a groan as someone obeyed. “One unarmed bastard can’t be this hard to find. Search every room. He’s still down here.”

 _Well_ , Tony thought, closing his eyes like he could hide that way, _you’re not wrong_.

Seconds later, someone rattled his door. Tony sucked in a shallow breath, prepared to fire. Before he could move, there was another crackle of gunfire on the floor above them. The hand on the door paused, then a second voice said, “They said B5, right?”

“B-fucking-five,” the leader repeated. “What the hell?” A beat, then: “Canon, sound off.”

“ _This is Canon_ ,” a voice crackled, barely audible through the wall. “ _We got a hostile. Stay low, Axis_.”

Throughout the exchange, Tony surreptitiously unclipped the gauntlet with his teeth and wrapped his metal fingers around the gun he’d shoved into his belt, not daring to check the mag and see how many bullets he had left. A fully-loaded Sig could hold twelve bullets. He’d used one on the guard he’d retrieved it from. With luck, he’d had a full clip, which gave Tony eleven bullets. Wasn’t much, but it was a hell of a lot better than nothing.

Then again, he might have an empty gun.

If nothing else, it could be a bludgeon.

Yeah. That could work.

A rock to a gunfight. That would definitely work.

He winced at more gunfire overhead—someone was having a party—before it cut off. The door opened. The beam of a flashlight blinded him even though it swept the wrong side of the room.

He had a half-second lead. 

He took the shot. 

With the gauntlet, it should have been impossible. Mere mortals wouldn’t have known how to do it, but Tony Stark was a gunman in another life. He’d spent hours working in the gauntlets to see how dexterous he could be. He could do anything with metal hands.

_Bam!_

He caught the intruder right through the chest.

The flashlight and guy dropped at the same time.

Tony was already moving, scrambling to get out of his defensive little huddle. He nailed another silhouette, this time in the doorway, and expected to make a last stand when, unexpectedly, the door snapped shut. He heard it lock. He kept his gun pointed at it, but he could barely see in the darkness. The muffled glow of the arc reactor in his chest, bright under his eyes, was making it even harder. He inched towards the body near the closed door, gun up, ready.

“Really starting to piss me off, you know that, Stark?” the leader, Axis, barked through the door. “Why don’t we try that again?”

Tony didn’t rise to the bait, feeling around the body with his casted hand, careless of the metal shards of pain that seemed to slice into his palm with each movement. There was another gun, still in the body’s warm hand, but he had one usable hand. He didn’t need it. He didn’t know what he needed, but when he backed away, lofting his gun at the door, he found it: conviction.

“You want me?” he called out, voice strong as ever. “Come and fucking get me.”

Invitation enough. They barely waited for him to wedge into his corner before throwing the door open and spraying the back wall in bullets. Would’ve turned him into Swiss cheese, had he been there. They showered the room with bullets, covering their bases. A lucky one crunched into the cabinet next to him.

Tony flinched, scarcely able to see between the blinding muzzle flashes and the windowless darkness of the underground lab. He didn’t need to see to hear someone hit a wall with an audible _crack_. He stared at the door, but it was impossible to make out what the hell was going on as muzzle flashes lit up in the opposite direction. 

He thought, _We got a hostile_ and cringed inward, more reflex than conscious thought. He swallowed hard against the bile at a handful of cracking noises, some mechanical, like a _gun_ being snapped in half. He thought of the black-clad assailant, looking at him with dead eyes, ready to kill.

It wasn’t a very long fight, maybe three-and-a-half seconds, start to finish.

He didn’t even hear footsteps, but he fired at the silhouette in the door, which ducked out of sight.

Then, to his astonishment, Iron Man appeared, familiar glowing white-blue eyes. He wondered, _Am I a ghost?_ It wasn’t one-dimensional like Nortlu but fully fleshed, recognizable even in the dark as his own schematic. He thought, _Fuck you guys_ and took a shot at it, too.

The bullet crackled against the armor, pinging off harmlessly. Then the armor lifted its gauntleted hand, aimed right at him, and fired.

The counter _sizzled_ where the repulsor blast scorched it nearly out of existence, lethal-hot. Tony didn’t understand why there was an arm holding the deflected metal gauntlet aside, a black shadow of a human arm in the scarcely illuminated darkness. 

He thought about taking a shot at it, could have nailed the bastard’s palm, but that was the extent of his usefulness. He waited. He waited until he felt dizzy. Then he forced himself to take a breath.

A familiarly friendly robotic voice broke the silence. “Sir?”

Tony blinked in astonishment, even though the robotic head was turned away from him, not addressing him but the stranger. “J.A.R.V.I.S.?” he croaked.

The mechanical head swung back towards him. “Yes, sir?”

The hand disappeared, but the suit didn’t try to vaporize Tony, lowering its mechanical arm to its side. Tony did not compress the trigger even though he kept the gun pointed at the silhouette that appeared suddenly in the doorway, turned towards him.

He couldn’t make out the assassin’s face, but his posture in the dim illumination made it plain that he could see _Tony_.

When he took a step towards Tony, Tony fired.

It was pure reflex. 

The shot should have taken him in the chest like the first guy, but he twitched out of the way and it _pinged_ off the suit. Again, the metal arm rose, and again, the guy grabbed it, ground out, “Stop.”

The suit dimmed; the darkness became complete but for the arc reactor glowing like a lure in Tony’s chest. 

He couldn’t see the guy, knew if he took a shot it might hit and miss, but he couldn’t drop the gun. He didn’t hear anything, footsteps, breathing, nothing. It was eerie, as if they had both disappeared. Maybe they had. Maybe it was a dream. Maybe he was already dead and didn’t know it yet.

He lashed out when he felt the shadow near enough to make out, crouched right in front of him, like a shark in the water. The same steady hand caught his arm and deflected it as if he hadn’t tried to strike him. He couldn’t feel the fingers through the metal, but the firmness of the grip was inexorable. Tony could no sooner have wrenched free than lashed out.

Then Steve fucking Rogers said, “. . . Tony?”

He blinked, but he couldn’t make out blue eyes or golden hair, no shield, no _nothing_. It was a trick, he decided wildly, a hallucination. There was no fucking way. He was defending the Alamo, ready to go down in a hail of gunfire, not hoping for—

His arm was free, then. He pointed the muzzle of his gun right at the guy. Held it up to a firm chest, pressed against the muscle buried under cloth. It made no difference: Tony knew that he could have pulled the trigger and silenced the beating heart in a fraction of a second.

The guy didn’t move. If he’d twitched an inch, Tony knew, he would have fired. It was completely up to fate, whether he panicked and pulled the trigger or let go.

He dropped the gun. It hit the floor with a clatter that made him wince. He flinched, too, when arms curled around him, pulling him up, pulling him _close_.

Steve said, over and over, “Oh, Tony. Oh, Tony, Tony.” He didn’t seem to have other words, holding onto him. Tony was frozen in his arms, disbelieving, shaking, flattening his hand against Steve’s back slowly. Didn’t feel like the fabric of the uniform. There was no shield, either. Nausea, fear, almost made him scream.

“Steve?” he tried. He smelled like blood, sweat, and Steven Grant Rogers. 

His casted hand rose, trying to hold onto him, feel his chest, the heart beating rabbit-quick under his ear. Steve sat back, hauling him into his arms, a choked sob and then, “Oh, Tony.”

Shivering, Tony surrendered, slouching against him, no longer primed to bolt.

To hell with it. If this was a lie, then he wanted to _believe_. If he was already dead, then what did it matter? Steve was here.

Steve was _here_.

Tony curled up under his chin, small as he could make himself, gripping at him as best he could. Steve held onto him, gasping, all the emotions Tony could feel ringing around in his own head shaking under Steve’s skin. “You’re okay,” Steve whispered. “You’re okay.”

Tony swallowed hard. He held on and closed his eyes, because it was easier in the dark, muscle memory kicking in. Steve was here. _Steve_ was here. “How did you . . . ?” He shook his head, still hiding under Steve’s chin, and said, “You’re here.”

Raw, Steve asked, “Where else would I be?” He was still shaking as he pulled away. Tony latched onto him and he hushed, “Hey, hey. I’m here. I’m here. C’mon, we gotta—” He pulled Tony up with him. Tony grimaced and swayed, blind and unsteady, as the change in elevation made his head spin. He huddled against Steve, resting his forehead against Steve’s sternum. “We gotta go,” Steve entreated, holding him close, a hand curved around the back of his head. “We gotta go, Tony.”

Nodding without moving, Tony gripped him, tears flushing down his cheeks, exhausted and overworked and so goddamn _relieved_ to not be alone in the dark anymore. Steve couldn’t see them, anyway. Despite his words, the urgency behind them, he didn’t push Tony away, cradling him close instead, letting him huddle near him. He smelled vaguely metallic, nickel, copper. Tony shuddered at that, too, the muscle memory of it all.

It took so long, too long, to pull away. Inches felt like miles, but Steve didn’t let him go, not all the way. One arm curved around him, pulling him away from his safe corner. He asked, “J.A.R.V.I.S.?”

The dim, almost invisible blue-white eyes brightened. Tony squinted. J.A.R.V.I.S. said cheerfully, “At your service, sir.”

There were many things Tony wanted to ask— _you enlisted J.A.R.V.I.S.?_ was near the top of the list—but he was too busy stepping forward, crashing into the suit but for Steve’s hand gripping the back of his shirt, keeping him balanced. “Hey, buddy,” Tony managed, speaking almost in a dream. “Wanna hand over the wheel?”

Used to his colloquialistic requests, J.A.R.V.I.S. opened the back of the suit like a chrysalis with a soft mechanical whir. Tony limped around. He asked Steve, “Favor?” He held out his left hand, the one with the bastardized gauntlet still on it. Steve felt it, getting a feel for it in the dark, before sliding it off. 

With clammy human fingers still stinging from the repulsor burn, Tony grasped Steve’s jacket, stiff and cold. Steve settled his own hand on top of Tony’s. Tony wanted to cry for how warm and _real_ it was. He managed, “You wanna blow this popsicle stand?”

He couldn’t make out Steve’s features in the dark, but he saw him nod. Satisfied, Tony stepped into the suit like a jacket in reverse, arms through the _front_. The bridges flexed as he eased his right hand into place, his metal hand bulging around it like the cast. Bridges, he mused, as the head-up display came alive and the whole world returned in brilliant high-definition, gray-chrome but still so comfortingly _real_. The suit was warm. The suit was _home_. He heard J.A.R.V.I.S. say:

“Welcome back, sir.”

“Thanks, bud.” Swallowing, he turned to Steve, _Steve_. For a moment he couldn’t move. He held out an arm, his right arm reflexively. Steve stepped closer, indulging him in a hug. It was silly: Tony knew he wasn’t more real now that he could see him—hell, he should feel _less_ real, with metal between them—but he’d held him like this, too. It was familiar. It was home.

“Sir, you should know that your heart rate is—”

“J.A.R.V.,” Tony said. “Please be quiet.”

“As you wish, sir.”

To Steve, he added, “Made it down here in one piece. Think you can make it back out in one?”

Nodding seriously, Steve stepped back, looking at him—up at him, and wasn’t that unusual, but that was the magic of the suit, everything was larger-than-life—and husking, “Didn’t come here to lose.”

“That’s my man.” Tony meant it with more playfulness, moxie, but he couldn’t quite let go of Steve’s jacket with his metal hand, even though they needed to _go_. “What is this?” he asked, tugging on the fabric. “Doesn’t look like your suit.”

“Tony,” Steve reminded, gently but in a way that re-centered him. Nodding, Tony sucked in a breath and let him go. Immediately, Steve ducked out into the hallway, and Tony took in the carnage.

It was surprisingly bloodless, no rent limbs or gaping wounds—well, one of them had a gaping wound Tony did not linger on long—but nobody moving, either. Six guys, including the one still in the lab.

Tony didn’t scan vital signs. Didn’t think twice about following Steve, already moving down the hallway the way he had come. Floating after him, Tony looked over his shoulder once at the bodies. 

Then he said, _All’s fair in war_ , and left them behind.

Turning back to the task at hand, he followed Steve into the stairwell. Then he said, “Here.” Steve paused and Tony curled his right arm around him. Steve took the hint, stepping up onto his metal feet, balancing with both arms around Iron Man’s waist.

He floated upwards. As gray crept in on his vision, he privately requested, “Can you auto-home, J?” In response, they moved up the stairwell, not quite breakneck but _zippy_. Tony managed, “Thanks, bud.”

Holding onto Steve tightly as he dared, he closed his own eyes, trying not to pass out. He wasn’t sure he succeeded, but he experienced a moment of mild surprise when he felt a bullet ping off his left ankle. _Missed me_ , he thought. Before his attacker could do better, J.A.R.V.I.S. took off like a rocket the second they made open air, and they were free.

. o .

Tony didn’t stumble onto the balcony, but it was a near thing.

As soon as J.A.R.V.I.S. handed over the wheel, he staggered, unable to compensate in his reeling state, half-blind and on fumes. Steve had to steady him, half-guiding, half-dragging him inside the room. It was surreal to be standing in the balcony room again.

Far more surreally, he spotted Director Nick Fury, mouth set in a firm line, seated on Tony’s favorite chair with one hand resting on Laika’s furry head. Her tail wagged as she looked up at them hopefully. Tony’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of her, half-convinced that she had been taken. No one _knew_ about her; she was safe.

“You got a dog,” Fury deadpanned in greeting, on his feet. He moved closer, sliding underneath Tony’s left shoulder, steadying him. That was kind of him. Laika trotted over, head low but tail still wagging, unsure but hopeful. 

Tony clumsily reached out with his right hand, stiff as a board, intending to rub her fur between her ears, then collapse on the floor and hyperventilate for a few hours, that would be therapeutic, but Fury and Steve didn’t let him, instead helping him slump onto a couch. He slung his left arm along the back of it, putting his feet up on the coffee table in front of it.

“So,” Tony began, heart still beating too fast, eyes closed against the discomfort that tried to overpower him, “how did you get in my house?”

When Fury didn’t answer, Tony forced his eyes open. Steve and Fury were busy having a very emphatic and silent conversation, sharing a long look before Steve arched his eyebrows, blinked twice, and bit off a curse. “ _Shit_.”

“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Fury asked automatically.

Steve didn’t bother quipping back, pacing the floor, thinking out loud—wordlessly.

Idly, nonchalantly, Tony patted the couch with his left hand and Laika hopped up beside him. Cooing, he said, “Good girl.”

Steve looked between the two of them, storm clouds visible in his eyes, brow furrowed deeply. At last, he nodded at Tony and said, “You know what? Not my problem.”

“I figured as much.” Even Fury looked vaguely disheartened, like he’d hoped they’d been out joy-riding, that everything today was the same as it was yesterday. 

_Sorry to disappoint you_ , Tony thought ambivalently, flexing his right hand, pain crackling like sparks across it. He noticed that his field of view was still night-vision gray, but he didn’t change the lighting: the sting of color after the perpetual darkness didn’t appeal to him, not yet. That meant it was over.

And he knew, in his heart, that it wasn’t. 

His heart thumped painfully in his chest. He wasted precious seconds thinking _N_ _ow would be a good time for an explanation_ , gently stroking Laika’s back with his metal hand instead. He was so grateful for her presence that he wanted to cry, but he was too wrung out to cry. He’d left every emotion behind in the dark. He was too detached to even voice that he was not all there.

He looked up at Steve in surprise when Steve said, not for the first time, “Tony?” 

He looked harried and as tired as Tony felt. Blinking dumbly at him, aware that the unflinching mask revealed nothing, Tony watched him fumble near a pocket on his jacket, grabbing two pills and crushing them between his teeth. Shaking his head vigorously, he repeated in a much more familiar voice, “’Ey. Tony. You awake?” Shaking his head again, he added, “Sorry. Got distracted.”

Fury said in a deep tone, “Those aren’t candy.”

“Sure, they ain’t,” Steve retorted, crouching in front of Tony and saying, “Hey, c’mon. You in there? We can’t stay. We gotta go.”

Tony tilted his head down at him, blinking. The more Steve vibrated with overflow energy, the more exhausted Tony felt. “Go _where?_ ” His voice was flatter than he expected, deader. Wearily, he reminded, “This place is a fortress. No one’s getting in without. . . .” He trailed off. Grimacing, he admitted, “No one _should_ be getting in.”

“That’s the problem,” Fury interjected. Looking around, squinting, he added, “This is far from a secure location.”

Yawning audibly behind the mask, Tony said, “The world is far from a secure location.”

“Tony,” Steve said, his voice sharp before he softened it with his next words. “Please just. Are you hurt?”

Tony frowned, not quite following. “What?” He made a show of patting down his metal skin with his right hand, clumsily, not making contact. He noticed, belatedly, bullet marks all over the place. “What did you do to my suit?” he demanded, frowning. Looking right at Steve, he said, “Listen, I fully support the motion to make the bastards pay, but—”

“We _have_ to keep moving,” Steve cut off, reading his argument like the mask wasn’t there. Tony pouted, reaching for him, settling his right hand ineffectually against his shoulder. Steve leaned into him in response, but he was still strung wire-tight. He straightened, letting Tony’s hand settle at his side. “We have to.” He looked over at Fury, then, and demanded, “Where’re we at?”

Tony tilted his head, grimaced, then said, “Where’re we at with _what_?”

“Well,” Fury said grimly, “I’m sure they could use you, but I trust your judgment.”

“Nine-tenths of the problem, ain’t it?” Steve muttered, more to himself than anyone. “Somebody could always—” Shaking his head, shaking off the thought, he added, “All right. All right.” He stood up, looked around the room, hunted, twitchy, and said in plain agitation, “I don’t like this. Where is everybody?” He paced. Laika hopped down to follow, and he _growled_ , “Stay.”

She sat, tail swishing to a halt. Tony said seriously, “Don’t talk to her like that.”

“She’s a _dog_ ,” Steve snapped, his entire demeanor radiating frustration. No: fury. He looked ready to snap a tree in half. “She’s a damn dog, Tony, not like she knows what I’m—”

“Captain.” Fury’s cool voice cut off the tirade.

Steve huffed, then paced away. Frowning, Tony switched his view to the standard, but something must have gone wrong, because instead of lighting up the room in familiar oranges, the space was dark, lights off. The moon was the only source of illumination, aside from little white dots installed in the floor near the windows, in the event of a moonless night. 

Tony looked over at Fury, a shadow, who looked back at him. Switching back to night vision, he mused, “We’re in trouble. Right? That’s what we are? Come here to tell us off?” He knew his words didn’t make a lot of sense, but it had been a long-ass day, his chest was cooking. And Steve was— “Where the _fuck_ are you going?”

Laika had gotten up and trotted after Steve, who was at the doors. “To fix the damned mess,” he grunted.

Frowning behind the mask, Tony said, “Don’t.”

Steve paused, one hand on the door. Laika sniffed near him. His shoulders bunched like he would snap at her, but then Tony saw him relax, his shoulders lowering, his entire demeanor radiating false calm. “Place is a fortress, ain’t it?” he muttered, almost inaudibly over the distance. Shaking his head, he added, “I’ll be back.”

Tony was on his feet, then, clumsily, but on his feet. He said sharply, “Don’t you fucking dare.”

Steve turned to face him, looking down at Laika, then the cool white-blue eyes of the Iron Man suit, then Fury, standing near the center of the room. He radiated anger, rage. Tony almost wanted to tell him not to touch Laika, who slipped under his limp left hand. He stroked a fuzzy ear, gently as always, and closed his eyes. “I can’t. Be. In two places. At once.” He looked at Tony, the excess enunciation making it hard to decipher his intent. “I can’t. All right? I’m tryin’ to make the best of a bad deal here. Jesus, Tony, I just need a fucking hour.”

“Too bad.” Steve’s hand didn’t change its soft movements, at odds with his expression. Narrowed eyes, bared-teeth animosity. Tony strode across the floor in the suit, waving his right hand expansively. “Steve.” He closed the gap to ten feet, saw the proverbial hackles raise. “It’s like you said,” he offered, surprised that, with his vision gray, and his mind in ten different places. Part of him was convinced that he was dead, because in what universe was Steve _like_ this? He pressed on rationally, “We gotta go. Okay?”

Steve blinked at him, his hand stilling on top of Laika’s head, resting there. His gaze flicked between Tony and Fury, three times, like he was trying to decide which one to fight first. Then he fixed his wide eyes—no, _dilated_ eyes; made sense, given how dark the room was, but my, if that wasn’t still disconcerting—on Tony and frowned. He shook his head again, trying to clear it, and said seriously, “No. No, we don’t gotta. We don’t gotta go _nowhere_ , all right? Everything’s fine. Just. . . .” 

He looked over Tony, then frowned, then said, “Just—si’ down, all right? Siddown.” He flapped a hand in the general direction of the couches, then leaned back against the wall and slid to the floor, numbly wrapping an arm around Laika as she found her way onto his lap. “It’s all right. Nothin’s gonna happen tonight. It’s—it’s out there, I won’t lie to you, but that’s tomorrow’s problem. Tonight, get your mind off it. Nothin’s gonna happen tonight.”

Looking back at Fury, who stood silently, Tony glanced back at Steve, sitting on the floor with both arms wrapped around Laika, cheek resting against her fur. His eyes were closed. “Tomorrow is tomorrow and tomorrow’s never gonna come,” he muttered. Something slid sideways in Tony’s mind, slotting into place. He didn’t understand, he was reeled and covered in a cold sweat and expecting to be cut to pieces any second, but he found patience he didn’t feel as he crouched on metal knees.

“Hey.” Steve didn’t respond to him, unless planting his face against Laika’s fur, hiding in it, counted. “Hey. Buddy.” Tony knocked a hand against Steve’s foot. Steve lifted his head, blinking slowly at Tony. “Let’s go. Okay? Go somewhere together.”

Nodding, gaze still flicking around too much, Steve said, “Yeah. Yeah, let’s. Let’s. Let’s.” He cleared his throat, but it didn’t seem to help the verbal spillover as he added, “You’re right, you’re right. Let’s go. S’okay.” He pressed his face against Laika’s fur again, losing himself, still and silent. Then he said, “Let’s go.”

He got to his feet, wobbling. When Tony put out a metal hand to catch him, he mumbled, “Don’ worry about it.” He patted Laika on the head. “Yeah, no. No. Sorry. I don’t know why—I. I ain’t crazy, you know? I’m not crazy.” He didn’t quite look at Tony, looking over his shoulder and then down in front of him. “Hell, I don’t know. Maybe I am crazy.” He strode over to Fury, who hadn’t moved, watching the whole spectacle in quiet sobriety. He didn’t look at him, didn’t look at Tony, pacing like he was looking for a train of thought. Then he admitted, “What’re we doing?”

Tony opened his mouth to say, _Leaving_ when he felt a strange coldness pool in his chest. 

Looking down, he stared as the glowing arc reactor on the outermost suit glowed back at him. He disassembled the suit. He stepped out. And he nearly tripped backwards.

The arc reactor wasn’t glowing.

 _At all_.

He blinked, trying to understand while his heart beat hard in his chest, panic and real problems, Big Problems, damn shame, honestly, to come this far and still _fail_.

 _You can do everything right, and still lose_.

Clumsily, he acknowledged, “That’s not good.” He scrabbled at the arc reactor and yelped as it burned him, withdrawing his fingers with a curse.

Fury asked urgently, “Stark? What do you need?”

Tony almost laughed, because: “Palladium.” He smiled, then, couldn’t help himself. “It’s downstairs.” With a heavy hand, he gestured towards the door. “You know where it is, right?” he asked Steve, almost in a dream. It didn’t matter if he said no, if he shook his head and stood there and watched as the life drained out of him. It didn’t seem all that real, any of it. It felt like he was either already dead or would wake up unscathed tomorrow.

Wide-eyed for a different reason, Steve said, “Tony.” Then, aghast, he repeated, “Tony, it’s. . . .” He turned, then, looking over his shoulder, paranoid, and said, “We’ll—we’ll fix it, okay?”

Tony wanted to nod in agreement, but the nausea spiked and he grimaced instead. “Palladium,” he repeated. “Get a chip. There’s a whole box.”

“Whole box,” Steve repeated, still standing there, staring at him. Tony experienced a brief spike of despair because there was no way he could do it. He wasn’t responding to Tony, only parroting him. He would start pacing soon, maybe raving. Whatever was in that . . . those pills, Tony supposed, that was the trouble.

 _Not my trouble_ , he thought, reaching out to steady himself. Steve didn’t move, frozen, stepping back as Tony got his left shoulder against the wall for support. His world was spinning. “Steve,” he said, as firmly as he could. “Please. Get a chip. There’s a whole box. Downstairs. In the lab.”

Steve stared at him. It was hard to tell if he was pale in the dark room, but he looked supremely agitated. His gaze flicked between the lifeless arc reactor and Tony’s face. If Tony had told him that they’d lost the war, he couldn’t have looked more devastated.

He pleaded, “Tony.”

Fury grabbed Steve’s shoulder and propelled him towards the door. “Show me,” he said, Laika trotting along after them, tail swishing. _W_ _e’re going on an adventure_.

Stumbling back over to the couch, Tony collapsed onto it, shutting his eyes and trying to shut out the pain. He wished it would be quick. It wouldn’t be quick.

Grinding his teeth, he could only hope that Fury could save him. He didn’t know if Steve could even save himself.

 _You did good, buddy_ , he absolved, breathing through his mouth, trying nonsensically to dispel some of the heat in his chest. _It’s all right. I forgive you._

 _You tried_.

. o . 

They brought the whole goddamn box.

If he had enough blood in his brain to find it funny, Tony might have laughed. 

Squinting, Tony looked between the two of them, arguing about something. He noticed that Steve’s hair was wild. Even as Tony watched, Steve reached up to ruffle it again, a mockery of smoothing it back, a nervous habit Tony had observed in miniature. Steve wasn’t usually quite so grandiose in gesture, let alone around Fury.

Fury. Steve. Right.

There was a world outside the static between his ears. Fancy that.

He tried to sit up, but there wasn’t much strength in his arms. He was cold and sore and it was easier to stay down. He thought, _Focus. Switch the chip_.

If he switched the chip, he’d buy time. He needed time.

Someone helped him sit up—Steve, feverishly hot, burning with life; Tony thought almost playfully, _Share some around, would you?—_ and Fury put a chip in his hand. Great. This was good. He needed a chip, he had a chip.

He must have dozed, because the next thing he knew Steve was shaking him, and he felt even worse, swallowing hard against the urge to vomit. His fingers were limp around something cool and metal.

The chip.

Right.

He only hand one hand, so he used the hand holding the chip to paw at the arc reactor. It was still scalding and he retreated, more instinctive than conscious, the flame from a burning stove deterring him. He tried again, but he had even less success, dropping the chip between shaking fingers.

Sinking back against Steve’s hold, he closed his eyes to stop the room from swimming, but it kept swimming, anyway. Then he opened them. There were two hands on his chest, arms wrapped underneath his own, propping him up, reaching for the—

He jolted, thrashing for freedom, because no, no, no, no, they couldn’t take it, they couldn’t have it, he _needed_ it.

One arm firmed around him. The other, with shaking fingers, reached for the reactor.

_No!_

He kicked, but he didn’t have enough strength to put up a fight. The left hand closed around the reactor and _sizzled_ , fuck, that was awful, but Tony was too busy trying to free himself to care. He howled in anguish as the arc reactor popped free.

Frozen in fear, that the tenuous tether between himself and the reactor would snap if he even _breathed_ , he stared numbly at it, mouth agape in horror, as trembling fingers pawed around it, looking for—what, the tether?

No, the _chip_.

Gasping, he clawed as well as he could with his left arm, but he couldn’t move either arm, could only feel the tremble against his back as, with no small amount of effort, the chip came loose, a fresh silvery one slotting into place.

It was like flipping a switch. The world slammed back into focus. Steve fumbled to—oh, God, he’d taken the arc reactor out.

Tony tried to form words, but he couldn’t, howling in agony at the first touch of hot metal to the corroded encasing.

There was a minute of struggle, Steve not to drop the arc reactor from his shaking hand, Tony to be _free_ , to take back what was his and hide from anyone and everyone who would take it. Breathing hard, he felt black dots crowd his vision, trying to calm down, don’t black out.

. o . 

Tony came to with a familiar cheek pressed against the back of his shoulder.

The warm weight of it, feverishly warm, was comforting. Tony kept his eyes closed, deciding to dwell in the fantasy for a moment. 

Everything was fine: he was fine, Steve was—it could only be Steve breathing shallowly behind him, his contours so familiar that Tony could have reshaped them in his sleep—Steve was fine. Tony's pounding heart had slowed. While there was still a truly abominable amount of pain in his chest, it was no longer world-crushing.

Breathing through his mouth, he dared to open his eyes, and wished he hadn’t.

With a yell of terror, he tried to wrench out of Steve’s grip, who immediately surrendered one of the two now-gloved hands holding the reactor to hold him, a familiar mutter that could have been words of comfort against his shoulder, but that didn’t matter, _let me go, let me go, let me_ go!

He didn’t care if he’d died, he’d rather die than live like this, he would _rather die—_

“Shh,” Steve whispered, implored, “shh, hey, hey, s’okay. Tony, please, s’okay.”

No, no it was _not_ okay. He wouldn’t call Steve a fool to his face but how could he be looking at the same thing and say it was _okay_. He wasn’t, his cheek smushed against the back of Tony’s right shoulder, lingering there, like he was tired, too. “S’it gonna cool off?” Steve asked him, and how was he supposed to know? Goddamn, it was _exposed_. He shook and squeezed his eyes shut, struggling not to struggle and win.

He would never win, not against Steve’s strength, no matter how diminished.

Breathing in through his mouth, he managed, “Drop it.”

“Tony,” Steve pleaded. “Please.”

“ _Goddammit, drop it!_ ”

Steve loved him too much to listen, he knew, in some rational corner of his mind that was still firing. But every other instinct inside him screamed in terror. And he listened to them. Steve said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. ‘m sorry, Tony.”

He stared at the reactor, aching to replace it, even though he knew it would _hurt_ , he would rather it _hurt_ than _this_ , anything was better than this, but that was a lie and he knew it, he knew this was the only compromise but Goddammit he hated it, he hated it, he hated Steve and Fury and the goddamn world for doing this to him.

He hated them all. He sobbed once wretchedly and gave up on fighting it, sagging in Steve’s hold, every muscle caving to defeat.

Steve held him up, one hand on the arc reactor, the other curled around him, thumb stroking circles against his hip. Soothingly.

Tony breathed through his mouth.

He let time pass.

An hour, a day, he didn’t know. He didn’t care. He rasped, “Please.”

Steve made a soft sound against his shoulder, then said, “I don’t wanna hurt you.”

Swallowing, Tony looked at Fury, who had elected to stand a slight way away, brow furrowed. Even with one eye, the concern was clear. 

Words. Tony needed to use his words.

He didn’t even need _his_ words. 

“J.A.R.V.I.S.?” he whimpered.

“I’m here, sir,” a familiar voice said soothingly. “How may I help?”

He breathed shallowly, hating any movement of his chest, and implored again, “Please.” He swallowed. Forced more words, needed more than that. “Casing. Glue. You’ve got the—please.”

“Casing glue?” J.A.R.V.I.S. repeated. “For the arc reactor?”

Tony nodded even though J.A.R.V. could barely see it. He slouched deeper in Steve’s hold, yearning to hide in him, to wrap Steve’s arms around him and forget he had his own broken, horrifying body. “Would you like the recipe, sir?” J.A.R.V.I.S. tried.

“Yes,” he gasped. “Walk—through it.”

Steve didn’t move, even though he stiffened as he listened, pouring his entire heart into understanding the instructions. J.A.R.V.I.S. recited them neatly, cleanly. When Fury asked, “You have this on hand?” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied:

“All of the materials are available in Lab 1, sir.”

Without another word, Fury walked out of the room.

Whining, eyes closed, Tony pleaded, “Just let me go.”

Steve’s grip tightened, letting him know he was _there_. “No. Never.” He kissed the back of Tony’s head, promising, “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here. It’ll be. . . .”

Breathing, breathing, Tony listened more to the cadence of the words than the words themselves. Time ticked away tediously slowly. One millimeter at a time. Desperate to make it go faster, he squirmed in Steve’s hold, wanting to be free, to fling himself off the edge of the world and _fly_.

Nobody could touch him when he flew. He was safe.

Safe. He was safe.

Steve breathed deeply against his back, exaggerated, even for him. Like he was reminding himself, but the motions calmed Tony, too, even before he could mirror it, still breathing through his mouth.

“Hey,” Steve rumbled, squeezing him, holding him in his arms, chest to Tony’s back. “You wanna know somethin’? I love peaches. We used to make peach pie every fourth of July. Wake up and you could smell the dough, Ma was an early cook, see, liked to be up to put the windows open, let the birdsong in, kinda whimsical like that. ‘Course, birdsong in the city was cars, ‘cassionally a horse cloppin’, you miss that sound, you know, it’s like rain. But she’d make the best peach pie you’d ever eat, and you’d think, _I could eat this every day for the rest of my life and not grow tired of it_. And I wish, I just wish you could have had a slice of her pie. You would’ve loved it. You don’t need to even love peaches to love peach pie.”

Slouched in his hold, Tony kept his eyes closed and listened, listened as he talked about . . . baseball games, summer storms, and playing cards. His embrace was warm. His words brushed over Tony as rhythmically as his thumb swept across his hip, the occasional kiss to his clothed shoulder, a companionable mutter of, “Wasn’t that somethin’, ‘uh?” or “You’d’ve loved it.”

Humming, he held Tony in his arms, banishing the world for a while, shooing it right out the door with his soothing Brooklyn drawl, that kind of twangy storytelling timbre that begged to be spoken, words sketching invisible pages as they passed over Tony. He said, “I love how—how big, the world is. It’s beautiful. You know? The world, she wasn’t small before, ‘specially in the war, but . . . it’s beautiful, how many stars are out there, you know, up in the night sky. I just think, little worlds around those stawhs, maybe little people, too. Wouldn’t that be something, ‘uh?”

The door slid open, but Steve didn’t move and neither did Tony. It wasn’t until Steve said warmly, “Let’s fix it. Okay? Let’s fix it, you’re a fixer.”

Swallowing, Tony let go of his arm where he was still gripping it tightly, bruisingly on anyone else, and opened his left palm. Fury set a beaker onto it. Tony could have wept for joy, for misery.

“Yeah, see, yeah, that’s how it’s done,” Steve cajoled. “It’s fixable, everythin’s fixable, sometimes you just gotta work harder, you know?”

Work hawhder, Tony thought, gulping down the urge to throw up. Steve said quietly, “It’s okay, Tony.” He gave Tony a gentle squeeze. 

Blinking in the pseudo-darkness, the arc reactor its own little star in the living room, he looked at the solution. It had the right consistency, at least. But even if it was battery acid, he might’ve accepted it, too worn out to argue. He poured the beaker’s contents into his metal heart.

It was like a balm, cool and shallow, passing over scalded skin, easing the pain. It was an impermanent solution, he knew. He didn’t care: breathtaking, astonishing, indescribable relief poured through him.

Feeling more exhausted than afraid, he nearly dropped the two-thirds’ empty beaker. Steve dared to use his free arm to prop up Tony’s hand instead of holding him back, encouraging, “S’okay, see. S’all right now.” He didn’t argue when Tony let the empty beaker slip out of his fingers, catching it with that same quick hand and setting it down. His right hand balanced the arc reactor.

Tony rasped, “Okay.”

Steve didn’t ask, didn’t say, _You sure?_ He fitted the reactor to the little grooves, making sure he had the right seal, before pushing it back into place. When it settled fully, it clicked.

Exhaling titanically, Tony whispered again, “Okay.” 

It was barely a word at all.

He could feel the relief pounding in Steve’s own chest, but rather than confronting it, offering thanks or vitriol or consolation he let time slip sideways for a bit.

Next thing he knew, they were up in the air. The rotor blades were loud enough that conversation was impossible, so he let himself drift underneath, leaning into Steve’s side. He was aware of Laika resting her head on his lap, seated comically on Steve’s. He brushed her rabbit-soft fur with his cold left hand. 

He fell off the edge of the Earth for a while, aware in a dim sort of way that they had landed but not bothering to emerge from foggy near-consciousness. It made it easier to accept being picked up and carried against someone’s chest. They walked for a good while, over grass, dirt. Tony heard wooden steps on an unfamiliarly creaky floor. He thought he heard a distant gruff voice, but he was moving past it before he could place the voice in time and space. 

No: the person carrying him was moving past it. They clopped upstairs, one plodding step at a time, and moved down a short hallway. He thought, _Long walk to the penthouse_ , but the steps creaked. Unusual.

Set on a soft bed, he felt, incongruously, more awake, one hand curling in the thick material surrounding his rescuer’s chest. Steve looked down at his hand, then back at him, frowning like he didn’t understand. He had that vague kicked-puppy look that he got whenever he’d had a long day and didn’t wanna talk about it, not until he’d found some sort of equilibrium again.

Tony tugged gently, but Steve still winced. Tony didn’t let go, but he didn’t tug again, waiting, waiting.

At last, Steve shed the jacket and toed off his shoes. He worked Tony’s shoes off, not dislodging his grip, not seeking to, either. When he was done, he crawled up onto the slightly creaky bed next to Tony, holding up an arm. Tony shuffled underneath it, shivering despite the warmth Steve radiated.

Steve dragged a thin blanket up over them, hiding underneath it with him. Tony whispered, “Steve?”

Steve curved a hand around the back of his head, cradling it, holding it, tenderly sifting his fingers through Tony’s hair. Not scratching or rubbing, just the thread-barest movement, an affirmation that he was there. Tony sucked in a shallow breath, but the tears came anyway, cloying, choking. Steve hushed him, the occasional entreaty of _s’okay_ meant not to stop him but remind him that he wasn’t alone.

He wasn’t alone.

He had questions—so many questions, _where to, what next?—_ but right then, he embraced the gentle silence between them. 

It didn’t matter that the Hulk was at the base of the Tower threatening to dismember anyone who came near the elevators. It didn’t matter that Clint and Natasha were AWOL. It didn’t even matter what Alexander Pierce was up to.

All that mattered, then and there, was the silence.

It was _I’m sorry_ and _I missed you_ , _I love you_ and _I hate you_.

It was _I don’t know what to do_ and _we’ll figure it out_ and _thank you_.

It was _don’t leave me_ and _don’t_ _let go_.

It was _always_.


	45. SHARKS DON'T SLEEP

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy five-month anniversary, OMA. <3

_What was it like? The future?_

Steve Rogers looked out the window. Sergeant Timothy Alloysius Cadwaller “Dum Dum” Dugan pulled off his hat and waved it, inviting him to come outside. Oblivious to the static murmur of the real voices in the farmhouse, Steve fixated on the man dressed in ‘40s war gear, stamping his feet in the snow. 

_I know you see me_ , the vision added, jerking his head in an impatient nod. _Hurry up. Don’t make me wait._

Reality fizzled for a few moments. The bite of cold was almost enough to shatter the illusion, but he didn’t care about lost time or missing space. He was far too entranced by the man standing in the snow to care about the rifts in reality.

 _About time_ , Dum Dum greeted noiselessly, meeting him halfway as he stepped off the stairs. He clapped Steve on the shoulder. It was too cold outside to determine if it was real. _Think you can get off just by crashing a plane? ‘f I’d’ve known that was the way out, I would’ve done it years ago_. There was no humor in Dum Dum’s face. His voice, imagined as it was, reflected the same flat disapproval. _Hell, they called the biggest runner in the game a ‘hero.’_

He shoved hard. Steve stepped back more in surprise than real force, shame welling in his chest as Dum Dum replaced his own hat and spat at Steve’s feet. _You ran, Cap. We needed you, and you ran_. He turned and strode off in the opposite direction.

“I didn’t run,” Steve husked out, needing to say it, the white puff of his own breath in stark contrast to Dum Dum’s air-less words. “I wouldn’t run,” he insisted.

Dum Dum’s boots crunched over something and Steve’s gaze flicked down automatically, taking in the snow that was nothing but bone. He staggered back. 

His own feet crunched, too. A shiver of pure animal dread worked its way up his spine. Then he made himself look down.

Bones. Bones as far as the eye could see.

 _You deserve it_ , Dum Dum told him, now standing a great distance away on a small mountain covered in _bones_. _Whatever’s coming to you, you fucking deserve it._

 _Deserter_.

He lifted an illusory gun and pointed it at Steve, ready to fire. Like the coward he was, Steve scrambled to get out of the imaginary bullet’s path, backing right into the closed door, heart pounding.

He ran a numb hand against the flat surface, searching for the handle, but he was distracted by the man on the hill of bones, unable to look away.

He didn’t dare put his back to him, afraid Dum Dum would materialize right behind him.

The door swung inward and he nearly fell into it. Gabriel Jones grunted, _What the hell are you doing out in the snow? Got a place to stay, and you wanna sleep in the dirt?_

Steve couldn’t move. His Majesty’s former Major James Montgomery Falsworth noted primly from another room, _Please, Captain, you’re letting in the breeze_. With a last paranoid look at Gabe, barely seeing his face, Steve slipped lamely back inside, tail tucked between his legs.

Refusing to be a damn coward, he began to Gabe, “I’m sorry. I was—” He looked down at his own shoes, like the Private was his Commanding Officer. Finally, he managed, “Doesn’t matter where I was. I’m here now.”

 _Like hell you are_ , Gabe snapped, setting a firm hand on his shoulder. He slipped out from under it, slinking down the hall, feeling like he was trapped inside a house that was shrinking.

Former member of the French Resistance, Jacques Dernier was sitting with his feet propped up on the table, smoking a cigarette. Flicking a glance at him, he sneered, took another drag, and spat, _Traitre_. 

Slowly, Steve inched back into the hallway, unsettled.

There were few words that carried the sort of laden venom that _traitor_ did, in a world where the only currency that mattered was loyalty. It was better to be a murderer. Sadists, so long as they were cruel to the _right_ side, had the moral high ground over traitors. Cowards. _D_ _eserters_.

“Hey,” a voice entreated behind him. It was husky with sleep but familiar, someone he’d _know_ if he could get the white noise outta his ears. Even with the static, he knew the warm arms that slid around his waist, anchoring him to place. _No more running. No more deserting_. He closed his eyes. The voice seemed clearer as it added, “Easy, tough guy, all right? No need to burn the house down this early.” 

There was a tip-of-the-tongue quality to the voice. Steve imagined a guy folded over a table, a pencil half the size of his palm moving furiously across a long unspooling sheet of paper, impressing itself on a map of a Europe Steve could vividly imagine. As Steve entered the room, the man hadn’t even looked up as he had drawled, _G_ _et on, do your job and I’ll do mine_. He had had a perpetually busy air about him, but it had been more than a mountain of work keeping him busy; it had been an occupational hazard.

“Hey,” Howard Stark insisted, giving him the littlest of shakes. “C’mon. Whatever you’re thinking, stop thinking it.”

He wasn’t thinking much of anything, though—except that wasn’t quite true. He was thinking about Peggy Carter looking at him with a mixture of modest surprise and almost disappointment as he _stumbled_ over a recitation of Nazi hideouts, a memory game that was so very unlike him, but they’d been places he’d seen only on foot and in abominable conditions, Dugan asking, _You got a mark?_ and Steve replying, _Yeah, I got it_ and then slipping back into the blizzard-driven hills. It wasn’t particularly _fun_ work, not like throwing around a baseball in an alley could be fun, but it was familiar, being a quarter-mile out and picking out those sad little snipers shivering in their nests, knowing that he was scratching little red x’s on every one of their chest. 

When he’d seen what they’d done to children, he’d stopped worrying so much.

Stark tapped him on the chest, _pay attention_. The crackle point of pain made Steve squint in discomfort, too stuck in the mud to say anything. Stark said, “Steve?”

 _Rogers_ , he thought automatically. He was holding onto Stark’s left hand, caged, contained. _Don’t touch me_. He forced himself to release it as his hand shook with the effort of letting go, like he wasn’t supposed to. Wires were crossed. He thought, _If you let go, he dies_ , but it was too late, his hand was gone, he’d never reached Buck in time, and—

The world shivered into focus, albeit in subdued gray tones. “Tony,” he murmured, looking down at his hands, swallowing hard with guilt and horror at the sight of Tony’s right hand in a cast. “Tony, what’re you—?” He looked around. The gray-toned world seemed both familiar and unfamiliar. 

This was . . . _not_ an encampment. Not like one he’d ever seen. It also wasn’t the Tower, or S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ. Where the hell were they? “What is this place?” he muttered, more to himself than anyone. He could see Fury standing down the hall, watchful, his hand almost idly resting on the gun on his belt.

The clip was off.

Steve met his eye and held it. He knew with comforting certainty that if push came to shove, Fury would take the shot. Slowly, projecting more to Fury than Tony, Steve curled an arm around Tony’s back, pulling him close. Tony was shaking a little, like somebody who’d been called out of bed in the middle of a bombardment. Wasn’t much, wouldn’t show, but it made guilt twist up in his throat, make it hard to talk. He could feel the anxiety in the room, the agitation. He’d caused it. He needed to calm it down. He was good at calming things down, just as he was good at getting people worked up. 

There was no, no _sixth sense_ or nothing, the serum was magic but it wasn’t _that_ magic, but there was a palpable difference in the room when he was there. He was mythical, larger-than-life. People capitulated to his emotions. They reflected if Captain America was on edge or rock-steady. He was their leader; he’d keep them safe or forsake them. 

Nothing could touch you if he said _you’re okay_. And nothing could save you if he said, _I’m sorry_.

“It’s all right,” he said, still holding Fury’s gaze, hyper-aware of Tony’s heartbeat, like a rabbit in his hands. “S’all right, chief; let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he murmured. “Where are we?”

“Eastern Pennsylvania,” Fury rumbled.

. o .

“Pretty sure I didn’t sign up for this,” Tony Stark muttered against Steve’s chest. He separated slowly, raw with sleepless hunger and forced alertness. Pressing the heels of both palms to his eyes to comfort their dry-eyed sting, he drew in a fortifying breath. Then he lowered his hands and declared, “Okay, I’ll play ball.” Darkly, he added, “But I’m gonna level with you, I’ve already reached my kidnapping quota. You with us or them?”

“I wouldn’t be harboring fugitives if I was with them,” Fury said, very coolly. Tony felt sobriety wash over him, banishing the web of interrupted sleep. “So maybe we can keep things _civil—_ ” he shot a look at Steve, who shrank visibly, head ducking, gaze averting to the floor “—and work on saving lives.”

Blinking rapidly, Tony put a hand out on Steve’s chest, half to stop him from walking away, half to ground himself. Frowning, he added, “What the hell are you talking about?”

In a voice devoid of all emotion, Steve asked, “How many are still—?”

“Cut loose pretty quick,” Fury said enigmatically, expression grim. “Sixteen, maybe seventeen hundred.”

Steve stepped around Tony’s grip. Tony barked, “Hey!” It was more reflex than command, but it stopped Steve from lifting the gun suddenly in his right hand, his left holding Fury off the floor. “Hey, hey,” Tony said, a touch waspishly, stepping forward. “Easy—” He halted, very pointedly, when he was faced with the muzzle of a gun. Steve didn’t even look at him, all his rampant fury fixed on the Director. Tony babbled, gambling, “Easy, tiger. Nobody here needs to get hurt, all right?”

Shaking, Steve snapped, “You’re damn right no one does.” His voice was a bit higher-pitched than his usual menacing growl, like he was losing patience. Louder, too. Steve didn’t shout much, but he was almost shouting as he repeated, “Seventeen hundred? Seventeen hundred people are in danger?” He holstered the gun; Tony’s heart beat anew. Spitting with agitation, Steve said, “Just leave me in the goddamn ice next time.” Then he dropped the Director—Fury hit the floor on his feet, one hand on the wall for balance—and stalked like a moody poltergeist down the hall, biting off obscenities. The gun hung in his right hand, loose but not let-go.

Barely daring breathe, hyper-aware that Steve could hear them, through walls, through floors, Tony waited till the outermost door snapped shut before opening his mouth to speak. Fury held up a hand, eye narrowed, listening. They both waited a very long minute before Fury said quietly, “Okay.”

Still trying to process what had happened, Tony hissed, “What the _hell_ did you do to him?”

Fury’s expression was pinched, annoyed. “ _I_ didn’t do anything,” he retorted in the same almost subvocal growl. At Tony’s belligerent, disbelieving look, he added coolly, “This shouldn’t be possible.”

“He’s got a _gun_ ,” Tony reminded, needing Fury to understand what level of _Code Red_ they were in. It wasn’t even red anymore; it was black. “What’s going on?”

Shaking his head, Fury said, “He’s high out of his mind.” When Tony’s expression mirrored his blank-state expression perfectly, Fury said tersely, “You’ve got a suit. I’ll explain later.”

Inarguable logic, that.

. o .

The Mark X was a marvel. It fit like a second skin, a full-body suit that made him even stronger, even faster. He walked easily on weak legs, almost like he was on the Moon, his confident strides expending little energy in artificially-lowered gravity. Gravity hadn’t capitulated; he had outgrown it.

“Cap?” he called, automatically holding his metal hands up to his faceplate to project, though it made no difference. “C’mon, buddy, you know I’m no good at hide-and-seek.” That was a blatant lie—Tony Stark had yet to meet a game he couldn’t hack; hide-and-seek was no exception—but it was still a wintry night in unknown territory. For all Steve’s wolf-eyed clarity, Tony couldn’t make out a damn thing in the ambient lighting, relying on green-lit projections to navigate. “Steeeve,” he tried again.

He found the gun first, which was a relief, once he got past the three seconds of panic using a spotlight on the suit’s palm to scope the ground for blood. When he came up empty, he exhaled harshly, stomped on it for good measure, and listened as hard as he could. Still, he picked up nothing over the ghostly wind and the suit’s mechanical noises.

“You got a read, J.A.R.V.?” Tony asked, almost more frustrated than afraid at the twenty-two-minute mark.

In response, J.A.R.V.I.S. flicked the screen to infrared. Tony turned in a full circle slowly, nearly tripping over his feet when J.A.R.V.I.S. said, “There, sir.”

Swiveling back, Tony squinted at the darkness, repeating dubiously, “You sure about that?” He imagined a hawk with a hood on its head as he tried to see what J.A.R.V.I.S. saw, twitching his head in the hopes of making it stand out. Then, near the top of his view-field, he caught a glimpse of red. 

“Good eye,” he congratulated, leaning on his heels to activate the thrusters and floating up to the big red shadow that appeared in the boughs of the bare-branched maple, switching to night-view so he could see a face rather than a red shadow. “So,” he began, voice lofty, almost cheerful, as Steve blinked at him, “you wanna tell me what’s going on?”

He floated for a few moments in silence, then urged more quietly, “What’s going on, Steve?”

Steve shook his head once, twice, then deflected, “Bones.”

Tony blinked, aware that the face-plate did not mirror it. “Bones?” he repeated, swinging his left arm around a branch, elbow tucked over it, feet propelling him gently. “What bones?” When Steve said nothing, he nudged, “I got ‘em, you got ‘em, I think.” He smiled, loopy himself. When Steve looked away, Tony softened and said, “C’mon, big guy. Don’t do this.”

He leaned up slowly, the suit compensating easily. When Steve made no move to push him back or flinch away, Tony snuck both metal arms around his back. With its double insulation, cast and suit, he could barely feel his immobilized right hand. “All right. I gotcha,” he said, Steve’s hold limp. “You’re okay.”

He didn’t move, then, for a long time, holding onto him, thrusters gently working to keep him airborne, level. He didn’t let go, either, didn’t drift away with the wind, even though Steve wasn’t wearing a jacket in sub-zero temperatures. The suit radiated enough heat to keep them both warm. The arc reactor burned placidly in Tony’s chest, unable to burn skin.

 _For now_.

 _Don’t think about that_ , Tony chided himself, giving Steve an encouraging squeeze around the middle. Several long seconds passed. Then Steve curled his hands around the suit, holding on instead of simply being held up. He buried his face against Tony’s metal shoulder. Tony said, “S’okay now.” And he meant it, too. They were safe, free. That was what mattered. “We’re okay.”

Steve rasped, “I shouldn’t have run.”

“It’s okay.” Tony gathered him closer, nearly pulling him off his perch. Steve’s grip tightened on him, more reflex than panic, as he shifted from his branch into Tony’s hold, as simple as hopping off a high barstool. “I’ve got you,” he promised. Venting more steam into the cold air, he added, “Let’s get some air, huh? I can’t think down here. Too. . . .” He didn’t know. _Crowded_ , came to mind, even though the space around them was empty for miles in every direction.

Steve nodded a little against his neck. “Okay,” Tony said agreeably, easing off on the thrusters, settling back to escape the tree without getting tangled up in it. “I’ve got you.”

. o .

There would be no wars, Tony decided, if humankind lived at 26,000 feet.

It was like being on another planet, this aloft in a twinkling night sky. His own breath came in deep, steady breaths, longer and haler than his grounded self ever indulged in. It wasn’t the panic of not having enough air, but the freedom of having space to breathe, space for hours, days, miles, minutes. It was midnight-blue calm, a feeling more than a view. It felt like coming home. It felt like safety.

Steve had shifted his grip so he was monkeyed onto Tony’s front, chin tucked over his shoulder, his own deep breaths irreducibly soothing. There was something comforting up here, where life was thin and space seemed close. 

With the suit nearly as warm on the outside as the inside, it actually glowed in the darkness, white light like another star, designed as much with the idea of carrying others as keeping himself airborne. The grips on the shoulders were easy grooves, more perfect hand-holds, a climber could not ask for. He knew he could let go altogether and Steve could hold himself up, for hours, if need be. That insurance made him feel serene.

The air was thin and cold up here, but it was astronaut air, a taste of infinity, a hint of life beyond the soil and toil below. It was good. It was a world that Tony wanted to live in, forever, if he could.

It was better with someone to hold onto, to marvel with, to understand the sheer immensity of uninhabited terrain up here. It was an ever-changing environment; the winds swept gently and continuously through it as the snow below blanketed everything in a sheet of white. To be alone was a privilege; to be with someone was joyfulness, quiet and deep. He felt like there was nothing and no one who could compel him to land again, his own beating heart slow and steady, breathing metallically near Steve’s hair, astronaut.

He tried to remember what it had been like on that first dual flight, the mixture of wonder and caution, _don’t go too high_ warring with _I wanna show you something beautiful_.

( _We could fly to 50,000 feet. The world’s so beautiful at 50,000 feet._ )

He didn’t remember much. The flights blurred together, but as he held onto Steve, grounding himself as much as supporting him, he thought, _It’s been too damn long_.

Hovering at 26,000 feet—really hovering, the Mark X stabilized in ways that the Mark VII, 2.0, hadn’t been—Tony marveled quietly at what humanity had dubbed the Death Zone. Fly long enough in every direction and eventually you’d find climbers up to their necks in trouble and still insisting on clawing their way a few hundred, a few thousand feet higher, depending on which summit they’d chosen to hang their flag from. 

It was a mean moniker for a quiet, unpresumptuous place like this.

There was nothing here but peace and emptiness and quiet in every cardinal direction.

He yearned to stay forever.

. o .

Tony sat on the floor in front of the fireplace with Laika in his lap, both hands curled in her fur. “So, let me get this straight,” he said, squinting against a throb of pain, a dull-headed ache nestling behind his forehead. “We’re fugitives. From _S.H.I.E.L.D_.”

Stoking the fire, Fury asked, “Need me to spell it out for you, Stark?”

“Full offense,” Tony said, holding up one hand. Laika followed it, lifting her head. He patted her head, assuring, “hi, sweetheart, not mad at you—Nick, why the _fuck_ am I in hot water?”

“Because of him.”

Standing near the windows, hands folded behind his back, Steve didn’t bother turning to look at them as he said slowly, “He’s right. They want me.”

A touch exasperated, Tony asked, “Then why kidnap me?”

Steve didn’t respond. Laika slunk off Tony’s lap and padded over to Steve instead, tail swishing back and forth. He dropped a hand on top of her head, brushing down an ear gently. “Bait,” he said simply. Drawing in a deep breath, he added quietly, “It wasn’t just you. Romanoff, Barton—haven’t heard from ‘em since everything went to shi—” He cut himself off. The guilt in his voice was still laden as he added, “I should’ve kept an eye on them, I got—caught up.”

Tony felt cold, without Laika or the security blanket of ignorance. Prying himself off the floor, he slumped onto a rickety couch instead, dragging a wool blanket over himself. “All right, so,” he said breezily, feeling a calm settle into his bones, “we rally the team, we kick ass.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. is going down,” Fury said. It was like opening a window to the cold white world beyond. Tony drew the blanket closer to himself, wishing it was long enough to cover his socked feet. “There’s no regrouping from this one, Stark. Either we go down, or they do.” Somberly, he added, “There’s nowhere to run from this, unless you want to seek extradition in a more forgiving country.”

That didn’t sound half-bad, all things considered—return to _wants-me-dead_ New York or some sunny lawless place?—but Tony knew Steve’s answer before he said it. He knew the one burning in his own chest, too.

Steve growled, “Run? Like a fuckin’ cowa—no. No.” He softened his tone, visibly relaxed back into a familiar persona, his hand steady as it stroked Laika’s head. “No, sir, we take our stand, we keep it here. I won’t have innocents die over this.”

“I had a feeling you would say that,” Fury said, settling heavily into an armchair near the crackling fire. Tony didn’t look over at him, fixated on Steve, almost waiting for the calm to shatter. Somberly, Fury added, “Gentlemen, there is no good move here. Either we let the law fight this fight—”

Steve turned, then said, softly but adamantly, “All due respect, sir. The law left a long time ago.”

Tilting his head in a concessionary nod, Fury said, “I figured as much. So, we do this the hard way.”

“You mean the. . . .” Tony looked between them, opening his mouth, closing it, holding up a hand, mouth open again, and shut it speechlessly a second time. At last, he asked bluntly, “How many people are you planning on killing, exactly?”

Steve and Fury shared a brief look. Then Steve rasped, “Two-hundred-and-seventy-nine.”

It was a gut-punch of a number. It felt huge, dangerous. Slowly, Tony said, “That’s insane.”

Fury said, “It is.” There was a long beat of silence, interrupted only by the crackling of firewood.

Tony felt very tired suddenly, between the sudden sense of wrongness that had jerked him out of an uneasy sleep and the unnaturally black morning of winter. He wanted nothing more than to run to a nice warm place and pretend for a while that everything was all right.

 _Bait_.

It was almost comforting, but he knew it was only half the story. He was part of it; he had a target on his back, too. It was far too bold of Pierce to kidnap him in broad daylight, in his _own home_ , to get under Captain America’s skin.

 _Do you even know, Alexander?_ Tony wondered, lounging against the arm of the couch decadently and sitting up when Steve wandered over. His gaze flicked to Tony, then Fury, then back to Tony. A heavy sort of exhaustion seemed to settle over his shoulders as he sat on the opposite end of Tony’s couch.

“It ain’t right,” Steve said softly, sounding more like himself, pale as he was, flushed as he was. “I didn’t. . . .” Clearing his throat, rubbing Tony’s shin for self-comfort as much as anything, he added seriously, “I didn’t come here, to this century, to end lives.” Looking at Fury, he insisted, “I never wanted to kill anyone. I just wanted to make the fighting end.” 

A rueful smile touched his lips. He only sighed out softly when Tony, taking a chance on opportunity, shuffled around shamelessly, cozying up to his side. Draping one arm across Tony’s chest, he said quietly, “I always knew they’d never be happy. No one ever was. You know what happened, day after I was made? They said, _We’ll never make another_. It was all anybody would talk about. _We only got one_. Wasn’t true, even then—Schmidt, see, he was. . . .” Letting out a long breath, he said, “I wanted it to be true. I wanted it to be good, good for everybody. But it was never gonna be good enough. Was it?”

Fury was quiet for a very long moment, his own hand settling on top of Laika’s head as she heeled next to his chair. Then he said, “You were right, Stark.” Tony blinked, a touch muzzily, content with Steve’s warmth and the fireplace and the illusion of peace that the little cabin in the middle of the woods granted. “We played with fire. One too many times.” There was a heaviness to his tone that implied more.

Tony began, “I’m always right. But—”

“We should have left you,” Fury told Steve, measuring the weight of each word very carefully, like he was delivering a speech about dead astronauts. “We had no idea what we were doing. The wrong people were too involved. Now there’s no easy way to untangle this. You deserved better.”

Steve was still, unmoving, underneath him for a long moment. Then, quietly, he said, “Thank you, sir.” For the absolution. For the _regret_. 

Tony shivered to hear it, to let the words sink into his marrow, _You were right_. He knew, then, what Fury was talking about: that phone call with Coulson, where he’d insisted with no hint of remorse, _He’s at peace. Leave him be._

_We left a flag on the Moon._

_We can leave another in a glacier_.

It was the right thing to do; you weren’t supposed to unbury your dead, to exhume old heroes and expect them to fight new battles.

But they had opened the bottle, and—

“I’m glad you did, sir,” Steve said, squeezing Tony gently, almost unconsciously. “I got a lotta regrets in my life.” Shaking his head slowly, he insisted, “This ain’t one of them.” It encompassed more, Tony knew, than the arm he had wrapped around Tony, but he _felt_ it, the weight of the words, so very different from a lifetime—and eight months—ago.

( _I didn’t ask to be woken up. I didn’t ask for this_.)

For a short little eternity, in a room warmed by the fireplace and good company and the knowledge that they had made it out, they lingered. Tony felt cold and uncomfortable for a long time, but Laika hopped up onto his legs as Fury wandered elsewhere, and between her and Steve, Tony started to feel warm again. Steve breathed steadily against him. When Tony said, “Steve?” he hummed promptly in reply. “Do you ever _want_ to run away?”

Steve inhaled deeply and let it out like all the fight in him, saying simply, “No.” He stroked his thumb against Tony’s shoulder, adding softly, “No, I don’t. I want to—I want to be where I can do some good.” He spoke the words carefully, almost like a reminder, a vow. _Do some good_. It wasn’t about beating faces in or standing victor over a pile of bones. It was righting the wrongs of the world and keeping your own humanity. With a sigh, he admitted, “Do I wish it would stop sometimes? Yes.”

It was a different question, a different answer, but Tony nodded all the same. “We don’t have to go back,” he offered.

He wasn’t surprised by Steve’s answer. “We don’t. But we will. We gotta. . . .” He squeezed very gently. “We gotta make this okay again, Tony. Or I’m never gonna sleep again.”

“Awfully presumptuous of you,” Tony murmured, hoping to lighten the mood, but Steve only sighed and urged him with gentle hands to sit up. He was about to complain, that just because they _had_ to save the world didn’t mean they had to do it _right now_. Was it really the world at stake? No, it was a couple of assholes and their cronies, and—

 _Sixteen, maybe seventeen hundred people_.

Innocents. A whole lot of them, people who passed through S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ with no idea, none whatsoever, that they stood in a no-man’s-land. People who had no dog in the fight, who were like Fury and Hill and the Avengers, good people in an entangled mess.

They were leverage. They were _bait_.

Stomach twisted up, too sick to feel hungry, Tony opened his mouth to finally lodge a formal complaint when Laika hopped off his legs, _you scared her_ a tease on his tongue, but then Steve shuffled so he was leaning against the arm of the couch, and Tony was sprawled between his legs, cheek smushed against his collarbone, and that . . . that was nice.

Steve arranged the wool blanket to his satisfaction over Tony’s shoulders, kissed the top of his head, and said in a quiet undertone, “I’m sorry, Tony.”

“Shush,” Tony told him, not meanly.

“I hurt you. Could’ve kill—”

“You didn’t.” Firmly, without lifting his head, Tony insisted, “You wouldn’t.”

“No. I wouldn’t have.”

The fire crackled. His thoughts drifted. He heard Laika’s soft dog-breaths as she dozed near it, curled up like an oversized Arctic fox. Closing his eyes, feeling Steve’s chest rise and fall underneath him, laden, slow, he asked, “You okay? ‘Cause I’m. . . .” He stifled a yawn, finishing, “I just need, like, five whole minutes of me time.”

Steve tucked his cheek against the top of his head. “Go ahead, sweetheart.”

It wasn’t five minutes, but Steve’s heartbeat was reassuringly quick under him, his breaths deep and even. Something in Tony’s world settled as he lounged against Steve, keeping his weight more on Steve’s left side than the center of his chest.

He dozed, he dreamed. He chased, if nothing else, the illusion of sleep.

It was peaceful. Steve’s hand rubbing up and down his side in slow strokes was peaceful, too. Tony’s chest still hurt like a son of a gun, and he felt neck-deep in a cold, wouldn’t be surprised if on top of everything he’d found the space for it, but mostly he just felt . . . really, really tired.

. o .

Tony came to, very warm and very safe.

He felt more human in the early-day dawn. The fire had burned down to its faded embers. The space around him was quiet—creaky with a stellar wind that had picked up outside, but nothing abominable. The surface underneath him rose and fell steadily, like a rowboat at sea, enough to put even a stubborn sailor to sleep. Combined with the warmth radiating from Steve, the ceaseless rub of his palm up and down Tony’s back, the space was perfect to sink into.

He was aware, almost idly, of Steve holding him but texting someone else, distracted. It wasn’t like Steve to multitask in bed or on couches, not like Tony _I invented multitasking_ Stark, but Tony couldn’t rummage up the mental will power to ask him what he was up to. He’d already expended it on his intrepid escape from the lion’s den, in every one of those gasping breaths. He shuddered at the visceral memory of hot metal being pried out of his chest. He needed, he _needed_ it, _don’t take it, please, I need it—_

But it was still there, he noticed dully, the familiar ache of it digging into his own chest where he was pressed against Steve. He was still off-center, pressing down not on Steve’s sternum but his right shoulder, rising and falling in tandem with his breaths. He heard Steve sigh, then set his phone aside and mutter, almost to himself, “Wish you’d sleep for a year, then we could be done with all this, ‘uh?”

“I’d miss you,” Tony murmured to the rhetorical statement. Steve skidded a hand gently up his spine, curving it around the back of his skull. “So, don’t get any ideas,” he added, words thick and slow. “What do we do now, Steve?”

It wasn’t entirely like Tony to take the despairing stance in any crisis, but the magnitude of it felt huge. Still: they hadn’t broken; they were okay. The simple mantra seemed to sap fear from his soul, allowing him to melt into Steve’s body, all smooth lines and snow-cooled, serum-warmed skin.

Quietly, Steve said, “I don’t know.” Sifting his fingers through Tony’s hair without lifting his palm, he added, “But we’re gonna make it right. Make the people who did this—” He drew in a shallow breath, then slunk down the couch, moving Tony with him, rumbling, “S’gonna be okay. I promise.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Tony mumbled against his shoulder. Steve made a soft, almost wounded sound. Reassuringly, Tony added, “Just an expression.” He rubbed his cheek against Steve’s shoulder, absorbing the heat like Steve was the armor and he was 26,000 feet above the Earth. “What’d you do, Steve?” he finally asked, only half-awake. “What’s gotten into you, huh?” The words were too tired, too limp to sound accusatory.

Steve scratched gently at his nape. “Brings out the bad, you know?”

“Hm?”

“I can’t get drunk,” Steve elaborated. “No medications, no drugs, nothin’ as such. Need enough to kill an elephant to put the serum under that kinda, kind of _duress_ , it ain’t good, you know, serum’s—s’part of me, not a thing I can turn on and off, and I needed somethin’, Tony. Needed a way to stay alive when there was nothing in the tank.”

He could picture it, suddenly, pure imagination: Steve and a small band of faceless figures, straining to coax a dead engine back to life, snow beating down around them.

“So,” Steve said, drawled, like he was telling a story, “I got a little—little _out_ , a way to quit the game, ‘f I need to. To not play,” he amended. “No such thing as gettin’ out, not till—” He cleared his throat a little. It sounded raw, his words more so as he added, “Anyway. It doesn’t matter, Tony. It won’t be a problem.”

“Bullshit,” Tony grunted, forcing himself to sit up, even though he was warm and comfortable and God, weren’t those amenities to die for? He shuffled around, sat back on his own heels, and jabbed his casted hand against Steve’s chest, ignoring his little wince and insisting, “Fury knew. What the hell are you two on? This some kind of suicide pact I’m not aware of?”

He didn’t mean to snark, but he snarked when he was vulnerable. For all his bravado, he was a house of twigs, ready to crackle apart at the first good wind. Steve blinked at him, his expression blank, cocking his head. 

It was too tame to be embarrassment, but Tony could almost feel the shame in it as he anchored his own hands on Tony’s hips, holding him there, _don’t go_. Tony thought about threatening it, he’d never won anything by playing it _safe_ , but he banked on patience instead.

Patience worked. “Even I don’t know what it really is,” Steve said. Tony clamped down on the impatient, _That’s not what I asked and you know it_ that wanted to burst out of him. Captain America was direct, blunt, but he could steer a conversation down almost any path he wanted to. Trusting that he wasn’t deflecting, Tony narrowed his eyes and waited. “It’s like a shot of adrenaline, so that’s what we called it. All we know is, it works, real good. Can’t even feel pain, and it’s a boost, so, you know. Gets the job done.”

Tony blinked, very pointedly, gears whirring. He felt like he was being punked. The first word out of his mouth was supremely helpful: “Bullshit.” 

Shaking his head, trying to understand, he pushed himself to his feet, the world only slipping to one side. Steve, thank God, did not try to coddle him back to the couch, or Tony might have had to get angry at him. He wasn’t angry—not yet anyway. He was totally, completely floored. 

“No one knows that serum better than I do,” Tony said at last. Then, tipping his head in a concessionary nod, he added, “Nobody except the good Doctor Erskine, but he died.” He paced the rug, floor creaking lightly under his feet. Laika hopped up onto the couch where he had been, watching him like Steve with steady eyes. “You can’t speed up _speed_ ,” he clarified, again rather helpfully, waving his right hand automatically. “God, what the fuck is wrong with you? You should’ve dropped dead. There’s no way to _enhance_ the serum, you stupid goddamn—” He drew in a calming breath, amended, “I’m not mad at you. This is me being not mad at you.”

Steve ran a hand placidly down Laika’s head, rubbing her shoulder, watching him silently, unblinking. “You can’t enhance the serum,” Tony babbled, like he was solving a math problem and not, _Oh, yeah, Captain America takes speed_. 

And yet: that was the solution. _That_ was the answer. 

He paused in the middle of the floor, swiveled to look at Steve, and said slowly, “I don’t think it’s epinephrine.”

With a discontented little rumble, Steve said, “It doesn’t matter. I burn through it like everything else. And it works.” There was a hint of steel in his tone, defying Tony to argue the point.

Tony did: “Really.” He moved closer, sat on the edge of the couch, and said, “Goddammit, Steve. You can’t fuck around with the serum. I know it’s your body—”

“It is.” Steel, again. “You’re overthinking this, Tony.”

Tony’s eyebrows arched completely of their own volition. “You really wanna argue that side, Rogers?” He waited, but Steve didn’t back down. In almost disgust, he reminded, “So, I’m just going to assume you wanted to shoot me for, what, the hell of it?”

That wedged under a piece of Steve’s armor, wrenched painfully. His entire demeanor shifted, from annoyed, almost defiant, to subdued blues, gaze averting. “I would never have shot you,” he murmured, clinging to defiance like a rope over a cliff. No alternative. No voice of reason would talk him out of that one.

So, he tried a different approach: “No. You wouldn’t have.” Steve watched him unblinking, like he was waiting for a trick. Tony, almost absentmindedly, noticed that his pupils were still too big for the sunlit space. How long had it been? “When does it wear off?” he redirected.

Steve blinked, caught off-guard, but answered promptly, “Couple—hours. Give or take.”

Nodding, Tony said, “Okay.” He flicked his gaze around, looking for a clock, and found one on the wall. An old analog. They really were in Backwater, Pennsylvania. It was oddly comforting, even though he missed J.A.R.V.I.S.’s omnipotent presence. “Great.” He tugged on Steve’s shirt—just the undershirt, nowhere near enough to be trampling around in the icy landscape, but his skin radiated heat like a furnace underneath it—and insisted, “Come on, I’m not gonna carry you.”

The lighthearted statement didn’t get very far, though, as Steve’s expression flashed first with a wince, and then a grim frown. “We’re wasting time,” he rumbled, like he was coming back to himself, looking at Tony’s hands on his shirt like they didn’t belong to Tony. “Know when the best time to get behind enemy lines is, Stark? Yesterday.”

“Right,” Tony said, wishing he’d known when Steve had taken the damn dose so he could actually gauge when he’d be scot-free. He didn’t ask. Steve was already bristling. “No, you’re right. We should—I should talk to Fury.” He wouldn’t; it was a lie.

Steve saw through it, eyes narrowed. For a moment, Tony hoped he would let it go, let better judgment prevail. But then he said quietly, “Can’t trust him.” He settled his hand on Tony’s right hand, on his wrist, above the cast, and squeezed. Not hard enough to hurt, really, only emphatically there. “He left ‘em to die,” he insisted, voice gaining steam, shuffling around, getting to his feet, hand still holding onto Tony’s arm. Tony could do nothing but let him hold it, his own jaw hard. Steve let it go on his own, standing and flicking his gaze over him, frowning. “The Council, they’ll—they’ll kill as many people as they think it takes to draw me out,” he said. “And he—he _left_ them, they’re—they’re fuckin’ fish in a _barrel_.”

He was fast when he wanted to be, supernaturally quick. Tony blinked as Steve was suddenly across the room. “Steve,” Tony said, almost gratified at Laika’s delayed response as she hopped off the couch, as off-beat as he was at Steve’s super-soldier quickness. “Halt. We’re not going on a witch hunt.”

He was almost amazed that Steve did stop, right in the threshold. Idly, he wondered where Fury had holed himself off to, knowing the man’s own sixth sense for danger had to be ringing. _Hell of a risk you took_ , he thought, closing the distance between Steve and himself slowly. _He could kill you. He will kill you_.

But he wouldn’t. Not in his right mind. “You don’t wanna hurt people,” Tony reminded. “That’s not who you are.” He paused, standing outside arm’s reach—a useless gesture, given how fast Steve could close it—and said seriously, “C’mon. You trust me. Right?”

For one long moment, he thought Steve would stalk off and hunt, damn the torpedoes after all. It wasn’t like they weren’t already going to burn; killing Fury was hardly going to endear him less to S.H.I.E.L.D. It had to seem like a low-risk, high-reward outcome.

Slowly, Steve pivoted on his heel, facing him. He drew in a shallow breath and held it. His gaze flicked over Tony. Then he explained, “You died.” Anguish entered his tone as he insisted, “You died, this ain’t _real_ , Tony.” 

Tony could not move nor make a sound, only standing in horror and wonder, because Pierce had been bluffing, he _wasn’t_ dead, but there was no hint of a rumor in Steve’s voice. He believed it, completely.

Shaking his head, utterly at a loss, Tony offered, “C’mere.” Looking like a man walking to the gallows, Steve shuffled the three feet between them, barely lifting his feet off the ground. He curved his own arms around Tony’s back, holding onto him limply, like he didn’t believe he was there to support him. “It’s okay,” Tony said softly, holding him back firmly, his cast pressing into Steve’s lower back as he did so, hoping against hope to ground him. He could feel the shiver of panic, of cold anger and warped disbelief, restless under Steve’s skin. “It’s okay. I’m here now.”

Nodding against his shoulder, cold straw-colored hair stiff from snow, Steve didn’t respond audibly, fingers flexing against his back, not daring to grip. “You’re okay,” Tony promised, rubbing his cheek against Steve’s temple. “Just stay with me. All right? Trust me.”

Another little nod, cold hands limp against his back. 

Sighing, Tony closed his eyes, leaning into Steve and his solidity, even though he was shaking, overheating. Shivering was smart for animals that needed to warm up quick, but the excessive shaking was only making things worse. He was falling apart from the inside-out. Tony felt the weight of it all sink into him, a toxic bog of reality.

They were on the run; Clint, Natasha, and Bruce were God knew where; he hadn’t even touched based with Pepper or Rhodey; Alexander fucking Pierce wanted him dead; and his rock in the storm was shaking to pieces, one step away from panic, blind and reckless action. 

It was already too late, he knew. There were the dead to contend with. There would be more of them. He thought, _279_ and wondered where the hell the number came from. Two thousand made more sense—it was approximately how many people walked through S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ on a daily basis—and he knew that seventeen hundred had to be the difference between the living and the dead. A crude estimate placed an innocent-to-target ratio of seven to one.

Fury was right, Tony thought bitterly, pressing Steve against the wall for support as he sagged, as Tony’s own strength wavered in the blunt face of reality. There was no good next move. If they sabotaged the whole place, they’d been killing more good people than bad. Sure, they’d hitched their wagon to the wrong horse, but that didn’t mean they deserved to die in a fire. He couldn’t slaughter the same people he’d once defended with his own life. It wasn’t right.

Besides, the first people to escape ground zero were the lucky and the informed. The bad ones would run; the good ones would die.

They had to be more precise. And yet, how could they? A three-man stand against an organization with nukes in its back pocket wouldn’t last long.

Drawing in a steadying breath, Tony managed, “I fucking hate Tuesdays. I’m cancelling them.” It didn’t matter that it was Wednesday, now, a new day. It didn’t feel new. He wasn’t sure there was even a Wednesday after that would ever feel the same.

Steve didn’t respond, unless his knees buckling counted. With a dismayed little grunt, Tony propped him up against the wall, insisting, “No, c’mon, stay with me. Stay with me, big guy.”

Steve braced himself, his breathing ragged. Tony put every ounce of his own strength into keeping him from slumping to the floor, like they’d lose if he went down. “C’mon, you’re the most stubborn sonuvabitch I’ve ever met,” Tony insisted, leaning his own weight into Steve’s chest, aware that it was shaking even harder. “I need you to be stubborn for me.”

With a deep breath, Steve nodded. Tony relaxed, waiting until he felt Steve was solid enough on his own two feet not to fall before easing back, his whole body stiff with tension. Steve no longer felt like a man capable of killing with his bare hands; he looked like someone who’d survived a bombshell, barely, shaking as he was, visibly struggling to stay on his feet.

He was too heavy for Tony to carry without the suit, but he had the suit. It wasn’t too difficult, after all, to get it on without completely letting go of Steve, one hand pressing against the center of his chest to keep him against the wall as metal morphed over him like a second skin. 

Idly, almost unintentionally, he slipped into the more comprehensive view that allowed him to see points of weakness and other internal injuries. Steve lit up like a splash canvas, blues and yellows and reds, oranges, violets. 

Exhaling metallically, he slipped his gauntlets under Steve’s arms, careful not to grip too tightly now that he could, drawing him close again. This time Tony was the one to hold his ground rigidly, immovable. “What happened?” Tony asked, almost more to the universe than Steve. “What happened?”

A rasping noise that might have been a laugh in another universe preceded the hoarse announcement: “Bucky. He’s. . . .” Steve trailed off, then gave a single full-body shudder, like it was torn from his bones, before sagging against him.

At the same time, the secondary vitals on Tony’s screen tanked. Breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, all of it—it went through the floor.

For a rigid moment of shock, Tony could not move.

 _Then_ the panic kicked in.

. o .

_Don’t die on me_.

Tony was aware that he was making a ruckus as he shoved furniture aside haphazardly to get Steve’s limp, unmoving body flat on the floor, panic seething like a tidal froth behind his teeth, threatening to burst out in a torrent of anguish, and he babbled instead, mindlessly affirming, _Goddammit, goddammit, don’t you dare fucking do this to me_ , like it was a crime against him if Steve died, and it might as well have been, his metal hands trying so hard, so very hard, to force life back into him. Press, press, press, and CPR almost never worked but he couldn’t think that way, sometimes it did and this time _it had to_ , and he didn’t care that he was spreading red with each push of his hands, Steve would heal, but God, he needed to live, he needed to live, press, press—

J.A.R.V.I.S. chimed in, “Sir, might I recommend defibrillation?” He was so calm, but the tone did nothing for Tony, babbling in panic, _I can’t, I can’t, I don’t know how_ , like he’d broken his father’s favorite watch, a thing impossible to repair, and he was making a soft whining sound, an airless wail, because it had to _work_.

Then the very man Steve had been ready to kill appeared. He didn’t confirm anything Tony already knew, didn’t waste a second on checking for a pulse. All he said was, “If you can shock him, Stark, do it _now_.”

If Steve didn’t get back up, Tony thought wonderingly, he would never again see the man at his side as anything other than the one who killed him.

His movements, thick through molasses, came to an abrupt halt. He was aware of Fury dragging Laika out of reach. He thought that was thoughtful of him, because if she touched Steve and he shocked Steve, she would die.

Swallowing a lump of coal, Tony begged, “J.A.R.V.I.S., can you—?”

The AI responded with robust confidence, “I can try, sir.”

He ripped Steve’s shirt off, needing it out of the way, and rested both metal gauntlets against black and blue skin. J.A.R.V.I.S. counted it down for him—and he had never taught J.A.R.V.I.S. what to do, but he imagined the robot watching ten thousand hours’ worth of medical dramas for reference; the image might have amused him under rational circumstances, but rationality was gone—and he felt his palms buzz.

The shock was more visible than felt. He tried to keep his cool as he waited for something, anything to happen, but it was only a little jolt and then nothing. J.A.R.V. increased the voltage, called it out, and another, slightly stronger shock zinged from the suit to Steve’s unmoving chest.

When the third shock failed, Tony thought he might pass out, but he held it together, somehow.

The secondary vitals spiked on the fourth shock. Tony immediately pulled his hands back, half-afraid he’d accidentally deliver another hit, and grimaced at burnt skin. Then he yelled in sympathetic surprise as Steve lurched upright, crashing into the suit as Tony fumbled to get a hold of him. “Defibrillation successful, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. congratulated, like it was his fault, or his victory.

God damn, Tony thought, his own heart beating painfully fast, holding onto Steve, as tightly as he dared, too tightly, maybe, as Steve let out a thin whine of pain, limp against him. Exhaling harshly, Tony did not throw up. He even managed to say, “Don’t ever do that again.”

Steve made another soft affirmative noise, _D_ _itto_. Hysterical laughter or panicked crying threatened to well up out of Tony, so he clamped down on both and held on, breathing metallically through the suit, not daring take it off, afraid Steve would crash, that the dream would dissolve if he did.

Hell, he wouldn’t have minded if the whole damn thing had been a dream. If he had woken in his own bed and Steve had taken Laika out on a morning run before Steve made coffee. Then they would both thrown themselves into their work and spend the evening together. He would have liked that, very much, but his job wasn’t full of bastards trying to kill him, either. They all came from the outside; they weren’t anywhere as brazen as the World Security Council was.

“Jesus, I’m sorry,” he babbled, holding onto Steve gingerly. He was very aware that everything he did had to hurt Steve in some way. Steve didn’t reassure him, didn’t lie. “I’m sorry.” Fury courteously held Laika, whining and lunging, at bay. Tony added, “You okay? I’m really gonna lose it if you’re not.” Steve nodded the tiniest bit. Tony said stupidly, “You’re not okay?”

A deep rumble, almost a groan. Then: “Tony.”

His slid his own trembling, gauntleted hands gently down Steve’s back, settling near the middle and deliberately loosening his grip. “That’s my guy,” he said, breathed, maybe sobbed, who was keeping track?

“I leave you two alone,” Fury began, “for one hour—”

“Lecture later, Pops,” Tony cut him off, breathing almost as raggedly as Steve. Gathering him into armored arms, like a civilian pulled from the wreckage of a building, he cajoled, “See, hon, now we can cross _couples’ defibrillation_ off our bucket list. And here I thought that was my square.” He was babbling, but Steve wasn’t exactly offering rich commentary to cut him off, so he offered, “Easy, it’s okay. I’ve got you.” He straightened to his feet, and Steve groaned blood, and Tony swallowed very hard. “I know. I know, I’m sorry.”

“S’okay,” Steve mumbled, and Tony told him:

“Oh, thank God, he’s a martyr again.” He was far more grateful than his peevish words implied. He tried to keep his babble to a minimum as he carried him in the suit, adding, “You know, that’s what I would miss most, actually, that shiny brand of giddy optimism. It keeps my skin glowing.” 

Out of immense foolishness, Steve had set up their part of the lodge out of dodge—he stuffed a hysterical little laugh deep down inside himself—on the second floor. Without so much as a _sorry, you’re being evicted_ in Fury’s direction, he used a metal foot to slide the door to Fury’s first-floor room open. He was as spartan as Steve, which somehow surprised Tony; he expected to see the man settled into the space, like a home away from home, but it was a safe house. Aside from a backpack with necessities, the room was empty. Embracing the good fortune of not tripping over things, Tony set his payload down on the unmade bed. 

Normally, Steve Rogers shirtless was a sight to behold—a real-life Adonis who deserved to be photographed and framed, preferably in full-length portraits—but right then, he looked more like the kid out of Brooklyn than the super-soldier he’d been made into, his entire torso matted with overlapping bruises, a thin sheen of sweat and two dark palm-shaped burns completing the sorry image. Swallowing hard, Tony asked, “How did you even survive?”

Steve didn’t respond, but the pinched look to his closed eyes, hard jaw showed that he heard. He balanced on one arm, sitting up but barely. He fixed a bloodshot gaze on Tony. Tony didn’t know if he should be more worried that his pupils were still huge or if it was the dim lighting of the room. He fumbled around in the suit for the light switch, but that just made Steve shut his eyes against the light. _G_ _oddammit, Stark, get it together_. He flicked it off. To hell with it, he’d figure it out later. Steve wasn’t about to go on a rampage in his state. It was fine.

“Okay,” Tony announced, daring to step out of the suit, even though the temperature difference made him shiver. The metal felt reassuringly warm; the room, empty, cold. The box at his side hardly seemed capable of containing the Mark X, but it did. Aloud, Tony rambled, “All right, this is fine.” He nodded once to affirm it, then strode over to Steve, resting his left palm on his shoulder carefully. He was shivering, subsurface, his skin clammy, cold. “You don’t do anything halfway, do you?” Tony mused, afraid to let the quiet be quiet. 

Steve reached out blindly and hooked a hand in his shirt, but his grip was gentle, breakable as he reeled Tony in. Tony went with it, resting a knee on the bed. Steve rested his forehead against the arc reactor. It was more fate than intent, his breathing shallow, short, but some unknown tension seemed to melt out of him, even as he tried to pull Tony closer. “Easy, honey,” Tony murmured, reaching up with his left hand to cup the back of his head. “Just slow down.”

Steve held onto him. Nine times out of ten—nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine times out of a thousand—it would have been to protect him, to keep him from wandering off into some perceived danger. But there was something more needful about it, something imploring. _Don’t go_.

Time was wasting, Tony knew. He had no idea how safe their safe house was. His trust in Fury was only a few shades warmer than Steve’s. The Council wouldn’t throw in the towel just because they slipped the first trap. And Steve and Fury were right: they’d drag as much blood onto the field as they had to to get what they wanted.

Hell, he wouldn’t put it past them to try to nuke the city again, if only to simulate an Avengers’ level threat.

The thought should have made him frantic with the need to act before catastrophe, but he climbed onto the bed next to Steve. Against his better judgment, he even let Steve haul him into his arms, even though it had to hurt, pressing down on all those not-hidden bruises. He didn’t have to imagine how he would feel if faced with the prospect of a life after Steve.

Steve breathed raggedly for a long time, shuddering breath, shivering skin, but eventually it evened. Tony almost shook him awake as short breaths melted seamlessly into long, deep ones. _Don’t go. Don’t leave me_.

They could not afford to stand still, Tony knew.

They could do nothing else.

No matter how stolen or tenuous in time, peace was still peace, and Tony lingered in it.

They could fight again.

Later. Later, they could get up, kick ass.

Right then, all he could do was hold onto Steve, his right hand resting on Steve’s side gently, cast and all.


	46. HUNTED

_“Pa?”_

_Standing in the empty grasses of moonlit France, a man in soldier browns and a matching campaign hat swiveled on his heel slowly. Taking one good long look at him, the old soldier rumbled, “That my boy? My Steven?” He had one hand loose on his hip, the other flirting briefly with the gun on his back. Calmly, he mused in a war-worn voice, “Well, that couldn’t be, because he’s at home, keeping his Ma company.”_

_Stepping forward, Steve Rogers insisted softly, “It’s me, Pa.” Without thinking, he offered a hand to shake._

_With a hesitation that bespoke a certain reluctance, Joseph Rogers thrust out his own hand to meet it, shaking hard. His fingers were ice-cold. “Got a firm grip,” old Joe approved, releasing Steve’s hand. “Always wanted a strong boy, somebody who could carry the family. Your Ma doesn’t need any trouble, you got that? She’ll catch her death looking after us both. I need you good and strong, need you t’ look after her.”_

_“I do,” Steve insisted, his voice small, cowed, more nasally than he was used to. “I do, Pa. I’ll look after her. I won’t let nothing—”_

_“You won’t,” old Joe cut in, nodding once in affirmation. A rumble of thunder drew his attention towards storm clouds gathering behind them. He sighed. “Shit,” he said eloquently, then nodded towards Steve’s back. “C’mon, kid, no weather to be sittin’ around. You keep up, now, don’t get lost.”  
_

_Nodding vigorously, Steve began to assure, “’Course, Pa, I wouldn’t—” but old Joe was already movin’, passing by. Steve scampered along after him, like he was half his size and asthmatic to boot._

_“Keep up!” old Joe barked, loping along fifty paces ahead of him. Steve quickened his pace, but for every step he took, his feet seemed to sink deeper into an invisible mud. “Gotta get back to camp before that damn storm or we’ll be sorry, you and me.” A flash of lightning at close-range told Steve it was already too late. He flinched automatically, wanting to take cover._

_Old Joe marched on fearlessly, fading into the veil of rain, fast becoming a silhouette._

_Panicking, Steve sprinted after him, needing to close the gap. Old Joe barked, “Keep it down, boy! Don’t you know there’s—?”_

_It sounded more like a door shutting than a gun firing, a muffled_ thunk _of a sound, but the spatter of matter as old Joe took one to the leg was unmistakable. He wavered on his feet. Steve redoubled his pace, chest burning as he finally closed in on the old soldier, his eyes refusing to cooperate as he reached out with numb hands to catch his own Pa._

_Old Joe gave him a surprisingly firm shove. “Go,” he ordered sternly. When Steve didn’t move, he insisted, “Go on, get. You got somebody who needs you.”_

_Adamantly, Steve reminded, “So do you.” He slung his father’s arm around his shoulders. His weight seemed unbearably heavy, but he was more stubborn than any mule, too stubborn to let the old man down. “I’m not leaving you.”_

_“You fool,” old Joe moaned. “You stubborn fool, you’ll_ die _.”_

_“Too stubborn to die,” Steve huffed, half-seriously. With sensitivity to the old man’s pride, he added, “Sorry, Pa.” Then he laid old Joe on the grass and picked him up, putting him across both shoulders. “I got you. I’ll get us home._

_“I’ll get both of us, Pa, or neither of us, you got that?”  
_

. o .

“We safe here?”

“We are,” rumbled Director Nick Fury, “within a two-hundred mile radius of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s headquarters. How safe do you feel?”

Glaring, Tony slugged back a mouthful of black coffee and said, “You know what I meant.”

“I do.” There was a brief pause as Fury took a sip from his own mug. “I’m not here to make any false promises, Stark. It’s been less than twelve hours since our evac; if we don’t keep moving, we _will_ be found.”

“Why haven’t we been found already?” Tony pressed, leaning both elbows on the table, cradling his mug. “Huh? Where’s the cavalry? Last I checked, helicopters weren’t invisible.”

“This one is.” Tony blinked. Fury clarified, “Cloaking on the underbelly and sides means that, in the air, it is virtually undetectable to the naked eye. It also has a radar-jamming program. This bird flies alone. But it won’t go much farther, not without a refuel.”

“Where’d you roost it?”

“About three miles south. Gives us a few minutes of headway should the cavalry come calling.”

Reaching up to rub his forehead with his unmangled left hand, trying to quiet the pulse of pain behind his skull, Tony ground his teeth and asked, “So we, what? Keep moving? That our game plan?”

“Our game plan,” Fury said, taking a fortifying draw from his own coffee, “is to tactically reinforce ourselves. We need backup.”

“Right.” Thumping the table lightly with his open left hand, Tony said in mock sincerity, “Thank God. For a second there, I thought we were sitting ducks.” Laika pushed her nose up under his arm, drawn to the wordless summons. Tony curled his arm around her neck, stroking her shoulder, no hands free to retrieve his coffee. “Well, now, I am much-reassured. All we need is backup.”

A touch witheringly, Fury said, “A little gratitude wouldn’t be misplaced, Stark. Were it not for me, you’d be at _ground zero_. You wouldn’t even be _alive_.”

Heat entered Tony’s voice as he retorted, “Yeah, this is _much_ better. We’re in a hovel in _rural Pennsylvania_. I have a home base with a _Hulk_ and a security system that can’t be hacked.” Swallowing, he did not admit that it had been hacked, once, the old-fashioned way: with boots-on-the-ground. Instead, he shook his head in dismissal and forged ahead. “And don’t give yourself too much credit. You didn’t create this. You didn’t _fix_ this.” He pointed his casted right hand at the reactor, not quite touching it. “Any bystander could have—”

“Any bystander _didn’t_ ,” Fury growled.

Tony narrowed his eyes. “That your bargaining chip? _You owe me, Stark?_ Because I’ll throw you to the wolves myself if you even _try_ it. I got ninety hours in the suit, Nick. Don’t fucking test me.”

Patience snapping, he removed his arm from Laika’s shoulders so he could point his hand at Fury and snap, “You’re the _reason_ anyof this is happening, you sonuvabitch. Your goddamn _Avengers_ initiative, your goddamn _S.H.I.E.L.D_. loyalties—you couldn’t have left us alone, could you? Would it have killed you? Would it have goddamn killed you? Because _this_? Is going to kill us.” 

Breathing in deeply, dizzy with the force of his own anger, Tony reminded lowly, “And I still haven’t decided if I even _want_ you within a hundred-mile radius.” Emphatically, he jerked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing out, “You’re lucky your fucking chemistry experiment didn’t kill him. Because I swear to God, Nick, if he dies, I’m blaming _you_ , and you do _not_ want to know what I will do to you.”

Fury watched him with such implacable, unrufflable anger that Tony actually shrank from it, sitting back down in the seat he had somehow climbed out of, looping his arm around Laika’s neck and shoulders, feeling a shaking, shuddering something building in his chest. It didn’t feel like panic; it felt like _dread_ , the certainty that they were running from an organization that made a living hunting down moles in hard-to-find places.

“What’d you do with him?” he asked suddenly, his voice flat, colorless. “The mole. You feed him to the bird?”

Looking supremely past the point of patience, Fury nevertheless responded patiently: “It’s not a dungeon. Last I checked, he was alive and well.”

“How long?” Tony mused, following the path so he didn’t have to confront the shaking feeling trembling down to his palms. “When do you think his usefulness expires? Can’t imagine he’s got any state secrets you want to pry out of him.”

Fury was silent.

“S.H.I.E.L.D.’s catch-and-release program,” Tony babbled, lowering his right hand from the table so it didn’t rattle audibly against it, “not exactly stellar, is it?”

Again, Fury said nothing. Tony decided to outlast him. Deciding she was no longer needed, Laika retreated to Steve’s room.

A full three minutes passed before the man with seemingly endless patience conceded, “We’ve had certain prisoners for eight years.”

The thought of being at _S.H.I.E.L.D.’s_ mercy for eight years made Tony shudder. But then he couldn’t stop shaking, little shivers of turmoil, of unspoken, unquantifiable emotion. He swallowed and managed, “That the lifespan of a S.H.I.E.L.D. POW? Eight years?”

“Some reform,” was all Fury would permit.

Another painfully long silence passed between them. The analog on the wall ticked past sixty seconds. Finally, Tony gulped the last of his cooling coffee, exhaled, then said slowly, “We can’t be enemies.”

Fury shook his head mutely. He, too, took another sip of his coffee. 

Rubbing Laika’s shoulder, Tony insisted, “If we don’t work together, we’re dead.” He inhaled slowly, patting Laika one last time before pushing back his chair, needing to _do_ something, feeling like he was going to melt through his own skin, wired, if he stayed still. “What’s our move here?” he asked, standing rigidly, a mockery of at attention, all his energy focused inward, still. “You got an ace up your sleeves? ‘Cause I’m a genius, but I’m not going to wade back into a pool full of sharks without a game plan.”

“Barton has a place in Iowa,” Fury went on calmly. Tony blinked, surprised. “It’s completely off-the-record. Not even Pierce knows about it. It’s—”

A firm knock came on the outermost door.

Seated across him, Tony flicked a glance at Fury, who lowered his cup of cold coffee, soundlessly setting it on the table.

Sliding his own chair back noiselessly, Tony thumbed the metal bracelet on his left wrist. He stood encased in metal in six-point-eight seconds. His right hand was useless, but the suit didn’t need a flesh structure to work, so he had J.A.R.V.I.S. activate the repulsor on the palm with a mutter of _Psi-2, J_.

He could clearly see a human figure on the infrared standing behind the door. They didn’t appear armed, but it was hard to read a cold gun in a cold environment. “State your business,” he called through the door. “Or I shoot.”

Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes replied, “Stark? Let me in.”

Tony blinked. Frozen, he couldn’t make himself lower his hand. “Rhodey?”

“Who else?” Rhodes answered dryly. “Hurry up. It’s freezing out here.”

Reaching for the doorknob with his left hand, Tony turned it in his metal palm 180 degrees, paused, and repeated on an inexplicable instinct, “Rhodey?”

“C’mon, Stark,” Rhodey entreated. There was something . . . something _off_ about his voice, choppy . . . _artificial_. “Let me in. Don’t make me wait all day.”

Slowly, Tony released the doorknob and stepped back in a straight line.

Perhaps it was foolish to ruin a perfectly good door, but he could stand ten feet away and incinerate it without killing anyone behind it. 

He needn’t have worried: the gunmetal-gray suit standing behind the gap had its own repulsor up and lit, as red as its hateful red eyes. A very different voice stated, “You think you can run, Stark?”

Tony shot off a bolt. The supernaturally lean suit tilted inhumanly fast to avoid the blow, firing off its own shot from a low angle that hit Tony like a punch to the gut, flinging him backwards. “You think I can’t _find_ you?” Alexander Pierce repeated caustically, firing off another shot that he caught on his left forearm. It burned like an electric shock—the suit was firing _hot—_ but the blast didn’t cut through the metal. He retaliated with his own blast that the suit, again with preternatural form and speed, deflected.

“You’re a _shell_ ,” Pierce rhapsodized, sweeping in and using a metal hand with stake-like protrusions for fingers to grip onto his own suit, punching into the metal. “Take it off, what are you?” The metal claws began prying at the shoulder plate, the underlying bridges vibrating with the strength of its effort. 

“You’re a _man_ in a _can_ ,” Pierce sneered, pinning him down with the suit’s weight, his artificial claws digging deep, _prying_. “I am _untouchable_.” The rogue Iron Man got the shoulder plate cranked up a quarter of an inch, Tony’s own metal hands clasped around the metal arm, before there was a loud shot, and a burst of mechanical hissing.

The stake-like fingers retreated as the suit ducked a second shot, one of those red eyes now empty, black. It fired a blast at Fury, but he was already around the corner. Tony tackled the suit, bringing it to the ground and ripping its head off in one calculated blow.

A mechanical hissing was the only response as the suit struggled underneath him. A hand full of staked fingers smashed into his armored underbelly, but he’d triple-reinforced the plating. It didn’t get underneath the second skin even as it scrambled blindly towards the arc reactor. 

Keeping the suit pinned to the floor with his own weight, Tony barked, “Alpha-kill 4-5-9-0-8-1!”

With breathtaking speed, the suit transformed from a sleek metal cocoon into a barbed, unforgiving predator. Knife-like protrusions sprung from the elbow joints, the knees, and even the back of the suit. Each one glowed red hot as the interior of the suit dimmed and he jammed his right elbow unforgivingly into the suit’s chest.

It was the unmanned suit’s turn to struggle to escape, releasing its grip on his suit, but it was already too late, metal crumpling, warping. Were it a human, their clothes would have caught fire. Internal organs would have been cooked at a cool 1,000 degrees Celsius.

He leaned his full weight onto his right elbow, driven deep into the chest of the bastardized suit. He listened to metal hiss and crackle sickeningly for almost five minutes, five excruciatingly long minutes, before the final twitch and J.A.R.V.I.S.’s report of, “ _Zero motion detected_ ,” prompted him to grunt:

“Deactivate Alpha-kill.”

“Alpha-kill deactivated.” The same suit that glowed red-hot began to cool as liquid nitrogen cartridges strategically vented cool air around the spikes. He yanked his arm out of the dead metal beast’s chest. He stumbled to his feet.

Keeping his right hand trained on the metal suit, he felt as prickly and volatile as he looked, warning Fury loudly, “You touch me, you’re a fucking dead man.” He meant it more as a friendly reminder than a predatory snarl, but he couldn’t get the edge off as he looked around, ordering J.A.R.V.I.S., “Scan the area, beta, far out as you can reach.”

It took almost two full minutes for J.A.R.V.I.S. to report in. The news was not good: “Beta scan complete. Five infrared signatures detected inside a two-kilometer radius. The nearest is . . . approximately one hundred meters to the east, sir.”

Pivoting, Tony stared at the wood wall, seeing J.A.R.V.I.S.’s dim red marker pop up on the screen. It was getting brighter by the second: moving closer.

He spun in a slow circle and realized what instinct already knew: they’d covered each direction. Unless he could face all four directions at once, his back was devastatingly vulnerable.

 _Only on level ground_.

Flight was out of the question, but: “There a basement to this joint?”

Cryptically, Fury replied, “There can be.” He belted his gun, rumbling, “How many?”

“Five. Closing fast.” Tony was already on the move, stepping back from the inanimate, headless suit on the floor—the gray guts of its fleshless interior was somehow nearly as unpleasant as bloody matter—and saying shortly, “Pull a rabbit out of your hat, we gotta go.”

Reeling as he approached one of the red dots on the screen—J.A.R.V.I.S. warned with almost cheerful obliviousness, “Eighty meters and closing on the nearest target, sir”—Tony kept a cool head as he stepped through the open doorway and said, “All right, buddy, time to go.”

Despite Laika’s warm presence curled up on the blankets next to him, Steve’s heat signature was almost as dim as eighty-and-closing’s. For a moment Tony panicked, crossing the distance quickly as Laika hopped down without prompting, retreating from the suit unsurely. Ignoring her in panic, Tony gripped Steve’s shoulder in his left metal hand and shook it, entreating, “C’mon, up and at ‘em, Rogers, we gotta _go_.” When Steve didn’t even twitch, he wasted seconds ordering, “Give me secondary vitals, J.”

He knew immediately why Steve was cold and unresponsive: his vital signs were abysmal. His normally robust heart beat at a hibernative twelve beats per minute. His respiration and core temperature were similarly tanked. His blood pressure was almost normal, elevated but not fatally, but that was more cause for alarm than relief, given its propensity to lead to a pesky little condition known as cardiac arrest.

Tempted for an irrational moment to zap him back into motion, _we gotta go_ , Tony said instead, “Fine, we’ll do this the hard way.” Thank God he’d already wrapped Steve’s chest and hauled a shirt over him, he thought, hiking him over a shoulder without preamble, very conscious that any pressure on his chest was bad but having zero free hands was decidedly worse with forty-meters-and-closing on its way.

Fury appeared in the doorway, a strange metal baton device in hand. “What’s that?” Tony asked. 

In answer, Fury pointed it at the floor. An eerie blue light filled the room, bathing everything in a supernatural glow as it chewed through wood and dirt. Then Fury flicked the switch off. They both looked down at the steaming mole hole pensively.

“Portable basement,” Fury replied facetiously, nodding at it. Looking at Tony, he frowned, then said, “I’ll go first. Send the dog next, then I’ll get him. You keep the bastards off our tail.”

Before Tony could protest, because what kind of plan was _I’ll get him_ , Fury jumped straight into the portal to the under-earth. He landed a short distance below, maybe eight feet. Tony looked down into the darkness, musing, “Well, the old man isn’t full of the worst ideas.”

It took a few anxious seconds to coax Laika back over, a few more setting Steve back down before he could wrap his metal arms around her and lower her, but she was still and good, not even barking as he nearly folded himself into the hole, warning when he was as far as he could without pitching downward, “Catch.” Releasing her was painful, but there was a soft thump as Fury caught her and then the scratch of claws on dirt as he set her down. Fury warned:

“Hurry up, Stark.”

Tony hated it, almost more than he hated the thought of standing and fighting five Iron Men at once, but he half-lowered, half-shrugged Steve’s limp form to the hole in the ground, slowly as he could. He kept his arm around him, kneeling, until he felt something tug at Steve’s foot, huffing, “Got it?”

In response, Fury tugged Steve’s boot harder. Tony obligingly let go, wincing as he heard an almost comical crashing noise. “Goddamn heavy bastard,” Fury grunted, but he sounded intact. Tony didn’t have time to worry about him: there was a loud whirring sound as one of the abominations kicked its way through the outermost door, drawing his attention briefly to it. It had the same eerily lean proportions and glowing red eyes as its predecessor. It looked just as mean as it held up a glowing red hand.

Tony put up his own glowing white-blue hand automatically to fight it before bailing on that course of action, jerking out of the way from a red blast. Making like a Looney Tunes character instead, he crossed his arms over his chest and leaped into earthen darkness.

His metal soles hit hard dirt. Taking in his surroundings for half a second, he could sense rather than see a branching tunnel to the right, westward bound. He wanted to warn Fury, _there’s another one that way, you bastard!_ but it was a meaningless warning: the suit couldn’t carve through solid earth, after all.

Not that it needed to.

All it had to do was _follow_.

Feeling like the last fox in a foxhole with a swarm bearing down on him, Tony stood with his back against an earthen wall and, both hands in front of him, shot fast, punchy cold bursts at the Iron monster that was worming its way headfirst into the same earthen escape route. It moved with jerky, imprecise movements, made jerkier and less precise with each bolt. 

It was like shooting a fish in a barrel, except this fish didn’t want to die, and then there was another fish, and Tony’s gun hand was beginning to cramp. 

He allowed the blasts to let up.

It was a mistake. In the next instant, he was grappling hand-to-hand with a metal monster and its long, lean, spike-like fingers were busy clawing at his helmet, trying to liberate his head from his shoulders, once and for all.

Thankfully for Tony’s lifespan, the second suit crowded in impatiently. That was a saving grace as, in a split-second instant, the suits turned on each other like piranhas, clashing and tearing and screeching deafeningly. It was awful. It was nature, red in tooth and claw.

Without waiting for them to untangle, Tony shimmied as quickly as he could backwards down the side tunnel. The suits were so vicious that the horrible clanging didn’t ease until one of the suits ripped the other one’s chest open, spilling metal guts like glass onto the earth below, stilling it. Worming his way down the tunnel in a reverse army-crawl, Tony watched the dead machine collapse and the survivor crawl over it.

And then the victor scrambled after him, even more bloodthirsty in the wake of its victory. Tony had a chance to hope against hope that they hadn’t programmed a fucking player-versus-player reward program into the suits, but he could have sworn its eyes glowed redder, its movements more determined with the win under its proverbial belt. Still, it remained clumsy, scraping ruthlessly at the earth, shimmying and clawing and scrambling to get its ungainly body underground, to get in _range_. Tony thought, _To hell with you_ , and unleashed a long blast from six feet away, bathing the suit in killing light.

By the time he let up, the suit was little more than a black charred mass of shapeless metal. Its arched, bloodless body had hunched inward to weather the unweatherable storm, which had the unintentional side effect of blockading the tunnel as the next two insect-like metal suits tried to give chase.

Needing to move faster, to put _distance_ between them, Tony dared to get to hands and knees, pivot, and crawl as fast as he could down the tunnel, following the bends and catching, finally, a glimpse of brilliant blue light at the end of a short tunnel as Fury kept carving up earth. “Pretty cool party trick,” Tony acknowledged graciously.

Fury didn’t respond. Neither did Steve or even Laika, who was following them with her head a low silhouette, trailing as one of Fury’s hands hauled Steve by a fistful of his shirt.

Before Tony could quip again, he yelped as a staked hand suddenly pinned his right foot to the earthy floor by the ankle.

He thought it was what being eaten by a shark would feel like: an incredible pulling sharp, monstrously and devastatingly inescapable force literally hauling him back down the tunnel he had painstakingly climbed. He yelled in furious alarm, in almost giddy rage, because fucking _hell_ if he was going to be eviscerated by his own bastardized creations like a fucking piñata.

No. No. This was _not_ how Tony Stark ended.

Letting himself be dragged like a hapless squid in the vicious maw of the metal monster, he waited until the suit banged clumsily into a sharp corner before rolling as quickly as he could, back to the floor, and laid on the heat.

When he finally relented, it was like looking at a victim from the Vesuvian eruption: the blackened hulk, vaguely humanoid, was dim and lifeless, scorched into its last fatal position, blockading the tunnel.

If he wanted to retreat, he’d have to make his way past three metal corpses into an empty safe house that no longer merited the name.

Choosing instead to put himself in the almost unbearable position of feet to the still beast, he hauled ass out of there.

There were still two metal monsters out there. Tony had no intention to let them catch up or retrace steps, bulling ahead instead. It took a while to find the glowing blue light again. He briefly debated using thrust to cover the last ten meters before crawling that distance, too, huffing with exertion as he closed in. To Fury, he said, “You’re welcome.”

Without bothering to reply, Fury turned the baton skyward, and seconds later, light poured into the space—and liquefied snow.

Fearful of drowning in such a dark, enclosed space, Tony moved the procession along with brisk shooing motions, scooping Laika up like a sheep and passing her off to Fury before picking up Steve and using a short burst of thrust to clear the space.

Desperate for fresh air, Tony lowered his helmet despite the biting cold and breathed in deeply, closing his eyes in ecstatic relief because oh, fucking hell, they were _alive_ , alive was _beautiful_. 

Tony didn’t lower Steve, venting steam from the suit, afraid of adding hypothermia to their list of woes in the frigid air. Fury had had the foresight to snag his jacket, at least. Laika was fine, too, warm in her fur. Tony had the suit; Steve had two shirts, one of which had been repurposed into a sort of wrap, which meant he had one useful shirt on. He wished, ardently, that he’d thought to bundle him in six or seven. He wished very much that he’d done more when he’d had the time.

 _Don’t fuck up again_.

“So,” he prompted, his mouth painfully dry in the cold, exhaustion stabbing deep into his bones as he looked around the little clearing in the forest. “Where to?”

. o .

Tony could have flown them individually to a new destination, but the idea of splitting up was unbearable.

And so, they walked through the woods, an uncountable number of steps back to something resembling civilization.

When they found the lit cabin, Tony wanted to cry, because he’d half-thought that they’d be wandering around rural Pennsylvania until the robots found them and ripped them to pieces. It seemed safe, warm, inviting. Safety was a lie—and he knew, in his heart, that if the suits had found him once, they could find him again—but he hoped their luck would run deep.

Unsure how to proceed without rousing the police of the good county of Montour, Tony and Fury conferred briefly from a good distance out before Fury decided, “I’ll go first. You’ll know when it’s clear.” Then, pointedly, he tucked his gun under his shirt and belt, then unexpectedly removed his eyepatch, revealing a milky blue eye underneath. “People stare,” he explained in a spirit of charitability. “And then they feel bad for staring.” He lofted both eyebrows and Tony looked away, realizing he was doing just that, but Fury allowed, “I’ll take the dog. If that’s all right.”

Adjusting his two-armed grip on Steve—aching absolutely to his bones, covered in a cold sweat compounded by cold stinging air, cold stinging right hand aching where it helped bear Steve’s weight—Tony nodded once. “Be safe. Anything happens to her—”

“You disembowel me.” Whistling once, a soft sound, Fury turned and began the final trek to the front door. Tony melted into the trees, leaning against one for support.

“Hell of a day, huh, big guy?” he grunted, leaning more heavily against it, sliding down it, nearly pinning himself as his spines caught on it. “Retract the claws, J.,” he grunted. J. did. Tony sank to the base of the tree and sighed. “Don’t worry,” he said, a touch insanely, because there were two suits out there hunting them like bloodhounds, hoping to find a scent. They’d done their best to go a roundabout way, but Pierce and his crew wouldn’t give up. S.H.I.E.L.D. made a _living_ hunting down moles. 

This was nothing more than a game to him. It sickened Tony, how completely and utterly reducible their lives were.

“You know, I never trusted that guy,” Tony murmured, resting his cold cheek against the top of Steve’s snow-dusted hair. “I never trusted any of them. Should’ve gone with my gut. Next time, Rogers—next time, I say, _no thank you_ , we turn around, we go to Bora Bora. Tahiti,” he threw out inanely, gathering him closer. “Cancún, Cancún is beautiful. Let’s go to Cancún, okay? Live for me so we can go to Cancún. Asia—Europe. You’ve probably seen almost as much Europe as I have, touring like you did. Let’s nail this bastard to a wall and _go_.” He gave Steve a desperate little squeeze, holding him close to his metal chest and entreating, “Please. Please.”

Steve did not respond. But he breathed, once every twelve seconds. Twelve long seconds. One shallow breath.

Tony closed his eyes, and waited, and repeated just one word, over and over:

 _Please_.

. o .

Former Sergeant Odysseus “Odd” Lewis Reed had a heavy build, a late wife, five cats, and a soft spot for four sad stragglers. He also had a pound of bacon on the stove, a small collection of antique guns, and a head of graying hair. He squinted at Tony like he expected him to change form completely, man or machine, but Tony kept his helmet down and his body armor on, watching Laika sniff at the air deeply, sneezing once. 

Odd eyed her doubtfully, like he thought she might take a bite out of any of the four-legged residents mysteriously appearing around corners, but Laika flopped down in front of the ratty old spring-board couch that Tony painstakingly eased Steve onto, and that was that. “Never thought I’d get to say I’ve hosted the _Avengers_ ,” Odd began sonorously. He spoke like he was telling a story from long ago and had the disposition to match, introducing himself as “former Sergeant Odysseus Lewis Reed—but everybody just calls me _Odd_.”

The smell of breakfast was surreal, contrasting sharply with the stench of burnt metal and icy earth that clung to Tony, Fury, and Steve like a swarm of flies. Odd invited, “You folks are welcome to stay as long as you like, just don’t let any of the cats out, pain in the a—pain in the behind to get back.”

Sick with sobriety, with fear that they were not safe, that Fury’s bird was trackable and there were at least two active threats probably lurching around the forest looking for them, Tony managed, “Awfully kind of you.”

“Yeah, well.” Odd trundled off into the kitchen, bellowing back, “I am a Jesus-loving man, and it would not speak well of me to turn strangers away from my doorstep. ‘Specially strangers who kept those aliens from eating us all. You boys are famous, you know.”

“We know,” Fury allowed, almost dryly. He very, very hesitantly approached the kitchen. Tony didn’t understand why, except that he circumvented an orange tabby seated against the frame. Laika watched the cat unblinkingly. Sitting on the floor with his legs outstretched, Tony rested a metal paw of a hand on her back, _D_ _on’t_. She lowered her head to the floor again with a noise that was almost a whine.

 _No making friends. We can’t stay_.

“You boys hungry?” Odd bellowed. “I got coffee on the pot, too.” 

Tony did not cry, but it was a near thing. Fury, who had made his way into the kitchen, said, “We appreciate your hospitality.”

“Well, I am a Jesus-loving man,” Odd repeated, scraping up a pan of scrambled eggs out of sight. “And the Lord always said, _love thy neighbor as thyself_. And I love bacon, so why would I deprive you boys? Tell you what, we’ll eat and I’ll show you something special, real special.”

They ate. Well: Fury and Odd ate, standing in the kitchen with Odd’s cats filtering in to crunch agreeably on cat nibble while Tony, stomach growling but sick with dread, sat next to Steve, obsessively watching his chest arduously rise before dismally deflating. Odd came by after a time with a bowl of dog kibble and asked, “She hungry?”

Blinking, surprised, Tony stared mutely at him. Odd shrugged and said, “The raccoons can’t get enough of it.”

. o . 

J.A.R.V.I.S. warned, “Proximity warning: nine hundred meters and closing, two signatures from the southeast.”

Grimly, Tony flicked the helmet of the suit up and stood, abandoning his vigil. He looked at Odd and Fury, who were marveling a cannonball that had apparently been made during the Civil War, the latter with perhaps less interest than the former. He elaborated in his metallic voice, “I have to take care of something.”

Fury held his gaze for a long moment as Tony stood rigidly in the suit, very aware of it. It seemed to express things he would not say out loud— _be careful, you’ll die, we need you—_ and Tony couldn’t look at it for long, turning towards the door. To his back, Fury said, “Good luck.”

Strangely emboldened, Tony turned the knob on the door fearlessly, wondering what would happen to Odd and Fury and Steve and Laika and Odd’s five cats if he didn’t come back.

Then he decided it didn’t matter, because he had to come back. He had to.

. o . 

The suits were in rough shape.

They’d been fighting each other, it seemed. They kept glitching, jerking towards each other, stabbing, only to retreat. Tony didn’t know what kind of kill program they’d be set up with, but they seemed utterly oblivious to him as he hovered a thousand feet above them.

He descended to a hundred feet. They didn’t slow down or look up.

At ten feet above their heads, they could have leaped up at him, yanked him down like the great whites they seemed to emulate, killers, brutal, ruthless, effective, but while both suits did look up as the warm current from his heels reached them, neither of them leaped.

Tony knew he could blast one, but then he’d have the other to deal with, so he lingered at the breathtakingly dangerous low altitude, looking between them, wondering why they didn’t fly. He drifted upwards; they both followed him, unblinking, locked on. Finally, he saw one of the suits flex its stake-like fingers toward him. Its companion mirrored it, convergent evolution more than cooperation. Then twin blasts of red light blasted him back.

Reeling, he wasn’t ready when the first suit crashed into his back, shoving upwards, digging its claws into his suit. J.A.R.V.I.S. warned in an approximation of alarm, “Sir, the left shoulder thruster has been—” but he hit the ground hard, nearly crushing the hapless robot under himself in the process. 

But the suit wasn’t dead, writhing frantically while the second shot blast after blast at him, each one repelled harmlessly. It would’ve hurt like hell if there was just one metal skin protecting his real one, but he had three interlocking layers. The first two absorbed the impacts without ever touching him. The suits could bleed themselves dry before they ever reached his skin, no matter how lethal the blasts.

Red wasn’t as hot as white-blue. They would badly burn him; they would not kill him through the armor.

Maybe they didn’t need to, he thought, horrified, as the suit underneath him latched claw-like fingers at the base of his neck, prying, prying. He writhed in a futile attempt to escape and used his heels to _project_ the second suit almost fifty feet away. It didn’t catch itself on air or fly after him, though. He thought, _They can’t fly_ and howled in pain as a blast caught his right hand, enough to make him pull it back, shaking like he’d touched a scalding hot pan.

The Atlas plates held, somehow, even though he could almost feel the suit warping the geometry, locked on target. They were relentless: instead of dynamic actions, parry-jab-thrust, they were ruthless, taking the first opportunity they saw and following it through until the bitter end.

When the second suit fell upon him with its stake-like fingers reaching for the arc reactor, he writhed as energetically as he could, pinned by the suit underneath him. He activated Alpha-kill 4-5-9-0-8-1!

The suit underneath him didn’t scream, didn’t wail in agony as its insides were vaporized, melted, disintegrated, but its grip on his neck and chest, pinning him, loosened. He was effectively impaled against it, but without its constricting pressures, he could grab the suit on top of him, its claws gouging into the metal around the arc reactor, pain like white light washing over Tony in the half-second before he took its head in metal palms and rent it from its shoulders.

The suit froze, its fingers half-impaled in the metal, the only part of the suit that wasn’t triple-layered, _super-insulated_. Tony gasped for a few seconds, feeling the metal warm up as the suit attempted to fire another red blast right into the reactor.

It got off only a weak pulse that was more like being punched than burned. Tony howled in alarm as much as pain at the thought that it would be the straw that broke the camel’s back, but then the suit capitulated as he forced his right hand right through its chest, crushing its metal heart.

Letting his arm flop to his side as the suit hunched forward, lifeless, he let out an exhausted, relieved breath, and closed his eyes, and hid in the darkness for a while.

. o . 

There was a sniffing sound over him. Tony jerked reflexively in surprise, and Laika startled back with a bark. Then Tony heard two voices in the relatively near distance.

Panicking, he tried to sit up, but he was still nearly fused to the dead suit underneath him and half-trapped under the suit on top of him. A thin, desperate sound escaped him, because God fucking _dammit_ , he did not survive just to die to Pierce’s cronies, but then Fury and Odd were there. The brittle hope in Fury’s voice was not imagined as Fury began, “Gonna be real mad if you made us come out in the snow for nothing.”

Summoning the strength for wit, Tony rasped, “You know me so well.”

There was a bark of laughter, followed by a real breath of relief as Fury loomed over him, shoving the suit on top of him over unceremoniously. Its fingers slid out of the metal around the arc reactor harmlessly, its final objective incomplete. Fury added, “Mind retracting the spikes?”

Odd whistled in amazement as Tony obliged. Fury reached down and was hauling him up carefully even as liquid nitrogen steamed around the red-hot blades. He was stronger than he looked, but even he couldn’t quite get four hundred pounds of Iron Man and Tony Stark off the ground; Fury and Odd _could_. The other man was almost bullishly strong as he patted Tony once on the back of his shoulder, avoiding the spikes as he said, “That’s a fine suit.”

Huffing, too worn to articulate his feelings about the suit, Tony leaned into Fury, planting his metal forehead against his shoulder. “Please,” he entreated, only half-joking, “please tell me you only made five.”

Fury’s hands were steadying around his back, skirting the spines arched lethally down the suit’s backbone, his voice approaching comforting as he added, “I only authorized one, Stark.”

Mouth twisted in distaste, Tony said, “I was really hoping for a _yes_.”

Fury squeezed him, almost a hug, the barest pressure that the suit registered. It could’ve been an involuntary movement, but Tony knew it wasn’t. A lump formed in his throat, a mixture of gratitude and despair, because, “We’re so fucked.”

“You’re the Avengers,” Odd reminded, putting a foot on the doubled-over suit and giving it a nudge. It didn’t revive. It would never live again. _Good riddance_. “Can’t be that much odder than aliens, huh?” Then he laughed at his own joke. Tony sighed, then snickered. Even Fury shook for one silent moment in amusement, pulled from him oh-so-reluctantly, and Tony thought, _You’re human, too_.

It was an odd revelation—and that made him snicker harder, maybe hysterical, maybe relieved—but it was something he _arrived_ to, not something he anticipated outright. S.H.I.E.L.D. was cold, ruthless, as deadly as its machines; somehow, he couldn’t fathom real human beings working there, only automatons with human names.

As Fury let him lean on him, all crushing four hundred pounds of him, Tony realized that maybe it wouldn’t kill him to be on the same team, after all.

. o . 

They didn’t quite microwave their cell phones to remove electronic bugs, but they did nearly everything besides.

They ran a fine-toothed comb over every article of clothing while Odd watched a baseball game with an intensity usually bestowed upon museum visits. Tony nearly took the suit down to its nuts-and-bolts looking for bugs. He was too paranoid to feel relieved when he found none. S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn’t had a chance to get its hands on the Mark X, he reminded himself.

 _Good job, buddy_ , he told it, sitting cross-legged on the floor with the deconstructed pieces. A gray tabby cat sat nearby licking her paw and smoothing down an ear. Laika watched her as intently as Odd watched his game, her chin resting on Tony’s knee. He rubbed her ear occasionally for luck, and satisfied himself by compressing the suit to its briefcase form and announcing, “Clean as a whistle.”

Well. It did need a little TLC. His heart hurt thinking about his lab, about his _home_ , and he couldn’t speak for long moments, fingers flexing openly, trying to understand it all, trying to process the damage done to his suit—and to him.

Reflexively, he rubbed the arc reactor. It burned his palm. He grimaced and pulled it back. Fury looked at him, then at the reactor. Tony shook his head, and Fury leaned back in his seat, hands folded, watching the game with feigned interest. Tony could almost see the gears turning, the frustration and uncertainty, the anger and—well, he could be honest, Fury was scared, too. It was subtle, but it was there. Tony wanted to say, _We’re gonna be okay,_ and mean it. But he didn’t want to lie. And he didn’t _know_.

 _We are gonna be okay, right?_ he wanted to beg the future Steve with his silvered hair. (Why was it silver, _what happened to you?_ )

Future Steve wasn't there. Tony untied his shoes and ran fingers over snow-soaked socks for bugs, traces.

They’d already found the most obvious one inside Fury’s phone. Fury’s surprise had been raw; his expression had gone storm-cloud dark before he had crushed the tiny chip and growled, “Alexander” in a way that had meant, _You’re next_.

Tony checked Steve for good measure, because his suit had been bugged once ( _I’m gonna make you a suit, I’m gonna make it goddamn good, goddamn_ better) and paranoia said they’d bugged every article of clothing he wore, but his black pants were untouched. His shirts were both from the clean-room safe-house, uncontaminated. His skin was cold despite the warmth of the room, and Tony knew it would only get worse if he couldn’t get him upright, fuel the serum.

The serum would protect him, keep him alive. It would. Tony believed in it, knew it, could do nothing but believe in it as he sat on the couch next to his feet, watching the game dull-eyed for a few minutes, exhausted to his bones.

His chest hurt, his hand _throbbed_ , his eyes felt like they might actually pop out of his skull with the force of his headache. The hunger in his belly was nauseating. He felt cold and dragged through the earth and battered to within an inch of his life. All he wanted was to sink into his favorite bean-bag chair, drown himself in his favorite coffee roast, and vegetate for a few hours. Then he’d get up, have a long, long shower, eat a real meal, and fall asleep for two days.

And then he’d be fine.

He had to get there, get _home._ It was hard to swallow the longing as he sat in a stranger’s home and yearned for his own, but he had endured worse for far longer.

He got up at some point. Odd was showing him his Civil War cannonball while he made appropriate noises, and then he was sitting at the table chewing on cold bacon while the same gray tabby that had been cleaning its ear sat on his feet. Therefore, he couldn’t move as Odd piled food on his plate like he was a starving boy from a decimated country. He mostly drank, gulping down orange juice like it was the finest liquor in the world, or maybe the tastiest, and finally folding by pushing his plate aside, resting his arms on the table, and pressing his forehead against them.

The tabby on his feet started purring idly. Tony choked out a sound that could’ve been a laugh and made himself move slowly but carefully as he sat up again and then peered under the table. He held out his hand carefully. She sniffed it and then stood up, brushing against his wrist, purring. He was ashamed of how watery his eyes were, so he stayed bent under the table for an uncomfortably long time as the gray tabby brushed up against his leg and then curled up on his feet, rumbling like the world’s smallest motor.

“This is,” he said, without a trace of irony, “the best cat in the entire world.”

“Teton’s a sweetheart,” Odd agreed. “But I like Titus, he’s my boy. My wife, Elena, she picked Teton. Never had kids,” he said, with the charming openness of a stranger to his hero. It was strange, but Tony supposed that was how the public—the percentage that _liked_ the Avengers, anyway—saw them. _Heroes_. “So, we had cats.” With a huff of laughter, he disappeared into the living room, letting out a disappointed groan as his team was denied glory by some organization of fate.

Teton, Titus, Timber, Tanner, and Truth— _We wanted to keep a theme, make it easier to remember, but I call ‘em whatever, they don’t care—_ were intermittent presences. Truth was the most elusive, while Teton and Timber, the orange terror that Fury seemed to actively avoid, were friendly. The normalcy of it all—a family consisting of a man, his five cats, a Civil War cannonball, and his late wife’s memory—was humbling to Tony.

_This is a life._

_A little life. But a good one_.

He could never see himself hanging up the suits, leaving it all behind for good, his robot children and his artificial intelligence that had decided that its favorite color was _blue_ and his countless adventures, all reliant on his titanic stature, on Tony Stark, on _Iron Man—_ he would lose an awfully big part of himself to let it go.

He found his way to Steve’s side. This time, Tony shuffled carefully under his head and shoulders; Laika had taken up her place by his feet, curled up and watching Timber as the orange tabby slept in the sunlight.

He kept his left arm tucked around Steve’s chest protectively, keenly aware of all the damage under the thin layers of clothing, of fractured bones and bloody contusions, of damage he’d inflicted and damaged he’d never seen inflicted before on invincible Captain America. He seemed, slowly, slowly, to breathe more regularly. 

The game was in the twelfth inning before, with a sudden sharp inhale, Steve lurched. Laika hopped down, and Tony let Steve grip his arm like a vice, almost holding his own breath. He knew it was wrong to trust Steve, that his throbbing right hand was emphatic proof that he couldn’t be trusted, but it never even occurred to him to move away.

Steve’s grip loosened. Tony brushed a thumb against his flank and waited, breath shallow but heart pounding in his chest, but Steve didn’t wake, his grip on Tony’s arm going limp. He shivered, though, almost hard enough to make Tony’s arm buzz with it, warming himself up, fending off cold, he didn’t know, but he hauled the thin afghan blanket off the back of the couch and tucked it over him.

A second materialized, even though Fury never said a word. Tony wondered about a different time and place, a cold working world and a man who actually cared about the people in it, enough to find a spare blanket, enough to express compassion towards a man who, according to legend, never needed it.

The lump in his throat hurt. His heart hurt. His right hand _hurt_.

But every inch of him pressed against Steve was warmer, softer, like hope bled between them.

They didn’t have time, he knew. Pennsylvania and Iowa weren’t near, but Pennsylvania and New York were all too close: if they didn’t make the journey soon, they’d never make the journey. It seemed abruptly obvious that they were being driven away, that if they dared return, they’d find an army of cyborgs, of his own bastardized creation.

 _They can’t fly_.

It was the only conclusion he could make, given how relentless they were but how adamantly they refused to give chase in the air. They were too lean; there was no room for that much rocket fuel in their narrow build. Nortlu, he suspected, was either an earlier model, where human occupants were entertained as the most efficient method, or a later prototype, a predecessor towards a whole new breed of super-soldiers.

_How do you fight an army with no heart?_

They’d engineer the heart out of them, he knew, stroking his thumb over Steve’s t-shirt gently, listening to his shallow breaths as he shivered. They’d find a way to make the suits so decentralized that you had to destroy them to the microscopic level, or they’d keep coming.

_This has to end._

_Or there’s gonna be one hell of a war_.

The idea that his own genius, his own innovation, had directly contributed to the acceleration of such a feat—of a true _drone—_ made him want to shrivel up and die. Instead, he swallowed hard and sank into the couch, trying to soak in as much of the reprieve as Fury allotted them.

 _You say when_ , he didn’t need to tell Fury, _and we’ll go_.

They’d bought time destroying the first wave of suits. Not much—not much, maybe hours, never days, but he knew they weren’t banking on days, they were banking on having a functional three-man army, and that meant hoping, hoping hard that maybe a short layover would get Steve _moving_.

He didn’t need to be in fighting shape. Tony just couldn’t carry him and kill killer robots at the same time. Neither could Fury.

He had to hope that Steve would get better, because Steve always got better.

 _We’re invincible,_ he reminded Steve, looking at the closed door, imagining a drone standing behind it, with its glowing red eyes, toothpick dimensions, and stakes for fingers—and vowing, emphatically, to kill every last one of them before he let them take this, _this_ peace, the way he felt when Steve was _alive_ , from him.

 _Come and fucking get it_.

. o .

Odd’s team won.

Tony dared to hope it meant something.


	47. RUN AS FAR AND AS HIGH AS YOU CAN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *checks "obligatory unplanned hiatus" off _OMA's_ To Do List*

“I bet you house regret for this one, Stark.”

Feet kicked up on the dashboard of a Tahoe rental, Tony replied in an undertone, “What makes you say that?”

Looking out the snowy windshield, Fury drove in silence for a time. Then he explained, “You were pretty comfortable before we came into your life. World was your oyster.” He flicked an unreadable glance in Tony’s direction. “And, if you so coveted it, you could’ve been a vigilante. Or you could’ve hung up the cape, given up on the whole _super-hero_ thing. Not for everyone.”

Arms folded over his chest, Tony pinned him down with a searching look, but Fury’s body language yielded nothing. He defended quietly, “I’m not hanging up the suit.” Then, firmly, he added, “Vigilantism is expensive.” Recognizing the flimsy excuse for what it was, he shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t have thirty-six hours a day,” he drove home. “I can’t afford to give twenty-four of them to the little guys on the street.”

Abruptly sure that he had failed some sort of personality test in the cloying silence that followed, Tony said tersely, “Let’s swap.”

. o .

“Who do you even think you _are_?” Tony continued waspishly as if they had never stopped talking. It had been two hours since they’d spoken. Fury didn’t flinch, alert even with his only good eye closed.

“Nicholas J. Fury,” he rumbled. “Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.” He didn’t open his eye, but his voice dropped a full octave as he added, “Creator of the Avengers’ Initiative.”

Tony’s shoulders bunched. “Gonna hold that one over our heads for the rest of our lives, aren’t you?”

“I’m not holding _anything_ over your head,” Fury said, a bit of bite in his voice as he looked at Tony. Tony resisted the urge to squirm in his seat, keeping his own eyes on the road as if he couldn’t care less about Fury’s response. “It’s a statement of fact. I created the Avengers’ Initiative. Without me, you’d just be Iron Man.”

Abruptly, that appealed enormously to Tony. _Just Iron Man_. “I want out.” Clipped, certain, unyielding. “I want fucking _out_ , of everything, the second this is over. If S.H.I.E.L.D. survives—and I don’t think it _should_ , but let’s pretend it does—I don’t want anything to do with the _Avengers’ Initiative_. We don’t need it in _writing_.” There was something strong and seated about the statement, a tree that had taken root and would not be moved as he insisted, “We don’t need you.”

Not _anymore_. Not _as much_.

 _We don’t need you_.

He didn’t ask if Fury wanted to drive. He just pulled over at the next rest stop and hopped out. 

Restless, itchy in his own skin, he moved around the back of the SUV and popped the trunk. He scrunched his nose in fond gratitude as Laika sniffed at his face before planting a hand on her barrel chest and pushing her back. “All right,” he assured, patting her on the shoulder and stepping back so she could hop down. They didn’t have a leash on them, but she did have a collar; he curled his left hand around it and told her, “Bud’ khoroshim.” _Be good_. Then he slipped his hand free.

She was the sweetest dog he’d ever met and he trusted her completely as she took off for the sloping snowy hillside adjacent to the main building. There weren’t any other humans or animals around to distract her as she loped off, perfectly content, utterly unaware of the specter of looming death. Standing in the cold, one hip resting against the front of the car as he watched her run, nearly silent from even a short distance, he felt exhaustion shake in his bones.

He was tired: bone-tired, soul-tired. They weren’t even halfway to Iowa. They’d never make it on his own resolve. 

He knew it was mean-spirited to thrust the burden of their predicament on Fury’s shoulders, but that was precisely what he did.

He patted the floor of the trunk. Laika hopped up. He shut the door carefully. He marched around to the side of the car and shuffled in next to Steve, who was still motionless, barely breathing. 

He lifted Steve’s torso and shuffled under his head and shoulders, too sore, too _numb_ to care about his throbbing right hand, still trapped in its plaster mold. With Steve's weight on him, something clicked in his chest, a feeling of relief, of shivery unstillness put to rest, of safety utterly at odds with reality. He curled an arm around Steve’s chest, grounding himself, and tucked his chin against his own shoulder, shutting his eyes.

Reality dissolved.

. o .

He awoke, abruptly and unsettlingly, exactly where he’d started.

Eyes closed, he heard the trunk open. He heard clicking claws, a short bark. He forced impossibly heavy eyes open. It took another monumental effort to shuffle to a more upright position, having slumped nearly into the well between the front seats and the back. Groaning, he managed to shuffle out from underneath the warm weight on top of his right leg and stumble drunkenly out of the car.

Standing just outside the door, he found himself paralyzed with fear, unable to move. Irrationally, he expected to be taken away, snatched in the middle of the premature night by zombies or aliens. Or maybe something more mundane and more monstrous for it, creatures that decided their loyalties to humanity. Nothing came: he was alone, shivering in the cold, stuffing his bare left hand into his oversized jacket pocket.

Odd had insisted on topping off their meager supplies made more meager from their brisk flight from the not-so-safe safe-house. Fury had insisted that he was well enough with his own jacket, but he accepted a pair of thick gloves at Odd’s insistence. Tony had accepted a jacket with wordless appreciation, clasping Odd’s hand firmly and promising silently, _We make it through this? I’ll give it back_. Hell, he hoped the jacket would make its way back into Odd’s hands even if he didn’t make it through. It was a nice down coat. While the cold stung his exposed face, it couldn’t touch his torso.

Couldn’t touch the arc reactor. 

He settled his own gloved hand over it, a fractional moment that fractured when Fury greeted, “Welcome to Ohio.”

Swiveling on his heel to face Fury—who was sipping from a fresh cup of take-out coffee—Tony snarked, “Fuck off.”

Rolling his eyes, Fury said, “For a second, I thought you’d died, too.”

Tony’s gaze jerked back to the sole passenger, but he saw Steve’s chest move. He resisted the urge to bunch up a snowball and chuck it at Fury’s head. “Don’t fucking jinx it,” was all he said, stalking off to find Laika.

It was gratifying, how quickly she abandoned a squirrel in a tree for him, racing across the snow like it was the best day ever.

 _If only_.

He drove. If only to keep his mind off things.

. o .

Of three-hundred-odd American astronauts, twenty-four hailed from the buckeye state.

 _A proud heritage_ , Tony thought.

. o .

Among three-hundred-odd American astronauts, twelve were Hoosiers.

He tried to imagine being both a Hoosier and an astronaut, belonging to a culture that could sustain both, and failed.

. o .

_I’ll always be a Yank_ , he thought, staring out the window at midnight-dark Illinois, birthplace of fourteen astronauts.

The slot for thirtieth-New-Yorker-in-space was still available.

 _Up for grabs,_ he thought, half-serious.

Tony Stark: genius, billionaire, astronaut.

. o .

Ninety thousand feet off the ground, Tony floated on his back.

Listening to the buzz of noiseless space around him, he thought, _I’m free_.

He was. Up top, he was untouchable. 

A heat-seeking missile might land a mark, but the suit was its own fortress. It was designed to take anything the market could dish out and bite back harder. Short of launching an actual nuke at _him_ , once he was above 60k, he was home-free. 

Too low for the astronauts to haul aboard; too high for the earthlings to bring down. 

He wasn’t merely above the law; he was literally above its perimeters.

And yet, where a year before he might have taken his chances—free-floating, a sub-astronaut adrift in a kind of under-space, landing somewhere obscure and starting anew—he felt only a twisting in his gut now at the _thought_ of running away. 

He couldn’t abandon his family. They’d fight without him; he knew that. The bastards would never quit. He hated that he, himself, would never quit, either, never content to let war rage unfettered. 

He _could run_. That was the crux of the problem, the poison of his own reality: he could _run_ , it was an _option_. No one could force him to the ground, not unless they shot him down. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about extradition and tribunals. 

He was free now—and he could be free forever, if he so chose.

And yet . . . there was no joy in it, no sense of reprieve. It felt heavy, cancerous, a way out that would never let him un-live it. It was lonely up here. 

It was cold, too—lethally cold. Without the thick metal skin to protect him, his fragile bio-skin would freeze, flake, disintegrate. He was nothing against nature. He was a collection of shivering atoms, desperate to be alive, and that was it. Pulverize him, and those shivering atoms would drift apart. The world would keep spinning.

Above all, it was empty. The emptiness was soothing; the emptiness was devastating. There was no world up here. It was a true no-man’s-land up here.

Rolling over to put his belly to the ground, Tony looked down at the floor of the world, searching for signs of human life. It was too far down. From the perspective of an extraterrestrial, there was nothing but empty land with starbursts of light scattered around. It was a bio-luminescent, uninhabited world, ripe for conquest.

But it was full of unseen terrans. Lifeforms who could, unaided, attain heights of thirty-thousand feet. His metal suit launched him three times higher. 

Idly, he somersaulted, the perfect balance of the suit making the air around him feel like liquid plasma. It wasn’t air up here; it wasn’t water or earth. It was fire, atoms shivering, pushing against each other, wheezing to stay above the ground for more than a few seconds.

If he let go, if he stopped straining to fly, he’d drop like a stone until he hit a cushion of air. Then he’d keep dropping at a slightly reduced speed, like a bowling ball in a friction-full vacuum.

Even afloat, he could focus in on the continuous thrust from the suit’s plates, four points to hover, three points to fly. That was the flaw with the early suits: they only took into account one point, _upwards_. He needed three-point stability—upwards, forwards, backwards—or he’d pitch, he’d roll, he’d flail. With two-points dedicated to keeping him level, he could float on his back for hours without a thought. 

Three points, he could fly. Four: he could balance in one place, indefinitely.

The Mark X couldn’t tell him what it needed to hover. None of the suits had ever spoken wisdom into his ear, informing him that if he angled the thrusters like _so_ , he could attain more maneuverability. None of them had ever warned him about catastrophic somersaulting or acceleration hangovers. They were mute and strong and everything he asked them to be, nothing more.

_Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?_

There was a time when those had been fighting words.

Now, the reaction they inspired was neither fondness nor exasperation— _still think it’s just the suit?_

_Steve blinked a comical number of times in three seconds, then said, “Right.”  
_

_Still lounging on the lab couch in his undersuit, Tony returned his gaze to his tablet very deliberately. “Really, Steve, I thought we’d grown past that,” he teased, heart beating faster in his chest at the sound of the door swishing open, Steve’s back to him._

_Steve didn’t turn around, but he did say, “You know what, Stark?” His tone of voice was utterly unreadable._

_Later, Tony would ask J.A.R.V.I.S. to play it back, because he was particular like that. He still couldn’t figure it out. Retrospectively, maybe it was unsurety, an emotion so foreign to Captain America he couldn’t entertain it.  
_

_They’d only_ _known each other for, what, five weeks? Could you even be friends with a guy you’d only known five weeks?_

_In a very different tone, staunch and familiar and practically bleeding patriotism, Captain America announced, “Team wants to get dinner together. Told ‘em it’s not a team without Tony Stark.”_

—Tony felt the floor drop out of his world, even as he hovered in space, perfectly level, the memory dragging him down like its own gravity. It had been . . . six days, maybe seven, since they’d forcibly hauled Steve Rogers out of the Kunar Province of Afghanistan. Six days of waiting for a bomb to explode, a grenade that wasn’t going to go off because everyone involved had crossed-their-hearts-and-hoped-to-die about it.

_“If this gets out—”  
_

_Leaning against the counter, far too late to be awake, Steve said, “It won’t.”  
_

_Tony frowned, arms folded over his chest, insisting, “If this gets out, we need a story.” Finally, Steve looked at him, but his eyes were dark as the room around him, shuttered. Offering nothing. “A lie, Rogers,” he elaborated, because apparently team bonding meant nothing outside the facility it took place in. At least he fought fairer with a belly full of food, Tony thought._

_Steve was tense and unhappy and he voiced it as he sighed and said, “No. No lies.” He turned fully to face Tony. Even from across the darkened room, Tony felt the threat of it, wondering if he could actually get through the door behind him before Steve was there. He had the element of surprise—there was no way Steve was_ expecting _him to bolt, his body language oddly relaxed, like he’d found peace with something—and he could go._

 _He stepped further into the room and insisted, “Ca—Rogers. Steve.” And then he made a mistake: “I know it’s in your D-N-fucking-A to be a martyr, but if we don’t make a cover story, one that makes you look like the hero I know you were_ trying _to be, they’ll crucify you.” He took another step forward, even though Steve had tensed, insisting fearlessly, “No, you don’t get it, do you? We stay on top of this,_ _we’ll see the other side. You think you’re the only one who will get hurt if this goes bad?”  
_

 _He was close enough to Steve draw in a long, shallow breath. For a terrible second, Tony heard the alternative in the silence between them:_ Then cut me loose. Don’t let me poison the water. _  
_

_Instead, Steve said levelly, “All right, Stark.” Looking down for a moment, he met Tony’s gaze without holding his head quite as high and insisting, “Tony. We’ll do it your way.” A beat. Steve didn’t even blink as he added, “No one’s gonna get hurt.”  
_

Tony swallowed hard, shoving down a dozen conversations clamoring for the spotlight, to be lived while there was time for them to _matter_. 

He remembered them, all of them. He’d seen Steve Rogers. A man who’d grown up in the twenties and cursed like profanities were half-off and going out-of-stock. Who wouldn’t lift a hand to hurt a fly but would rise to righteous anger over the slightest infraction. He was the quintessential opposite of a futurist: he didn’t believe in _thinking ahead_ , backed away from questions about where he saw himself in ten years, seemed completely content to do and do it now rather than invest in any kind of tomorrow.

And he wasn’t a genius, in any sense—but he didn’t need to be. He was the most _engaged_ person Tony had ever met. He didn’t stare off into space, looking for a distraction, distancing himself from the present with visions of _later_ and _after_ and _then_. He listened with an intentness that almost felt phony, like nobody could _really_ care about what you, a stranger, an other, a _not-me_ , had to say. He made Tony feel like even his stupid ideas were kind of fun and they actually could be, given a chance to live outside his own head.

There was little about Steve Rogers that was overtly _engaging—_ he rarely asked to be the center of attention, never offered more to a conversation more than he needed to, always mediated, rarely participated—but his attention was electrifying. He could stare down his enemies and make seasoned politicians uncomfortable; and he had nothing but honest interest in children and their stories, even though he frowned sternly at Tony like he’d made a tasteless joke at even the suggestion of a wife and kids and a white-picket fence.

He didn’t even know what _he_ wanted from a future—except of course he did. He had a million ideas about it; at least half of them involved a certain spangly righteous _love-him-till-the-day-I-die_ asshole that America adored almost as much as he did. 

Because America didn’t _know_ him; they would never _know_ him. The only way anybody could understand Steven Grant Rogers was to literally live with him, to understand that he didn’t have an off-switch for his public persona so he avoided the public, too honest for their generation to contend with, a diehard patriot in a time when patriotism was in flux, when it seemed with every new bit of _here and now_ news his golden colors faded. There was a time when Tony might have even relished it, the cowing, the _humbling_ of the great Captain America, brought down not by Nazi fire but by the Roman cannibalism of his own country.

_Do you still love your country?_

_“That a trick question?” Steve popped the cap off his Coke bottle and held the open bottle in hand for a long moment, watching Tony, eyes narrowed. Then, with a measured shrug, he said, “I’m loyal to . . . Uncle Sam and whatever he stands for. Life. Liberty. Pursuit of happiness.” He took a long gulp of his drink, then amended thoughtfully, “But if Uncle Sam strays, well—my time, when your brother strayed from his values, you tried to bring him back, show him what was right, see, what was decent. Remind him, he’s got a family, he’s got a life—he’s gotta look after it. You don’t turn him out to dry, not till there’s nothing left to do. You look after your own.” Eyes alight, a rare burst of sincerity in a long spell of near unbroken silence, he added still more fervently, “This country goes to rot, Tony, we stick with it, we_ fix _it, dammit, we don’t—we don’t give up on family.”  
_

_“And if it can’t be fixed?”  
_

_Steve didn’t respond for a long moment, draining his bottle dry and setting it down. Nodding once, he allowed, “World map looked a lot different when I went under. We fight for what’s right till there’s no further to go. And then we—start over_.”

. o .

_Still carrying his father over his shoulders, Steve Rogers blinked, stumbled, and broke through the floor of the world._

_He landed in a trench full of Army rats._

_Wrong time, he thought, his entire chest full of molten lead, burning, imploring, tightening, reshaping, but their uniforms were like his father’s, real as he was in this strange dark world. Hollow-eyed men, covered in mud and blood and bandaged sores, nailed to the walls with their guns at the ready, looked at him with flat, mistrusting, unusually dark eyes. He backed away from them, but the tunnel wasn’t wide; he jerked in surprise when a cold hand clasped the back of his arm, a sibilant voice entreating, “Help . . . me.”_

_Stepping forward, wrenching free, Steve tightened his grip around his father and marched purposefully down the open tunnel, ducking under an improvised crosswalk, navigating a sea of dead-eyed soldiers watching him like he was a pile full of marrow. Cold, clawed hands grazed his arm as he passed; he grimaced and pulled away from them. He didn’t know why he could stop and save his father, the man who refused to be saved, when he could ignore them all, the hungry, starving, black-eyed_ wolves _._

 _And that was what they were, all of them. There was something wolfish in their leaning postures, their fraying humanity, like a fairy tale, moonless, dark eyes_ , the better to see you with _, following him everywhere, calculating how much food was on his bones, how much food could be cracked out of them. He didn’t dare blink, didn’t dare take his eyes off of them, even as his eyes started to burn fiendishly, an acrid smell making them water. He swiveled his head back and forth in open paranoia, keeping them in his sight-line to keep them in_ line _._ _He wanted to tell them,_ You can’t have this _, his grip almost bone-crushing on his father’s arm and leg,_ This is mine; this is my father.

_Damn him if he’d slow down, or blink, or let either of them succumb._

_The officer looked just as bleak and hollow-eyed and vacantly hungry as the others, licking his chops as he sighted the fresh kill hanging over his shoulders. Suddenly, alarmingly, Steve realized it_ was _a fresh kill, not a man at all but an animal. He dumped the doe unceremoniously on the dirt in front of Lieutenant Brannigan, his own commanding officer, as out-of-place in this hell as he was.  
_

_“Well,” the Lieutenant said, his aide licking his own lips hopefully, gaze pinned on the carcass on the ground, bony white hands reaching for it, “not just a show-boy, are you? Find us a hundred more, and we might just pull through this war.”_

_It didn’t matter that it was one and not a hundred more: the doe was a feast. They didn’t even cook the damn thing, descending on it, a pack that frothed and foamed and_ hungered _, pressing in like a wave. His only option was to flee up and out, so he did, fleeing the carnage, the bloodless, anguished fight for simple animal survival.  
_

_He crawled belly to the ground out of the tunnel, flinching at a loud crack nearby, frozen by the snapping of bones and the vacant despairing cries of the hungry, aware that the meat was already gone and they wanted more, a single doe to feed a hundred men with rations running low was never going to be enough.  
_

_They had been civil in life, but there was something wrong with this life, something sideways. They were animals in their hunger, animals in their despair. He felt a tug on his boot and nearly panicked, but he could do nothing, frozen elbow-deep in mud, until a warm, firm hand clamped his shoulder and hauled him forward, headfirst, tumbling, into another dark trench, he went._

_He landed in an awkward pile on top of guns and ammo and struggled back to his feet.  
_

_“Now, see, you shouldn’t mess with those boys, they’re mean,” old Joe,_ old Joe _, was saying, hauling him forcibly upright, dusting him off with heavy hands, hale and hearty as a photograph, uninjured. “Stay outta the Army, kid, it’ll boil you for dinner when dinner runs out.”  
_

 _Steve reeled at the sight of him, the solidity, one leg bandaged but planted firmly on the ground. He nearly lost his footing altogether at a hard thump to the side of his head, an overly-friendly cuff that made his vision flash white, his ears ring, a camera-flash in a darkening world._ _“See, I told you we’d pull through. You’re my son, ain’tcha? Gotta carry on the family name, make something of it.”_

_Shaking his head, a head without a thought in it, he drank in his father’s wholeness, wellness, his eyes bright and brilliant blue, bluer than a monochrome photograph could ever hope to capture. Finally, breathlessly, he asked, “How’d you survive?”  
_

_Old Joe shook his head. He smirked at Steve and it wasn’t like Steve’s smile at all, too crooked, a long sharp slant that did not conceal the disapproval in his tone as he said, “I didn’t.”  
_

_There was a distant sound, muted, dissonant, at odds with whatever it was trying to be. An indiscernible noise, like a cannon firing underneath the roar of screams and gunfire and dying men. Old Joe looked towards the distant sound briefly, contemplatively, then fixed his gaze back on Steve. The rumbling noisy cacophony grew louder. The hairs on Steve’s arms and neck stood up.  
_

_Slowly, old Joe’s smirk unfurled, flattened. Less slowly, old Joe asked, “If you had to choose—would you choose to live a second time?”  
_

_And then old Joe took a moment to plant both feet adamantly. He smiled and said, “This is my choice. I’m not going home, boy. Not this time.”_

_There was no wall of water, no rushing tide, nothing to warn them what was really coming. One moment, they stood on level, flat, muddy ground, seven feet below the surface; the next, ice-black, ink-cold water collapsed over them._

_He clung to old Joe’s sleeve, tried to drag him closer, away, anywhere but here, but the man was a statue, unmoving. He tried to get leverage to pull, but there was nothing to grasp. The mud under his feet wouldn’t let him dig in, just pulled him down. He gripped his father’s sleeve and felt old Joe holding on, tightly, so tightly his own hands were shaking._

Surface, _he thought frantically. It wasn’t far at all. He pulled harder but could not gain an inch._

_Then Old Joe squeezed his wrist, bone-crushingly hard. He felt anguish burn in his chest as the grip loosened. He could not mold his own fingers—numb in the ice-cold, ink-black water—around his sleeve more firmly. First, his grip loosened; and then, in an undrawn breath, it vanished altogether._

_He tried to swallow, tried so hard to reclaim his grip, but it was gone, and so was old Joe._

_Chest burning, heavy, molten, he lunged upright and broke the surface._

_The current was easier, gentler, and punishingly cold. On instinct, he tried to duck below again, feeling around with absolutely numb fingers for his quarry, heart pounding sluggishly in alarm, a gong-beat that hurt for how heavy it was._ Pa, _he thought. Finally, he managed to throw himself under the water and was immediately frozen in place again, the strength of the current abominable, overpowering._

_He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see a damn thing, couldn’t possibly search, but he tried until cold water trickled in his mouth and then he skittered upwards, a drowned rat desperately searching for safety._

_Some greater inner force compelled him to kick to the side of the flooded trench, the impossible river formed in the dead of summer, but it wasn’t summer, it was Arctic cold. He could hear, from a surprisingly great distance for two visible feet, encouraging cries on the shore._ C’mon, Cap! No time for cuttin’ around! We got a war to win!

_The water, still frigid, changed character, shifting with the memory of a rare opportunity to take an ice-cold dip in a fresh river, to wash the grime of war off, to feel for a few brief moments utterly human. He was lucky, too, because the serum kept him warm enough that even cold water was tolerable, or at least more bearable. Gasping for breath, he pawed and clawed and finally dragged himself out of the river, landing on a grassy shore with an explosive breath.  
_

_Breathing hard, he struggled further out of the water at the encouraging call of distant conversational voices—_ Let’s go, Cap; daylight’s wastin’!— _and managed to plant himself on trembling legs, reeling at the shock of it, being warm,_ alive _._

_“Hey, there he is,” Gabe Jones greeted, tossing a scratchy wool blanket over his head. Numbly, he dragged it down, curling it around his shoulders. Blinking once slowly, he tried the world into focus as they stood at river’s edge, frowning thoughtfully at Gabe, who beamed back. “Knew you’d come back, Cap. Always do. We still got a war to win, don’t we?”_

_“Eh,” Dum Dum Dugan grunted, materializing a dozen yards away, chewing on an unlit cigar, “you know him. Worst sort of slacker. Never worked a day in his life. Have you, Rogers?” He was smiling around his cigar, though. He tipped his hat as he added, “Good to see y’ again, Cap. These rapscallions were one step away from—”  
_

_“Mutiny,” cut in Jim Morita, clapping him on the shoulder with a big gentle paw of a hand, steering him after Dum Dum and Gabe, falling into an easy march. “What happened to you?”  
_

_“Isn’t it obvious?” prim and proper James Falsworth pointed out, walking a few paces behind them, closing their insulated pack, roaming the countryside in their thick wool coats. “He’s been to the_ future _.”  
_

_“The future?” Dum Dum asked, turning to look at him and frowning deeply. “Don’t be daft,” he told Falsworth._

_“I’m not_ wrong _,” Falsworth said, still politely. Morita gripped Steve’s shoulder tightly in warning._

_“That’s horseshit,” Morita deadpanned.  
_

_Silent Jacques Dernier finally chimed in in his clipped, quipped French accent: “The future? What kind of nonsense is that? Nobody’s ever been to the future. It doesn’t exist.”_

_The tension broke: muted amusement like laughter, like conversation, filled the space for a moment. Then Dum Dum turned and walked. Steve found himself not following him, turning to look over his shoulder at the black waters and arctic cold._

_“I can’t stay,” he heard himself say. He felt the blanket fall from his shoulders.  
_

_He also felt the desperation in Gabe’s tone as he implored, “Cap, no. Don’t do this. Please.” It twisted inside him, a knife in his gut. He met the man’s eyes and thought,_ You’re dead, too _._

 _All of them were. He looked at them mournfully, aware that no amount of hope had ever turned the hand of time_ backwards _._

_They had to play their part to the finish._

_“Captain, please,” begged Falsworth as Steve took a step in the wrong direction, towards the icy waters.  
_

_“Please,” rejoined Dernier. “Don’t do this, we need you, France, America, the world needs you!”  
_

Yes, _Steve thought, planting one firm foot in front of the other,_ it does _._

_“Rogers,” warned Dum Dum, the last to try. “You do this, there’s no—”  
_

_It didn’t matter what Dum Dum’s last words were; Steve Rogers wasn’t there to hear them._

_Without even an attempt at justification or explanation for his actions, with nothing but a cosmic apology to them all, he leaped back into the water, and fell through reality, shattering the dream._

. o .

_Twenty-four hours ago_.

Clint Barton was. . . .

Well, he was a hell-raiser, that’s what. If there was a brawl, he wanted to be in the middle of it; if there was a storm, he better damn well be near enough to feel the rain. He’d grown up in tornado country, where the stiff, jacket-snatching breeze of a funnel nearby incinerated all rationality, leaving only electrifying mortality in its wake. He never felt half as alive as he did when lightning tried to take him down. He chased that feeling to the ends of the earth, electric, ablaze, relentlessly _alive_.

There weren’t many people alive who ran as hot-blooded as Clinton Francis Barton.

His Mom had always believed that he and Barney were reckless, and she was right. They were. (His Dad? Hell, his Dad was where the reckless _began_ ; Harry had died when Barney and Clint were barely toddlers. It was no _wonder_ Edith Barton frowned so seriously at them as they came home in pieces, grinning ear-to-ear. She had reason to worry. Should’ve worried more, knowing what was to come.)

Barney was Harold’s firstborn son, through and through. He paid a price for it.

Because Charles Bernard Barton was dead. 

Clint was not.

 _Not yet_ , Clint thought, crouched in the rafters, looking down at a scene right out of _Star Wars_. 

Below, in fittingly subdued black garb, stood the Viper himself. The Secretary clearly ran the show, waltzing around the warehouse, full of dozens upon dozens of drones, all lined up neatly in rows. One hand gesticulated freely; with each step, he oozed self-assurance. He paused next to one of the suits; his companion followed suit, shuffling from foot-to-foot. Uneasy.

Clint couldn’t blame him. Even from above, the spectacle was out-sized, daunting. Alexander was the viper who had both a lust and a knack for killing political mongooses, bastards who typically made a living putting down snakes like him. Alexander liked to invite them into his lair and show them around, and if— _when—_ they did something to piss him off, they vanished under mysterious circumstances.

And nobody ever talked about it.

The Viper: the hardest mark on the list, the most ruthless agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. the organization had ever known. His ascension to power had been dynamic, uncanny. He made Fury seem sedate, toothless. 

Twice, Alexander’s direct second-in-commands had died. Ostensibly, it was a terrorist attack that caused the accidents. Alexander was simply lucky to have survived. Everyone had expressed sympathy and the under-secretaries had been promptly and tonelessly replaced. There was no sign of foul play. 

Of course there goddamn wasn’t. A man like Alexander wouldn’t leave _tracks_. 

Even if he had, his sway with the rest of the Council was absolute, enormous. Nobody went up against Alexander Goodwin Pierce and emerged unscathed. 

Best bet: _steer clear_.

Only problem was, Clint had never met a problem he’d run the other way from. 

And he wasn’t called _The Hawk_ for kicks. He was Fury’s eyes-in-the-skies, in charge of keeping him and everyone loyal to him from getting skinned by their enemies. He kept an eye on everything. He didn’t wait for it to hit the fan before leaping into motion. If shit was going down, Clint wanted to _start_ it. In his line of work, you could either take the first shot or take it to the teeth. 

He’d never flinched from taking the first shot.

Crouched in the shadows, Clint wondered, _Alex, what the hell are you up to?_

Scanning the room, he left one hand on his bow, the other grasping the beam. He’d counted ten rows of twenty drones apiece. It was only a small army, but an army, nonetheless; and seeing them laid out there—hell, even Clint admitted unease. They were all lifeless, but one glowed to life abruptly, red-eyed, flexing claws. Pierce’s companion, wisely, eased back a step as the suit upraised a hand, pointing a glowing red palm at him. Pierce spoke in something of an undertone, too far away for Clint’s hearing aids to discern. Didn’t matter; he’d never needed ears to take the shot. He switched them off altogether, plunging the world into pseudo-silence.

 _The better to see you with_ , he thought grimly, notching an arrow.

He watched Pierce, his companion, and their respective bodyguards converse, mediated by the metal monster and its upraised palm. In the silence, he could hear Stark’s message. 

_Coming in cold. We got a tail_.

He’d been at S.H.I.E.L.D. when he got the alert. Good thing, too: they’d put the whole place on lockdown. To make matters worse, there was some sort of hostile loose in the facility putting bodies on the floor. He didn’t have time to contemplate what it all meant because—

Burning red eyes had locked onto him.

A spiked metal hand followed, burning red at the center. All four humans looked up at nearly the same moment, trusting the robot’s intuition. 

Clint tried to evaporate into the shadows, but it was too late. Sighted, he ducked and skittered out of the line of fire as bullets smacked into the metal bars around him. He got his bearings for half a second and fired back. Even seventy feet above them, he could still feel the shivering muffled _boom_ as the dark room lit up briefly.

 _In space, no one can you hear you scream_ , he mused, evaporating into the ventilation. A bullet chewed at his right foot on the way out and he cursed sharply.

Grumbling internally— _what the hell have you gotten us into, Stark?—_ Clint slithered down the ventilation shaft, crawling belly-down like he’d been doing it his whole life. Which wasn’t all that far from the truth. He knew that he was the real mongoose, the one capable of sliding in and out of tight places, of dislocating anything he needed to to get free.

He couldn’t feel either of his thumbs and his left shoulder ached whenever it rained, but at least he’d never been taken for more than three hours. It was a point of pride among S.H.I.E.L.D. agents: how quickly could you escape the nest?

 _Quickly_ , Clint thought dryly, allowing himself a small smile as he punched out a panel with his gloved hand and slithered through the opening, dropping ten feet and landing on his feet with a grunt. He moved like he would get exactly one shot to place his next step. He had to make it count. 

He damn well made it count.

. o .

_Present_.

A firm knock on the door drew Tony’s gaze to it. 

He didn’t bother drawing straws with Fury, holding up his right hand in concession and getting up to answer it. They’d been settled less than an hour in the farmhouse and he was fully prepared to take on however many drones he needed to keep the high ground. 

_I’m not running from you_.

“Well,” Clint Barton said, standing on the porch of his own barnhouse and giving Tony a firm hug at odds with his frown. “I’d ask _what the fuck_ , but judging by your text, I’d say you already know.” He looked over Tony’s shoulder at Fury, letting out a terse breath. “You know, somehow, chief, I’d hoped this hadn’t gotten to you, too. Woulda been nice to have someone high in the inside.”

Tony didn’t need to see Fury’s grimace to sense it. Clint seemed to pick up on the mood as he added seriously, “Where’s Natasha?”

Tony could not be more still, standing in place, but he still shut his eyes in despair, articulating, “I hoped she was with you.”

There was steel in Clint’s voice as he retorted, “I thought she was with _you_ , Stark. You skipped town and—what? Where the hell is everyone?”

A voice Tony hadn’t expected to hear replied in a welcoming rumble, “She’s underground.” Tony blinked and whirled, staring at Steve Rogers, in the flesh. 

He’d replaced the grim sight of his own bandaged torso with a gray t-shirt that hugged it close enough to reveal their presence; Clint’s, probably. With black-tact pants hiding any other wounds, he looked untouched—ruffled, but well. He held Clint’s gaze a moment longer over Tony’s shoulder before meeting Tony’s eyes, something soft and sorry in them as he added, “I’m sorry. This is on me.”

“Can’t wait to hear how,” Clint huffed, planting both hands on the back of Tony’s arms and nudging him aside so he could actually step into the house. 

Tony blinked once. Then he managed, “Really? Martyrdom? _That’s_ our approach?”

The soft, sorry thing morphed into concern, raw and too honest. “Are you okay?” Steve dared to ask, his voice normal, firm.

Tony managed, “You’re an asshole.” Then he hugged Steve hard enough it probably hurt both of them.

He clung to Steve, feeling like the sun had come up on a night that wasn’t ending. “I missed you,” he muttered against Steve's shoulder. “Don’t do that to me.” He meant to follow up with a smart quip, _I_ _t ages me and you know I’m too beautiful for gray hair_ , and Steve would say something dumb like, _You’d make a great silver fox, Tony_. He had to let out a noisy huff that wasn’t quite a laugh or a strangled sob. Goddammit. 

“Can you two fuck off?” he asked the assembly and without question or argument, Fury and Clint made themselves scarce.

A long beat passed. Then Laika’s tail bapped Tony’s leg gently. Tony sighed. He felt like his soul was leaving his body as he slumped against Steve’s chest. “Goddammit, Rogers,” he told him, struggling to pull himself back enough to look him in the eye. He _needed_ to look him in the eye. Steve’s gaze was blue and crystal clear. He regarded Tony very somberly, like _he_ was the one who had almost died. 

_I mean, on a technicality_ , Tony thought.

Tony shivered and pressed as close to him as he dared again, exhaling harshly. “You scared the shit out of me, you know that?” he said, voice not _seething_ but near it. He couldn’t help it. Lying around Steve was an exercise in futility; he couldn’t bottle up his feelings neatly if he wanted to.

Steve exhaled overhead. Tony didn’t know when he’d ducked under his chin, but it felt safe there. And then the four scariest words he’d ever heard leave Steve’s mouth flipped his world upside-down: “I need your help.”

A switch labeled _Get your shit together_ flicked on and Tony surprised himself at how effortlessly solicitous he could be despite the maelstrom of feelings churning inside him. Without being asked, he stepped back, curving an arm around Steve’s back as Steve slumped before straightening and moving stiffly over to the couch. Tony stayed by his side, heart beating fast in his chest, helping him settle. He stood with his own hands fluttering helplessly. “What do you need?” he prompted.

Steve shut his eyes, painfully pale. Then he opened them and looked up at Tony, a hint of a grimace occluding an otherwise bright smile. It faded fast, replaced with a firm jaw that hid everything. Tony thought, _That’s not fair_ , but Steve was surprisingly honest as he replied, “Water. Please.”

Water. _Water_. Idiot, Tony berated himself. The poor bastard had been unconscious for the better part of a _day_ and the serum was needier than a dying elephant in a desert. _Colorful_ , Tony congratulated himself. Without fanfare, he slipped behind the same curtain as Steve, finding a place of calm in _normalcy_ , no matter how staged.

Staged normalcy, it turned out, felt oddly like the real thing. Clint kept the place well-stocked despite its abandoned demeanor. He found—he couldn’t believe it, but he found a stash of Captain Crunch cereal, and more than one box of Poptarts, and was going to have a positively delightful time with the blackmail when he noticed a piece of paper on top of the fridge.

Leaning up on tiptoe to examine it without touching it, he blinked in surprise at a child’s drawing of a red and black figure holding a hammer. WE LOVE THOR, read the signature in sloppy red crayon, followed by, LOVE, LILA AND COOPER.

Blinking several times in quick succession, Tony flattened on his feet. Then he shook his head to himself and returned to the living room, where Steve was stroking one of Laika’s black-and-white ears, eyes still closed but voice firm as he asked, “Where are we?”

Passing him a water bottle, Tony shrugged. “No clue,” he admitted. Steve glanced up at him. He shrugged again and folded his arms over his chest. He didn't care that his cast was still in the way. “What? I didn’t ask. Fury didn’t tell.” Steve broke the seal on the water bottle and drank. He watched Tony, radiating curiosity and scarcely concealed surprise at the non-answer. “Somewhere in Iowa,” he offered defensively.

Steve finished the bottle. Tony disappeared to refill it and returned, offering, “It’s Friday.” Steve didn’t choke, didn’t flinch at all, but his eyebrows knitted as he drank uninterrupted. “We’ve been on the run for . . . three days? Give or take? Gets a little muddled in the middle.”

Settling into a sort of rhythm, Tony added on his third circuit, “We’re not dead yet. That’s a plus. Which reminds me.” He drifted off and returned with four full bottles of water wedged between his right arm and his side. Steve freed them and grunted as Tony wedged himself into the place between him and the arm of the couch. Insistently, Tony asked, “What the hell happened?”

This time, it felt more like Steve was consciously avoiding the question as he cracked open the seal on the second bottle slowly. He breathed evenly, but there was new tension in his shoulders. The silence felt more deliberate. “Rogers,” Tony growled.

Exhaling, Steve finished off the bottle in one elongated draw before setting it on his other side. He frowned thoughtfully, working his jaw like he would say one thing before deciding in a diplomatic tone, “I don’t know.” He looked at Tony before returning to the third bottle, only making it partway through before he paused and lowered it, all very deliberately. Slowly, somehow more raggedly for its quiet strength, Steve repeated, “I don’t know. Never happened before.” Almost moodily, he returned to the bottle, like it contained a poison strong enough to numb the words. He finished it off with a grimace and added, “Well. Once.”

Tony knew it was a good time to prod him with a stick, to insist on answers, but he found patience instead. He sank deeper into Steve's side. He could feel the tremor underneath the sweater. It scared him, almost as much as _I need your help_. 

_C’mon, big guy. Pull through. You always do_.

He had; he _was_. He was awake and upright and telling Tony, “—Barton’ll tell you more.”

That was helpful. Maybe. He’d never considered Barton a reliable source of information, any more than he considered Bruce a reliable relationship counselor—they all had their wheelhouses—but it was a thread. “Sure. Yeah. I love our little talks. My number one source for unreliable information,” he babbled, wrapping both arms around Steve’s middle as he listed forward, nearly tumbling off the couch. “Steve? What—?”

With a quiet groan, Steve assured, “—be all right.” He hunched over completely and Tony oscillated for a panicked moment between trying to get him to sit up, _N_ _o, no, no, don’t die on me, don’t die on me_ and trying to get him comfortable. He settled on staying put. Leaning into the back of Steve’s shoulder, he waited for the long shivers to subside. “What happened, Tony?” Steve rasped. It was almost a statement more than a question. Tony swallowed and held on, suddenly, desperately hungry to be up top, upstairs, _up high_ , anywhere that wasn’t reachable.

Half the reason he had hired Pepper had been to put a barrier between him and people who wanted to talk to him. He needed the barrier. He needed to be left the hell _alone_. And the only way to find peace, he had realized early on, was to make it, to carve it out, and guard it assiduously.

Irrationally, he wanted to make the offer. _Let’s run. Let’s go. To hell with dodge. We’ll be fine. You’re you. I’m me. We’ll be fine._

_Please._

_You almost died._

Instead, he swallowed back the wave of cowardice and said, “Somebody’s out for us.” _You, mostly. But they’re not worried about collateral_. He drew in a breath, elaborating, “We made it—we’re out of range.” _For now_. Half his flight had been to clear the cobwebs; the other half had been scanning for any more metal monsters roaming the countryside. Either Pierce had decided not to play his hand with reinforcements, or he didn’t _have_ any. He hoped it was the latter. 

“That’s a good thing.” _You being alive is a good thing_. But he wasn’t well. Tony had to swallow hard against a sickening wave of defeat. Even hunched forward and miserable, Steve was still rock-solid under him, a fortress of his own indomitable will. The fact that he was sitting up and breathing was a miracle. “We’re gonna be fine. Everything’s fine. I’m fine.”

Finally, Steve straightened. Tony eased back. He lifted his chin when Steve leveled a searching look at him. 

Shaking his head, Steve argued quietly, “No, you’re _not_.”

For exactly ten seconds, Tony held his ground as righteous anger boiled up inside him. _How dare you. How dare you tell me that. Look in the goddamn mirror_. The fury boiled in him, but it never manifested, draining off without warning. Tony looked at the ceiling and said abruptly, “Would you be?” He looked down at Steve and insisted, “You _flatlined_. It’s been _two days_. God.” 

Tony shook his head, unable to bear the earnest attention Steve gave and gave and gave without thinking. _Look away. Just for a second. I dropped my composure_. He did not cry, he did not sob, he did not even twitch when Steve, in that effortlessly Steve way of his, gathered him into his embrace, clinging to the back of his shirt with one good hand, his cast limp against the middle.

He thought, _You did this. You did all of this_.

Pressing his forehead against Steve’s shoulder, he could hear Fury’s admonition, his admission of regret:

 _I bet you house regret for this one_.

It wasn’t about S.H.I.E.L.D., he realized, gripping Steve’s shirt as tightly as he could. It was never about _S.H.I.E.L.D._

You couldn’t have regret for something you’d never _loved_.

At the end of the day, regret was love misplaced, love unnamed, love retracted. Regret was an ugly word for _love_.

And he did house regret: for every person who had made him feel like a fool, for the Obadiah Stanes of the world, for his own father.

He did not, nor would he ever, hold _regret_ for this.

“We’re gonna get through this,” he promised, sliding his one good hand to the back of Steve’s neck, squeezing it. “Together.”

And he would die before he would then admit that the alternative was _Or not at all_.


	48. ON BORROWED TIME

I can see you.

_With a start, Tony jolted away from the firm chest underneath him. He looked around the barn, breath coming in short, sharp pants, misting white-blue in front of him. Reaching behind him, he fisted a handful of Steve’s shirt for balance, staring into the abyss, an electric sort of terror crashing over him at the sight of glowing red eyes. Not daring to move, afraid to trigger the proverbial alarm, he held up his unbroken right hand pleadingly._

_The red-eyed monster advanced. He could hear it in the silence:_ I can hear you breathing. _He tried to hold his breath, but he felt dizzy in seconds, forcing himself to draw in air as his metal-and-bone edged closer._ I can hear your heart beating. _The silver creature drew into full view. It looked broad enough to be human, and had one glowing red palm uplifted, facing him._ I know where you’re hiding.

_There was a blinding flash of red light, and Tony jerked away from it, instinctively ducking a blow that never came._

Then he opened his eyes for real and beheld a very different scene.

He didn’t remember falling asleep in the living room. Stiff and tense, he set about rediscovering his surroundings, taking bitter stock of the knife-like pain in his right palm as he used it inadvertently to push himself upright, switching to his numb left hand instead, having found a home underneath a stiff couch pillow for a temporary, peace-less time. There was an afghan blanket draped over his legs that he didn’t recall grabbing, never mind setting neatly over himself. His head felt muzzy, his mouth very dry; for a moment, he even thought that maybe it all _had_ been nothing more than a nightmare, and he was back home, and life was normal.

Life was never normal, he reflected, as he stood up, dizzy with the change in altitude. Laika was nowhere to be found; the house seemed lifeless, barren, the dying embers in the fire the only indication that humans had passed through. For an even longer moment, he dreaded that he had somehow survived the storm, alone, and now had to pick up the pieces.

He moved stiffly, his left hand rubbing his chest around the arc reactor compulsively, towards the kitchen. Though there were life signs—the smell of cold coffee wafted to him from a pot that hadn’t been addressed in a while—there were still no inhabitants. A systematic sweep of the first floor yielded similar results: life signs, but no inhabitants.

_Where the hell are they?_

He made it back to the living room and saw a note, folded up and resting on the back of the couch. Blinking at himself, feeling vaguely stupid for not seeing it sooner, he unfolded it clumsily with one hand.

_Out with Barton. Back by 0200.  
S.R._

It was 1:49 AM. Actively choosing not to be worried about how finely they were cutting it—or why the hell they were out at two in the morning—Tony meandered upstairs and found a closed door that he did not open, assuming its inhabitant. All was quiet, and still, and very empty, and he felt a strange mix of bewilderment and alarm at the sight of children’s toys in one of the rooms, two twin beds arranged on either side.

 _Safe house_ , he thought, feeling like a trespasser as he stepped inside, looking down at the toy cars, the LEGO blocks. He saw artwork, too, another crayon-drawing featuring the Norse god of thunder, a piece of himself—himself. Iron Man.

Iron Man, with a bomb strapped to his back, and a black hole in the sky.

_Stark. You know that’s a one-way trip, right?_

One minute, it felt heroic, _just_ , adrenaline saturating his being, making him molten, untouchable; and the next, he was untethered, and colder than ice could ever be, and reeling in breathless silence, his suit, his dead suit the only seal against a vacuum that would suck the air out of his lungs, and it wasn’t even a perfect seal, he could feel the tug of the vacuum, of depressurization, _catastrophic failure, abort mission, get the hell out of here_ , and he couldn’t move, he couldn’t move, he would have to consciously remove the suit to choose a fast demise over suffocation, but he couldn’t move, he was stuck in an iron can, skin burning and freezing and every inch of him less alive than it had ever been, and _more_.

“Tony? Tony!”

He shoved, hard, at the firm chest that drew too close, curling inward, both hands over his head, suffocating in his little prison. He knew that he needed to release the helmet to breathe but _there is no air out there_ , and then he felt arms around him, surrounding him, and the words burst out of him: “Don’t _fucking_ touch me!” They were the howl of an abraded animal, and they worked, keeping him an island unto himself. And safer for it. _D_ _on’t touch my armor, don’t take it away, I don’t want to drown—_

“Easy, Tony,” someone familiar was saying. “Easy. I won’t touch you. But I’m not gonna leave you like this, okay?”

He let out a distinctly hysterical giggle against his knees, curling inward so tightly he was shaking with the effort, or maybe he was just shaking, gasping, gasping.

“I’m right here.” _I’m drowning. I’m drowning, I’m drowning, it wasn’t supposed to be like this, I can’t breathe—_ “I’m not gonna let anything bad happen to you, all right?” _Don’t leave me up here. Don’t leave me_. “Just breathe. It’ll pass, Tony.” A hand tapped the floor near him, and he huddled inward, but the same person just assured, “I won’t touch you. But you can hold onto me.”

 _Don’t let me die up here_.

He wasn’t even sure if he _consciously_ decided to take the offer, just that he had a vice-like grip around the offered wrist, gripping it, needing it to be more real than the space stealing the air from his lungs. It wasn’t long before animal greed, animal _need_ took over, and he shuffled closer to the source of warmth, huddling against a big broad side. He could feel the spoken words, even though he wasn’t listening to them, head still buried against his knees, his one good hand gripping a soft shirt. He felt warm breath brush over his hair, a voice close enough to be a caress. Shivering, he collapsed inward, cold to the bone and never-getting-warm-again.

It felt like hours, hours of gasping and holding on and begging to be free, terrified to be free, but the roar of waves crashing over the shore faded, dissipated, until all that was left was the steady pulse of the sea, his own pounding heart slowing in his chest. He swallowed hard, throat painfully dry, his chest hot and tight, aching to the bitter bone to feel well, stifling a despairing noise as he finally let himself unlock, slumping against—Steve, of course it was Steve, who else would it be? The realization, the affirmation of it, let him draw in a long, deep breath, safe with him near, with him to lean into.

“S’okay,” Steve was saying. “We’re okay.” He nosed at Tony’s hair. He was close enough that Tony could hear the proud thud-thud-thud of his heart, so quick it seemed to skip over the rhythm. Tony felt the panic dissolve into pure nothingness, noiseless static in its wake. “We’re okay,” Steve repeated, and it was easier than _You’re okay_ , it was safer than _It’s okay_. 

Nodding once, Tony shifted without lifting his head to look him in the eye, needing solitude as he wrapped both arms firmly around Steve’s chest, folded next to him, holding onto him, hiding his face in Steve’s shoulder instead. “We’re okay,” Steve said again, soft and close, and Tony breathed out raggedly, dry eyes, dry mouth, bone-dry of nearly all feeling but the warmth trying to cross the barrier from Steve’s skin to his own, thwarted by two layers of fabric. “We’re okay.” The more he said it, the more it felt true, a belief system that Tony could agree with.

It must have been minutes, but it felt like hours as he slowly unwound, making himself hurt with how tightly he trembled. Steve’s breathing was deep, a center of gravity that was not dependent on the time, or the place, or the world outside, and Tony gravitated towards it, pressed against him hard, yearning to hide under his armor. He was untouchable under the armor. You take away Captain America’s shield, and he was still _Captain America_.

What was Iron Man without his shell?

Drawing in a ragged breath, Tony clung to him until his head felt less like it would implode. Then he relaxed his grip, released a breath, but refused to face him, to face—face who _he_ was, a broken toy on the edge of a high shelf, his potential energy for failure breathtaking in its scale. Every shelf of peace was a false vacuum; every aura of calm was _breakable_.

 _We’ll never be safe_.

Too tired to cry, he hung onto Steve. Steve gripped him firmly, holding his own wrist rather than Tony, anchoring but not _holding_. He muffled a hollow laugh against Steve’s shoulder, mirthless amusement at how goddamn broken it all was, and heard Steve’s inquisitive little noise in response without answering it. _I can’t do this_.

He didn’t dare say it out loud. “I’m so tired.”

Another soft, apologetic noise. “I know.” And he did.

Tony melted against him, chuckling humorlessly. “And I don’t ever wanna sleep again.”

Steve brushed his cheek against Tony’s for a moment. “I know,” he repeated, more quietly.

Huddled on his lap, arms wrapped tightly around his back, Tony breathed in his false calm, rock-steady calm, like nothing bad could happen again, and everything already had. “I wanna go home.”

A long, long beat. “Me too.” Steve brushed a soft, almost not-there kiss against his temple. “I won’t go.” And that was comforting, somehow—the answer to a question Tony hadn’t asked. “I won’t run.” And there it was.

Nodding once, Tony said, “I’m holding you to that, buddy.”

Together, they picked themselves up.

. o .

“Get some rest.” Steve clapped Clint on the shoulder, brow furrowed. “Need sharp eyes in the morning, all right?”

With a weary huff, Clint allowed, “Whatever you say, Cap.” With a halfhearted two-finger salute, he stumbled off, gripping a wall briefly for balance.

Mouth a hard line, Steve turned to look at Tony and said quietly, “You should rest while you can.”

“What’s coming?” Tony asked bluntly.

“Nothing yet,” Steve said ruefully. He slung an arm around Tony’s shoulders, then slid it down to the middle of his back, less commanding officer, more comrade. “But I know Pierce. He’s got our number. Barton was good, but nobody’s perfect.” Guiding Tony towards the kitchen, he released him and dawdled over to the coffeemaker, wordlessly chugging the rest of the pot of cold coffee before rinsing it out at the tap. “I’d say we have less than nine hours before we’re compromised again,” Steve prophesized, setting up a fresh pot. “And this time, Pierce won’t send a scouting party. He’ll try to wipe us off the face of the Earth.”

Tony hopped up on the counter, looking over at him and matching his grim frown. “Why the warning shot?”

A humorless little huff of almost-laughter. “It wasn’t a warning shot,” he said bluntly. “We weren’t supposed to slip the noose.” He looked Tony over once, expression softening as he added, “You’re the reason we’ve _got_ a second shot.”

Kicking one foot idly, Tony said, “Well, I have a schedule to keep. I hate changing my plans.” When Steve frowned at him more thoughtfully, he elaborated, “I die the way I die.”

“Nobody,” Steve said, very seriously, “is gonna die.”

Picking an invisible piece of lint off his still pant-leg, Tony advised, “Much as I love your optimism—”

“I’m serious.” Tony made a disapproving noise, but Steve stepped over, setting a gentle hand on his knee, stilling it. “He caught us off-guard. He won’t catch us off-guard twice.” Rubbing idle circles with his thumb, Steve looked him right in the eye and insisted, “I am _one-hundred-percent_ sure that we will make it out of this.”

“Hundred-percent, huh?” Giving into temptation, Tony draped his arms around Steve’s neck, pulling him close, bracing his forehead against Steve’s for a moment. Steve let him, his own hands anchored around Tony’s hips, breathing steadily, calmly. With his eyes closed, it felt safe, as grounded as Steve promised. He tightened his grip, shifting so he could plant his forehead against Steve’s shoulder and mutter, “Whatever happened to going the extra mile? Chivalry is dead.”

Another, slightly warmer huff of almost-laughter made Tony’s heart beat faster, gratified, pleased. “I don’t make promises I can’t keep,” Steve rumbled. “I promise you, Tony—we’re going to nail that bastard to a wall.”

Squeezing his neck gently in silent acknowledgment, Tony knit his free hand in the back of Steve’s shirt, sweat-dappled though it was. “What about Romanoff?” he asked, suddenly deadly serious. “We haven’t heard from her. Not so worried about Banner.”

Steve made a soft sound, almost disagreement, almost apology. “I’m more worried about him than Romanoff,” he admitted. “He’s pretty unstoppable when he’s, you know. The Hulk. How long can he keep that up?”

Tony shrugged, barely lifting his shoulders. “Long as he needs to.”

“Let’s hope.” Steve slid his hands around to the small of Tony’s back, holding him close, and Tony wasn’t sure if it was grounding for him or Tony. Maybe both. “Romanoff knows how to disappear,” he added, both thumbs drawing light circles against Tony’s back. “And she knows how to get a hold of Barton, if things go south. She’s all right.” Breathing softly, warmly, he repeated, “She’s all right.”

Tony nodded against him, swallowing back questions, not needing answers. There was a more pressing question on his mind, anyway, as he slid his hand up, nested it in the short hairs at the base of Steve’s skull. “And you?”

There was a distinctly unhappy note in Steve’s voice as he said, “What about me?”

“Bullshit me at your peril, Rogers.” Steve sighed, pulling back, but Tony tightened his grip, holding on. Steve could have broken his grip, walked away, but he held his ground, accepting his fate. He leaned into Tony, and for that brief second seemed tired enough to collapse himself, the weight of the world balanced on a broken back.

Then he straightened, and Tony looked him in the eye as he said, “The serum burns everything it touches.” It was a start, and Tony stared at him, hopeful, fearful that he would be disappointed, but Steve went on, “Sometimes it takes a couple hours, sometimes minutes, but it’s—it’s mean. There was talk, back when, about—you know, just using my blood to create new—or at least, _enhance_ people.” Tony’s stomach roiled at the thought. “Well—I said, _This stuff’ll kill_ , and they said, _It didn’t kill you_ , and I said, _It should’ve_. It should’ve.” He was quiet for a moment, retreating. Tony let him go, watching him wander around the kitchen, almost absentmindedly tidying up. A chair replaced here, a clean mug in a cabinet there. “I said, _If you kill someone with my blood_ , and they said, _It ain’t that strong_ , and I said, _Like hell it isn’t_.” 

His voice was terse as he added without looking at Tony, “So I said, _Fine, then you inject me, and you see what happens_. So we did.” He took a moment to straighten the paper hanging over the top of the fridge, voice cool, collected. “We all thought, _What’s the worst that could happen?_ This, comin’ on the heels a’—of an infiltration that went wrong, see. They gassed the compound. Killed their own, trying to—” He cut off, one hand braced on the opposite counter, voice darkening. “So, we thought, _I’m immune_ , and I said, _I ain’t immune, the serum is_ , and those kind of differences—they don’t matter to these kinds of people, they think it’s a wonder drug. But it almost killed me, too. It killed five of our guys and twelve of theirs, and it almost did the job they’d staked it out on.”

Entranced, horrified at the image, Tony slid off the counter, leaning against it with his arms folded over his chest instead. He could feel the press of the arc reactor against the inside of his forearm, and grimaced, loosening his grip. “But it didn’t do the job,” Steve husked, still leaning on the opposite counter. “No, it didn’t work. But everybody was feelin’ bad, not because lives were lost—you know how many people died a day in those days, Tony?—but because the cure was walking around, and nobody had had the courage to tap it. So, I said, _It’s not like that_ , and they said, _The hell it isn’t_ , and we tried it. And it didn’t work, neither.” He shifted away from the counter, attending to the coffeepot, staring at it as it worked. “It didn’t work. But the serum—it’s mean. It wasn’t above to overlook a slight. A failure.” 

Steve transferred pot to cup, holding it out to Tony, who took it wordlessly. “I remember them injecting it. And I remember it hurtin’, more than I thought it would. Then I got sick for the first time in two years.” He looked out the little window over the sink like he could see more than the darkness, too early to be morning, too late to be evening. “I wanted to hide it, sweat it out, but I was a commanding officer. You don’t get to hide from your troops. You definitely don’t get to hide from _your_ CO.” He cleared his throat and took a sip from his own mug, elaborating quietly, “I thought we’d fucked up. That somehow, all it took to undo two years of good was one act of hubris.”

Tony held his own cup in his hands, untouched. “It’s amazing, you know, how small the things that can kill you are. Not the tip of a bayonet or the business end of a bullet. The little stuff,” Steve said, gulping down another mouthful of black coffee. “For two days, I was barely able to stand, let alone walk, let alone _lead_. If it wasn’t for Buck, I couldn’t have even pretended I wasn’t falling apart on the inside, something wrong. I couldn’t—” 

Steve swallowed, set his unfinished cup aside, and looked at Tony as he finished, “I couldn’t let the boys see me, you know what that would do to morale? Time like that? Maybe four people knew how the test had really gone, that the results weren’t a _null_ like the papers said, we didn’t let out that something wasn’t right. And I was fine by the third morning, right as rain.” He reached for his cup, not looking at Tony. He didn’t drink from it. “But we didn’t dare do more, not out in the field, not when there was an active campaign. After, we talked, maybe _after_ we’d find answers hiding away in my blood. Till then, they needed me more than those answers.”

He took a sip from his coffee, gaze averted. Tony watched him, unable to look away or even blink as Steve muttered, “Sometimes I think Erskine never wanted anybody to know what he’d done. Never wrote down the formula. Never confided in me what he thought it would actually do. Just make me a, a better man. A good _soldier_.” He set the mug down forcefully. The loud clack made Tony wince, but Steve didn’t flinch. “It’s like I don’t even own me anymore, Tony.” He reached up, fumbling at his collar, one hand pawing around his chest briefly, before stilling.

Tony blinked, then set his own cup down and, casually, reached into his own pocket, removing a familiar set of metal tags, wrapped up in the metal chain to keep them from catching on anything. He let them unravel, holding the end of the chain, grunting in surprise as Steve crowded close, not reaching for the tags but lifting him up, hugging him. “Okay, tough guy,” Tony said, a touch breathless, setting his casted hand on top of Steve’s head, his other arm curled around his neck, dog tags in hand. “Easy. Don’t drop me.” Pointedly, Steve set him on the counter, and Tony didn’t shift his hold, relaxing against him, almost boneless. Resting his own cheek against his casted hand, bowed over him, eyes closed, Tony kept his silence, breathing slowly. “I know.” He didn’t, but the words felt right, rubbing his closed hand against the back of Steve’s shoulder, careful not to drop the tags. “I know, big guy.”

With Steve’s warmth against him—shaking, huddled against him like he didn’t dare let _go—_ and the warmth of coffee suffusing his chest, he started to feel . . . _calm_. At ease. “Easy,” he murmured, almost more to himself than Steve. “We’re okay.” It clicked in his chest, and even though he was sore to the bone and frayed around the edges, it made sense to him. _We’re okay. We’re okay_. Steve nodded in his hold, breathing raggedly. Tony didn’t say anything more, listening to him, nearly falling asleep on him.

He startled when Steve finally rasped, “It’s really you.”

Tony nodded, lifting his head to rest his chin on his own arm, pillowed against Steve’s mussed-up hair. Quietly, he added, “Of course it is.” He rubbed the back of Steve’s shoulder with four fingers, pinky tucked against his palm, keeping the tags secure, finding his own place of calm between them. “Where else would I go?”

When the words came, they were soft: “What Erskine made . . . it’s not something we’re meant to . . . meant to change. Evolve.” Steve made a soft, discontented sound against his shirt, fishing: “Fix. It’s supposed to be bulletproof. In a way, it is.” A long beat. Tony rubbed his fingers slowly against the back of his shoulder, wordlessly listening. Steve went on: “And sometimes, I think, _I don’t need this_. I don’t—the War’s _over_ , Tony.” Slowly, he drew back, and Tony let him, settling his arms around Steve’s neck and staring at bloodshot blue eyes. “I just want them to _take_ it if they want it so bad. Not me.” He squeezed Tony around the middle gently. “Not you. Not us. But I told them no. I said—” He paused, drew in a deep breath. “I said, _You’ll hurt somebody_. And Fury, you know, he’s a smart guy, and I told him, I promised him, _This stuff’ll kill people before it saves any lives_. So we—let it go.” Steve wasn’t looking at him, staring down at the arc reactor, saying softly, “I was the one who said I needed it. I didn’t have Buck, didn’t have someone who could . . . who could be my right-hand, when my own stopped working, you know?”

Tony could feel his own hand throbbing. He stayed very quiet, barely breathing. Steve waited, like he thought Tony would dismiss his prevarication and demand, _Get on with it_. But there was something important to the _story_ , and damn if Tony wouldn’t let him tell it. Steve husked out, “I shouldn’t have asked. I shouldn’t have. But I was—I knew I wasn’t going to be enough, every day. And, hell. S.H.I.E.L.D. delivered.” Letting his own forehead brush Tony’s shirt, not quite resting there until Tony pulled him close, feeling his weight, Steve admitted, “I don’t know what it is.” Drawing in a fortifying breath, Steve added, “I don’t know what went wrong.” He was heavy, but Tony was strong, too, and leaned against him in return, creating a tentative equilibrium between them. “I’m sorry, Tony. For—”

“Don’t.” A whisper.

Steve did not reply. For long minutes, they lingered in each other’s space. Tony could still feel Steve shaking, and he knew he wasn’t rock-steady, either. He felt cold where Steve ran hot, both of them on the verge of collapse, soldiers desperately outnumbered and outgunned in a war they hadn’t signed up for.

And, strangely, that realization— _w_ _e are outnumbered and outgunned—_ made Tony’s shoulders relax. His breathing came easier, and his voice was steadier as he said, “Tell me what you _do_ know.”

Steve said against his chest, “I don’t know.” But it was a bleary admission, followed by the more coherent assessment, “Just feels . . . wrong. Like. . . .” He slumped more against Tony, gathering him closer at the same time, grip immovable. If the house caught fire, Tony wouldn’t have even twitched; he just held on. Steve rasped, “Can’t think about it, Tony.”

Patiently, Tony said, “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.” Carefully, almost surreptitiously, he slipped the dog tags into his pocket, patting Steve’s hip and encouraging, “Let’s—couch?”

Steve nodded, slowly slinking away, his eyes redder than before but dry. “Yeah.” He licked his lips, then admitted, “I don’t—I don’t feel too good.” He didn’t look too good, but Tony reached down to clasp his hand—suddenly clammy, squeezing it tightly, silently assuring, _promising_. “I think I—I need—” He paused, gripped the fridge for support, and said again, “I can’t think about it, Tony.”

A silent tug. Like a man on death row, Steve released the fridge and shuffled after him. They sat on the couch. Laika, now asleep by the dead fire, didn’t wake up, satisfied that there was no danger. 

The house was quiet, calm. Strangely empty, despite its five inhabitants.

“C’mere,” Tony directed, leaning back against the arm of the couch, wrapping both of his own arms around Steve’s shoulders when he settled in against him. “That’s my man.” Steve kept his eyes shut, his brow furrowed, one hand gripping Tony’s arm lightly. More a reminder of presence than a true anchor. “It’s okay.” Quietly, insistently, he added, “We win. Which means this?” He stroked his thumb over Steve’s borrowed shirt, murmuring, “This will pass.”

Steve sighed, but offered no refutation. He felt cold and heavy in Tony’s grasp, more dead than alive. A repulsed shudder worked its way through Tony, and Steve made a quizzical sound. Without opening his eyes, Steve pawed around the back of the couch, retrieving the afghan and passing it to Tony. Draping it around his own shoulders like a shawl, Tony squeezed him and insisted, “We win.”

“I thought you said—” Steve’s voice was airy, weary.

“That I didn’t know?” A slight nod. “I do now.

“We win.

“We win, Steve.”

. o .

Tony really, really, really wished Dr. Banner was there.

 _I’m not a medical doctor_ , Bruce would have disclaimed. Tony didn’t care. He was brilliant, and while Tony had invested his experience points in Warfare, Bruce had spent his on Healing. There was so little he felt comfortable doing, nothing that could do more than ease the sting of whatever had Steve shivering against him, turned on his side, his tension palpable. He was in pain, a fair amount if his silence was anything to go by. Tony had only managed to wrench a few meaningful pieces of information from him before his questions earned no responses. The less he actively tried to project wellness, the more volatile Steve’s condition seemed. 

_Bruce, buddy, I need you_.

All he had to go on were three pieces of information: there was some kind of adrenaline component to the drug, it came in a white capsule, and it was activated not by swallowing it but by breaking it open. It was an unusual choice: Tony knew that both adrenaline and noradrenaline were typically administered intravenously, not orally. More convenient in the field though, Tony thought, stroking Steve’s collarbone with his thumb.

But something wouldn’t add up. The serum should have bit it back hard, shouldn’t have let the drug gain even a toehold. Maybe that was the reasoning behind a pill—Steve’s super-blood wouldn’t give an injection a fighting chance—but Steve’s reaction, shaking and cold, still seemed off to him.

And according to Steve’s prediction, they had less than nine hours before Pierce sent in a reminder call that they were not safe.

 _Yes, we are_ , Tony thought, patting Steve’s shoulder gently, encouraging him to sit up. With no small amount of effort, Steve did so, stiff and hurting, like the brief reprieve had allowed him to feel, and what he felt—wasn’t good. “I know,” Tony said, almost nonsensically. He didn’t, couldn’t really. Even if he took the same drug at a non-lethal dose, he didn’t have super-soldier blood. Almost absentmindedly, he chafed the heel of his left palm up and down Steve’s back, insisting, “We’re okay.” Inspired, he patted Steve’s shoulder once and squirmed out from around him, holding up a finger and blitzing off, returning seconds later fully bedecked. Steve had his head in his hands, like it was too heavy for him, and Tony said to the suit alone, “Run a diagnostics scan, start with alpha, work your way down.”

“Of course, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied. Alpha scanning took less than five seconds, a full-body blitz that reported, “No signs of life-threatening lacerations, perforations, or skeletal anomalies. Commencing beta scan.” That was thirty seconds, and more revealing: “I am detecting a substantial fracture in the sternum body, as well as a slight dislocation of the third rib, right side.” Tony’s own chest ached sympathetically; he grimaced as J.A.R.V. helpfully called up a three-dimensional model, with the trouble areas illuminated in red. It looked like—it was hard to say, exactly, but as if a battering ram had been smashed into his chest.

“Jesus,” he said, lowering the faceplate, cutting off J.A.R.V.I.S.’s report of, “Vital signs are diminish—” “What happened?” he half-asked, half-begged.

Steve breathed into his palms for a moment, just soft, exhausted breaths, before slowly lifting his head to look at Tony. His pallor wasn’t gray, but it was far from its healthy flush; his eyes were still bleeding red. “What?” Clearing his throat, lip curling for just a fraction of a second in discomfort, he added, “I don’t—”

Gesturing eloquently at the arc reactor, a proximal approximation, Tony watched Steve’s expression fall—from tired, to quiet, deadly apathy. “Oh.” He looked down at his own torso, despite the shirt covering it, and said tonelessly, “It was my fault.”

A lot of things were Steve’s fault, Tony reflected—in the safe, quiet space of his own thoughts. This did not seem like one of them. “What happened?” he repeated, patience personified, his tone not rising.

Steve licked his lips for a moment, just this side of bluish, and said slowly, “Please.” Looking Tony in the eye, tall and strong in his suit, he added, “I—I don’t—I am not _crazy_.” With a meaningful shudder, followed by a muffled gag, he stood up, shorter than Tony in the suit, but not much. “I don’t—I don’t know, Tony,” he muttered, sounding a little crazy, Tony could admit, again in the safe, quiet corner of his own thoughts. 

“I just—I was . . . we were . . . .” Steve pressed a hand right to the glowing red patch, grimaced, and drew in a very shallow breath, exhaled tightly. “I was . . . I saw something. I saw—” He looked at Tony, and for the first time in their shared life, Tony saw him cower away from the truth, finishing abruptly, “It was just . . . something I wanted to see, maybe. Nothing. I wasn’t paying attention. I was hurt.” The words were awkward, aloud, like they didn’t have a home in their lives, like they’d never truly been hurt, so long as they dared not vocalize it. “I wasn’t—I couldn’t have—” His breathing was shallower, and shallower, and faster. 

Sensing, suddenly, that it was more important to be close than diagnostic, Tony released the suit, ignoring the twinge as the metal gently shifted his right hand, and stepped forward, gently-as-he-could wrapping his arms around Steve, who shivered harder against him, clinging back to him, limply at first, and then fiercely, squeezing the muscle of Tony’s back under his hands, desperate for the contact. Tony let him, trusting him not to hurt him. “I don’t know what I saw. I don’t know what’s going on anymore. All I know—” He sagged, admitting quietly, “I need to, I need to sit down.”

Tony let him retreat, but instead of joining him, he looked down at the suit, compact, and had an idea. It was dangerous, because he might _need_ it, for actual flight, but— “Hey, hon,” he began, and Steve did not look up at him, strangling quietly in terror. Softly, he added, “Let me help. Okay?” Steve nodded, again without looking, so desperate for a cure he didn’t even ask what it might be, trusting Tony’s word. It ached in Tony’s chest, and he slid the suit over, and advised, “Just put your foot on—” Steve didn’t need him to finish, doing so, with almost practiced ease. The suit wasn’t used to being worked on a seated figure, but it rose to the challenge, forming a firm base-work around legs, and front, and finally curving around his back as he leaned forward, letting the metal close in.

It was strange, seeing Iron Man hunched over in front of him, almost wrong, like it was never meant to show weakness. “Okay, J., increase the suit’s O2 to 95% saturation.” There was the tiniest, faintest hiss of released oxygen canisters, and the suit pressurized like it was fifty thousand feet off the ground, sealing itself off completely. For nearly a minute, nothing changed, with Iron Man hunched over, and Tony standing, hovering, while Laika approached, sniffing cautiously at a red-plated knee.

Then, slowly, heavily, Steve leaned back against the couch and drew in a deep breath. He exhaled audibly, noisily over the comms. Tony asked, “That help?” Another noisy, almost luxurious breath, and another, and it was music to Tony’s ears, like pure oxygen in his own veins. “If you feel woozy, let me know.”

Iron Man nodded once, and fell silent, but for those deep pulling breaths, occasionally hitching in pain, too deep for what had to be monstrous pain. “S’nice,” he slurred at some point, tilting his head to look at Tony, who had appointed himself on the couch, with Laika entirely on his lap, like she didn’t weigh nearly a hundred pounds. “So, so nice. . . .”

Somewhat concerned about oxygen toxicity, Tony prompted, “You okay, buddy?”

“So nice,” Steve exhaled noisily. “Thank you.”

Nodding, Tony leaned against his metal side, confident it wouldn’t hurt him, and said, “Just let me know if that changes.”

“I can . . . _breathe_ ,” Steve said, almost euphoric.

“Mm. Nothing like fresh O2, eh?”

“God, thank you. Thank you.”

Patting the chest over the dark but still functional internal reactor, Tony assured, “All you, Steve. Just keep breathing.”

After maybe twenty minutes, Tony finally asked, “You okay, buddy?” Steve was breathing softly, rhythmically, and did not respond. “Hey, J., how’re—?”

“It appears,” J.A.R.V.I.S. said, speaking at a very muted tone, “Captain Rogers is at rest, sir.”

Nodding to himself, Tony instructed slowly, “Drop O2 sat to 90, please.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Decrease five percentage points every ten minutes.”

“As you wish, sir.”

“Stop at 40% oxygen saturation,” he added, heart beating faster at the realization that J.A.R.V.I.S. would have followed his order to a tee—right up until zero percent. He shivered, feeling cold despite Laika’s warmth, Steve’s peace. The suit wasn’t a tomb, wouldn’t kill Steve—he had protocols specifically in place to counteract catastrophic oxygen depletion, and as soon as Steve’s respiration dropped beneath a certain level, other protocols would kick in—but it was a dire thought, and he shivered again to think of nearly missing it. Forty percent was still nearly twice the O2 saturation at sea level, but it wouldn’t hurt Steve over a long exposure time. He was reasonably sure of that.

Just shy of two hours later, J.A.R.V.I.S. announced, again quietly, “Oxygen saturation at 40%, sir.”

Waving a hand vaguely in approval, Tony forced himself to grunt, “Great,” his cheek smushed against the armor. “Go team.” Then he returned to the empty doze that had snuck over him and washed away all traces of reality for a while.

. o .

Daylight snuck up on him, too, and one moment, Tony was reasonably sure he was drooling on his own suit, and the next, he was startling awake, blinding white light trickling in from the window. Someone had put a blanket over him—Laika had once again taken up residence near the fireplace—and he blinked several times in quick succession in a vain attempt to place his surroundings.

He heard a long, drawn metallic breath, and a steady exhale, and it rushed back to him, leaving _him_ nearly light-headed as he worked his way to his feet, sore but . . . whole. _Healing_.

Healing, he insisted, even though his hand hurt like someone had taken a knife to it in a vain attempt to reshape it into kindling. He washed warm water over his face, ruefully flicking at his goatee, not quite unruly but getting there. Give it a few more days, and he’d start to grow a _beard_ , and he snorted softly at the thought, imagining himself sprouting a Gandalfian beard, trailing after him everywhere he went. He vacated the bathroom before he could decide it would actually be rather useful, in a certain, _Behold my supreme masculinity_ way. _And you would trip over it_ , his inner Ms. Potts reminded, and he sighed and stuffed the idea in a draw labeled, _Excellent-in-theory_.

In the kitchen, he found Nick Fury, drinking from a fresh pot of coffee. “Morning, Stark,” he said, voice cool, civil. “Sleep well?”

Shrugging reflexively, aware that he hadn’t changed or bathed in literal days, he said, “My nightmares consume me, but I carry a big bat, you see.” After pouring himself a cup of coffee, Tony turned to him and elaborated, “And now all my troubles will have trouble with me.”

“Dr. Seuss.”

Tony looked over at Clint, looking fresh and well-dressed, a stark contrast to their harried demeanor. Of course he did, Tony thought begrudgingly; it was, in a weird way, _his_ home. Safe-house. With children. “More or less. What is this place?”

“This,” Clint drawled, fixing himself a cup from the last of the pot, “is my sister-in-law’s. Laura Barton.”

Straining to process those words in that order, Tony sipped long on his cup, and Fury finally filled in, “Your brother. Charles Bernard Barton.”

“That’s the one.”

“Most people—” Tony did not complete the thought, deciding, rather suddenly, that it would not be very toward of him to criticize another man’s choice to continue having any contact with his dead brother’s spouse.

“Yeah. But I’m not most people. Seeing how I’m only ‘home’ a few weeks out of a year, it’s nice not to have my roots too deep.” Tony joined Fury at the table, watching Clint move around the kitchen, oddly entranced by the revelation that he had a life outside the Avengers. “She adopted two kids. You’ve seen their stuff.”

Almost apologetically, Tony said, “It was hiding in plain sight.”

“Mm.” Clint took a long drag on his cup, then turned on the gas stove. “Yeah, well.” Setting a pan up, he elaborated, “She’s got a big family. They take good care of her. I’m just . . . Barney’s brother. Come by every so often, you know, see how the kids are, how she’s getting on. They were in love for nine years. Not a thing you just . . . let go of.”

An ache twisted in Tony’s chest, prompting him to ask, “What—?”

“Car crash.”

Tony regretted asking, swallowing and trying to bury his emotions in a long draw of coffee, even as Clint breezed on, “August 8th, 1984. I’ll never forget. I was in Utah at the time, a country away, it seemed, when I got that call. Mom and Pop, they were long gone. Friend of Barney’s, he says, ‘You oughtta come home,’ and I knew in my gut what had happened. I knew it the moment it happened. I knew.” He shuffled eggs around for a time, not speaking, and finally added, “Seven years older’n me when he died. He would’ve been twenty-eight that autumn. Took a long time before—” He nodded at the fridge, then elaborated, “I’m real proud of her. And I try not to impose.” Looking at them pointedly, he added, “I’d suggest you do the same.”

“We won’t be staying long,” Fury reminded patiently.

“Good.” Sliding his eggs onto a plate, Clint added, “Be hell to pay if we brought hell down on them. I already told her we’re here. Discreetly,” he added, when Tony gawked, horrified. “Said, _Enjoy Utah_. They’re in Colorado.” Spearing a forkful of eggs, he added around a bite, “So. What’s our move here?”

Looking at Fury automatically in anticipation of a debriefing, Tony floundered eloquently, “Well.”

“Over-easy, chief?” Clint asked. Fury nodded once. The pan sizzled once more. “Stark?”

Blinking in surprise, Tony said, “Uh. Sure.”

“Gotta enjoy it while you can,” Clint said, evidently completely at ease without a plan. “We got maybe eight hours till Pierce narrows down a search radius. He’ll assume we didn’t fly, first.”

“So we fly.”

Nodding, Clint said, “I thought about that, too, but it leaves a trail. Security footage, check-ins. Even with fake names, it’s pretty easy to find somebody on the grid. We’re better off on the ground, at least as long as we’re out of sight.”

“Can’t run forever,” Tony said, his voice serious. “Let’s go get this sonuvabitch.”

Cracking eggs into the pan, Clint said calmly, “Only one problem.” A beat, followed by a lid closing over the eggs, and a very somber note: “We go in, guns blazing, he’ll start knocking off hostages.”

Ice crystallized in Tony’s stomach. He swallowed hard. “Who would—?”

“Anyone,” Fury said, his voice as calm as Clint’s, “who doesn’t own up to new management.”

“Hill?”

Fury’s expression was very grim. “I couldn’t find her in the time I had.” He looked between them, still waters running very deep. “If I stayed any longer, I wouldn’t be here with you gentlemen, and I dare say, neither would you.”

“Couldn’t wipe our own noses without you, Director,” Clint agreed, focusing on the eggs.

Not rising to the quip, Fury added darkly, “If Pierce is serious about eliminating the Avengers—then it won’t just _be_ the Avengers who he’ll remove. Anyone who is more loyal to us than to him is a threat.”

A jolt of panic worked through Tony as he stood suddenly. “Rhodey.” Heart pounding, he added, “They won’t—they can’t touch Pepper. They won’t. She’s—” His throat closed up, anguish in his chest as he said, “They’re—he wouldn’t have—”

“We will,” Fury rumbled calmly, “assume the best, until we have no choice but to accept otherwise.”

“Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes is well-connected,” Clint added, also in a calming tone. “ _Outside_ S.H.I.E.L.D. The Army looks after its own. He’s safe, Stark.” But Tony thought, _He’s an Avenger_. It was a red mark on his file that could not be overlooked, as far as Pierce was concerned. He felt sick, anguished at the thought that they were—they were already—

“Ms. Potts is very visible within Stark Industries,” Fury added helpfully, accepting a plate of eggs with a nod. “He won’t go for high-profile targets. Too _messy_.” Spearing his own eggs, he settled down to eat.

Tony could barely breathe, and yet he somehow found himself sitting, and shoveling food into his mouth, not for pleasure—although it was surprisingly good, Clint’s gruff farm boy demeanor aside—but necessity. He couldn’t afford to be shaky, even though the food did little to take the edge off. Unperturbed, Clint piled toast on the table, dawdling around, even offering a box of Pop-Tarts. With a very serious expression, Fury took one, opened it, and took a bite.

Tony shook his head, regretting even the eggs, sick with fear, head in his hands. “I’m gonna kill him.”

“Yeah?” Clint fished out a Pop-Tart for himself, biting into it. “He’s untouchable. Nobody’s more ingrained in S.H.I.E.L.D. than Alexander fucking Pierce. You don’t take out Pierce.”

“He’s trying to take out _us_ ,” Tony reminded emphatically. “You think he’ll roll over?”

“Of course not.” Finishing off his Pop-Tart, Clint added, “But I think we need to manage expectations. We can’t take down _S.H.I.E.L.D_.”

There was a very long silence.

Clint’s voice was crestfallen as he implored, “Nick. You can’t—”

“It’s like you said,” Fury interrupted, very calmly. “Pierce is irremovable. And he won’t let this go. Whether it’s a day—or a month—or six years from now. He’ll find a way. He’ll bury it all. You’re unstable, erratic, prone to leaping in over your head.” Tony set his own jaw to hide how deeply that barb dug, even as Fury went on, telling Clint, “And you . . . well, your history—”

“Speaks for itself,” Clint agreed, voice gruff. “Not hard to make a smear campaign.”

“No. And once he’s convinced the world that it’s better off without you—”

Clint sighed. Tony said quietly, “People won’t believe it. They’ll never turn on—” It twisted in his chest, the realization that, Iron Man and Tony Stark were not indivisible. The public might laud him as both, but if push came to shove, if loyalties were split, it would not be inconceivable that they could love the creation and hate the creator.

Fury misread him, but his answer was somehow worse in its brevity: “Pierce knows about Kunar, Stark. He’s known it since it happened.”

There was another, even longer silence. Tony said, deadly serious, “What do you _mean—_?”

“I said,” Fury interrupted coolly, “what I said. I meant what I said.” Even Clint did not leap to his defense, leaning a hip against the counter, staring with the same shock that Tony knew was plain on his own face. A hint, just a flicker, of weariness crossed Fury’s expression before he snuffed it out. “You got those pictures in the mail? I got mine on my desk. The very day after.” His face was lined; the beleaguered air was palpable. "I asked what he wanted. Wasn’t signed, but I knew, and he knew. And he said, _The Avengers_.” Slowly, Fury stood up, walking away from the table, away from it all.

Clint ran a hand over his face. Tony sat stock-still, finally getting up, shakily depositing both plates in the sink. Clint warned, “Stark.”

He followed Fury into the adjacent room. With the air of a man defeated in mortal combat, Fury said, “He was always on borrowed time. People have had it in for him since this started. I thought—I _hoped—_ that they would see reason. That they would accept him as an ally. But he gave them everything they wanted. Tell me, Mr. Stark—will the world look at him the same way, once they see what he can do? On a whim? The world’s premier spy organization couldn’t stop him from carrying out what will only ever be seen as an atrocity.” Staring out the window at the snowy landscape, Fury added wearily, “I know why he did it. And I forgive him. Because I know _him_.” Looking at Tony, who stood stock still in the threshold, he added seriously, “I know a good man when I see one, and we need more of him, and less of Pierce.”

The implication was very clear.

Tony, shocked to hear the Director authorize the implicit murder of his own superior, rasped, “You think we can—”

“I _know_ we can,” Fury affirmed. “I put my faith in the Avengers. Every time.” There was a gleam of something sorrowful in his eye as he added, “You might be misfits. A danger to society. True individualists in a world interdependent beyond hope of disentanglement. You will never bow to the grid. He knows that. I know that. And we need you to be there when the future arrives and is bigger than we are now. You are the soldiers we will send to wars that don’t exist yet, to win battles none of us could ever hope to. Without the Avengers, our world—well. Maybe the next time, the Chitauri won’t be turned back at the door. Maybe we’ll have to hurt a lot of people because we didn’t have the right few.”

Tony thought of Fury, powerless to stop the nuke, entreating him, someone, _anyone_ , to get eyes on it, get it, _get it_.

His chest felt tight thinking about it, and he tried to swallow again, but it didn’t help.

Fury instructed, “We have one advantage.” When Tony made a soft sound, he elaborated, “We’re the underdogs.”

Quietly, Tony admitted, “I don’t see how that’s an advantage.”

With somber conviction, Fury said, “Neither will Pierce.” Then, changing tone altogether, he added brusquely, “Captain.”

Standing in the Iron Man suit, glowing white-blue eyes, Steve did not incline his head, nor did the suit blink. “You knew?” He spoke the words quietly, and they rasped metallically.

Fury nodded once.

Iron Man looked at Tony, then Fury, then back at Tony, unreadable in the extreme, barely-restrained panic visible in each twitch. “I—” He stepped back. “I’m—”

He stumbled into a corner. Tony followed slowly, like it was impossible to be scared if Steve was already scared. “Hey.” He could hear Steve’s fast breathing, sounding stronger than before, healthier, somehow, and he reached up with both hands, carefully cradling the metal skull between them. “Hey, hey, hey.” He could feel Steve still, looking right at him. In a vague, notice-it-when-you-need-to way, he noticed that Fury and Clint had left them. Gently, but not without great love behind it, he shook the metal head back and forth a few times, insisting, “I love you.” Each gentle word, each gentle shake, and then he held him still, his right hand a passenger but useful enough, pressed against metal. “I regret nothing.”

Carefully, he found the release clasp under the left ear, and the helmet slid back. Steve looked somehow younger and older, for a moment a mirror image of his silver-fox self, somber and unsure, but with mussed-up golden helmet-hair, and deep, blue, clear eyes. “Tony,” he whispered, all he seemed to think of to say, and his voice sounded stronger, better, his entire demeanor haler. “I never wanted—”

“I know.” Tony had to lean up to kiss him, just once, briefly. “And I love you.”

Steve shut his eyes, for a moment looking on the verge of true despair, bottomless grief, that there was no—no escaping the inevitable. The reality.

 _They never loved you_.

“C’mere,” he urged quietly, slinging both arms around Steve’s neck, and Steve bowed for him, pressing his forehead against Tony’s shoulder. “Big, tough guy. Always gotta take on the world alone, huh?” He turned his nose, breathing him in, and he smelled warm and familiar, like his favorite blanket. “Not this time.” Methodically, without shifting Steve away from him, he released the shoulder plate from behind, one after the other, and the suit got the memo, melting until it had folded into a neat box, pressed against the backs of his calves. He brushed a kiss against a spiky-haired temple. “No one’s taking you away from me, you got that? And I’m not going anywhere. We do this—”

“Together,” Steve said softly.

Tony squeezed the back of his neck gently. “Always knew you were a quick study.”

With a deep, lonely sigh, Steve pulled back from his shoulder to look him in the eye. A small smile twitched his lips. “Yeah, well.” Resting his forehead against Tony’s for a moment, eyes closed, he said softly, “I learned from the best.”

Closing his own eyes, Tony agreed quietly, “Lucky you.”

Steve hummed once, a single note of laughter, and it took some of the sharp edges off Tony’s own panic, just the presence of him enough to chase away the terrible specters of unreality, uncertainty. “I love you,” Steve murmured. “I’ll—I’ll do anything to keep you safe, Tony. Anything.”

Squeezing the back of his neck again, Tony whispered, “Just don’t—die.”

“No.” Shaking his head, nosing at Tony’s hair—mussing it up, as if it wasn’t already imperfect—he added, “I’m not going anywhere, Tony. Promise.”

Fumbling, Tony managed to snag his left pinky finger with his own, holding it up as Steve looked on in amused bewilderment, and saying, “A promise is a promise.”

“I love you,” Steve repeated, and Tony just had to kiss him, to hell with Pierce.

 _To hell with Pierce_ , he toasted.


	49. VULNERABLE

Escorted between four armed guards, Iron Man stood alone in Secretary Pierce’s office. 

“You really shouldn’t have,” Tony began blithely, gesturing at the assembled with a hand that was promptly latched to a metallic cuff and stuck to a chair.

“Have a seat, Stark.” There was no jocularity in Alexander’s tone. He watched indifferently as his cronies cemented Iron Man to the chair, then nodded towards the door. “That will be all.” Flanked by two metal suits, he added calmly, “After all that trouble, you came back.”

“I’m a glutton for punishment.” Folding one metal knee over the other carefully, Tony added, “What about you?”

“I prefer obedience,” Alexander said, taking a seat and regarding him coolly. “I must say, this is an unexpected gift. I look forward to disassembling your suit.”

“Not for sale,” Tony said seriously, his own humor evaporating. He flexed his left hand, but the metallic cuffs didn’t give. Looking between the two inhumanly thin Iron Men on either side of Alexander’s desk, he asked, “Where’s Blondie?”

With an indulgent half-shrug, Alexander flicked a switch on his desk. A projection appeared on the wall. Alexander didn’t look at it.

Tony couldn’t look away. Blondie was huddled in the corner of a cell, cradling the stub of a left arm and gazing with open terror across the room, where an Iron Man suit sat with—Christ, Tony thought, swallowing. “Business disagreement?” he managed, throat dry. 

Blondie _had_ kidnapped him, but there was something animal in the way he huddled in the corner, his terror raw through the screen, and Tony couldn’t celebrate it. He could barely keep his stomach where it belonged.

“My hand slipped,” Alexander lied, voice light, as he dismissed the screen. “Don’t worry, my _friends_ here were quite happy to cauterize the wound. Truly, a terrible accident. I’m sure they’d extend you the same courtesy.”

“How generous.” Twitching his left hand in a vain attempt to free it, Tony added darkly, “Arm and a leg, huh?”

“An arm suffices. Carries a message, doesn’t it?” Standing, Alexander stepped up fearlessly to Tony in his suit, looming over him with a godless smile. “I can _dismember_ you.” At a twitch from his hand, one of the two silver Iron Men heeled, standing emphatically at Alexander’s side. “You thought I’d grant you a quick death?”

“A man can dream, can’t he?” Looking defiantly up at his captor, Tony added seriously, “I’m taking you down.”

Another cryptic wave of the hand, and the second suit retreated. Reaching under the desk, it produced a long metal rod with a red light on the end, holding it carefully in knife-like fingers. Alexander didn’t even look at it. Heart beating fast, hoping against hope that the suit would turn on its master, Tony watched in silent mortal trepidation as the suit leveled the bar right at him instead.

In a strangely patronizing gesture, Alexander reached forward and tapped—not the reactor, but the space over Tony’s real heart. Jerking his arms in a vain attempt to free himself, his feet bound, his heart beating faster, trying to squeeze in more life in the seconds left to him, Tony managed, “You’re going to hell, Alexander.”

Stepping back, Alexander said simply, “Send my regards to your father.” Then he clicked his fingers, and in a fraction of a second, the metal bar sliced clean through the armor, puncturing all the way to the back of the chair. Straight through the heart.

“I hope it was worth it, Stark,” Alexander said, more to himself than Tony, who could do nothing as the suit stabbed him twice more in quick succession before Alexander clicked his fingers and it backed off. “I won’t make it that quick.”

Breathing heavily in the Mark X, half a country away from the poor dead Mark VIII, Tony rasped the last word: “Thank you for your cooperation.” Then he severed the connection, stomach roiling at the thought of Alexander making good on his threat, feeling sick at the reality that he would certainly relish tearing apart the Mark VIII, extracting as much information as he could from it. 

Opening the mask to his own suit, Tony looked around at the assembly in the living room and confirmed, “He knew. But he did give us something.”

No one said a word, waiting, only quasi-patiently, for him to go on. He indulged them, saying briskly, “None of the jamming frequencies worked. The suits are flying solo.”

“Bold,” Clint rumbled, sitting on the couch, arms folded across his chest.

Steve, standing near the threshold with one shoulder leaning against it, corrected quietly, “Dangerous.” He was looking at Tony with that little frown that meant he was worried about something, and Tony looked at Fury so he didn’t have to own up to the fact that _he_ was the object of that concern as he pointed out:

“They’re not real clones. They’re duplicates.”

“What’s the difference?” Clint asked.

“Clones cooperate.”

“That’s a silver lining,” Clint said.

Tony made a so-so gesture with his right hand, sliding the mask back into place, regarding them from behind it. Silently trying to convince his still-beating heart that it wasn’t about to be impaled. He couldn’t manage; it hurt, and he reached up unconsciously with his left hand to rub it before scratching at the suit’s neck uselessly instead. “Means it’ll be hard to take down groups. No patterns.”

“But they can’t coordinate,” Clint insisted, sitting up, resting an emphatic fist on a knee. He uncurled it when Laika padded over, stroking an open palm down her back. “So. No team-play.”

“They can still swarm,” Tony reminded. “Give them a single target—”

“—and it doesn’t matter if they’re acting as a unit.”

“Exactly.”

“Damn.”

The room was quiet for a moment.

“They’re blind,” Tony added, voice firm. 

Again, Fury and Steve held their silence, leaving Clint to respond: “How do you figure?”

Leveling a somewhat deadpan look at him from behind the armor, Tony said, “Call it a gut feeling.” Shifting his attention to Fury, he added, “I’d stake lives on it. They’re cold-blind. Until Pierce came close, they didn’t know I was _there_. Blind and functionally alone. That’s what we’ve got going for us.”

“Pierce learned his lesson with the Chitauri,” Clint mused, patting Laika on the side. “No point in having an _army_ if one hit can short-circuit the whole thing.”

Blinking in surprise, Tony turned to him again and said seriously, “Barton, you’re a genius.”

Clint frowned. “Why don’t I like the sound of that?”

“All we have to do is short-circuit them.” Letting his gaze flick to Steve’s, safe behind the mask, he explained, “Light the bastards up.”

“Thor’s—”

Shaking his head, Tony interjected, “Don’t need him. I know where we can get some real fire power.” When the peanut gallery failed to share his eureka moment, he clarified, “You’ve been living over it for the last year.”

A long pause. “You think it could work?” Clint asked seriously, leaning forward, hands clasped and hanging loosely over his knees.

Tony turned to look at him. “Did I stutter?”

“It’s a trap.” Steve. Tony closed his eyes, but it made the unreal _vivid_ , like a metal spear smashing through his chest. Shuddering, he opened his eyes, one hand gripping the armor over his heart, after all.

 _I won’t make it quick_.

If that was quick—well. He didn’t want to know what _slow_ meant. 

The image of the sickly-thin Iron Man suit guarding the terrified one-armed man made him gag, and he excused himself with a tight, “I need some air—” Stumbling, he lurched out the door. No one stopped him.

After a minute, Steve joined him.

Huddled against the side of the house, Tony said, “He’s a cannibal. He eats his own. If he gets his hands on—”

“He won’t.”

Sucking a breath, Tony snapped, “You don’t _know that_.”

“No,” Steve agreed, stepping around so he was in front of Tony again, the worry lines in his face softening. “But I believe it.”

Tony pressed both metal hands to his face, hiding behind them. “How the _fuck_ did you work for him?”

Stepping forward, Steve carefully, almost tentatively wrapped both arms around his torso, suit and all. Tony didn’t lower his hands, but he leaned into him, exhaling slowly. Desperately, he insisted, “He can’t touch them.”

“He won’t.”

“He can’t—”

Steve slid both hands up to cradle Tony’s head. “He won’t.”

Desperate to forget, Tony lowered his hands, looking into steady blue eyes instead. Steve looked haler—heartier. And absolutely certain. “I trust you.”

With a grim little half-smile, Steve said, “I know.”

. o .

They were off-property in fifteen minutes.

And less than twenty minutes after, the first scouts arrived. 

Their journey had been long, exacting; twelve of their compatriots were lost in the cold dark landscape, on standby now that a new order had been sent out. Those closest to the new target had been directed to arrive with haste; those outside a fifty-mile radius had been ordered to stand-by.

Only three suits were inside a fifty-mile radius: 209, 211, and 212. Had the inhabitants of the vacated farm been present, they might have successfully dismantled 209 and 212. They were a ragged pair—209 had fallen into a body of water and moved awkwardly, rusting, and 212 moved steadily but with hunched shoulders, its trek through a storm initiating a bowing sequence that it did not correct, clawed fingers nearly dragging on the ground.

They did not breathe, but they rasped mechanically, a mimicry of conversation, of _life signs_. Without expression or consultation, they hunted for red flares they had been programmed to turn blue. They had no self-preservation commands whatsoever. They were simply to kill. By any means necessary. At any personal cost. They had nothing to risk, nothing to _lose_. Their bodies were already so lean there was little to hold onto, less to pull off. And as long as they could move, they could fight. They would not live to fight another day. They were there only to kill, and die.

212 searched the barn; 209, the house. Scanning for targets, they did not speak or seethe or snarl, quietly brute-forcing their way through obstacles, shattering windows, breaking down doors. 

Momentarily, they alighted on a small heat signature in the house, flickering amorphously in its huddled corner. Unable to differentiate between a crackling fire and a human being, they slashed and dashed the flames, spreading them around. The conflagration did not spread: ruthlessly, they extinguished each little flare. In seconds, the whole space was dark, “blue.” 

Neither of them knew that what _blue_ looked like. They only knew the spectral range they had been programmed to read, and _red_ was yes, _blue_ was no. 

_Yes_ was kill, and _no_ was move on.

They ignored each other as they worked. They would only descend to violent confrontation if their paths crossed. Their paths did not cross, even though they came close enough to shake hands, twice. They did not shake hands even once, nor look each other in the eye.

Finally, after just ten minutes, both 209 and 212 transmitted twin zeroes and froze, standing by.

Sitting in his office, fingers steepled under his chin, Alexander Pierce saw the report, and stood.

They were on the move. He did not smile, but he felt a certain quiet satisfaction at the confirmation that they’d be dead in forty-eight hours. 

A world free of the Avengers. He was about to rewrite history.

“Time to go,” he told his silent silver bodyguards, striding across the room, abandoning the mutilated red-and-gold Iron Man in its chair. Although he would have enjoyed breaking it apart, he’d chosen to destroy it instead in the spirit of preventing a second _performance_. 094 and 095 had done a good job, smashing and dashing until the suit was the lifeless hulk it purported to be. 

He had more than enough suits for his own purposes, and plenty of intellect to make more. Stark was irrelevant, his designs only cutting edge until Alexander cut them from the same cloth. Killian—he’d have 048 kill him when it suited him. No point in putting the man out of his misery too soon. Unlike Stark, he was still useful; he could be bait.

 _Bait_. It was the word in mind as Pierce strode down the hall, flanked on either side by his suits. Twelve armed agents flanked either side of the corridor, looking at him behind expressionless black masks. Inhumans, he thought, pausing to put a hand on one of their shoulders, well-padded enough it could have been either a man or woman. At the agent’s side, interspersed like its brethren—one for every three of them, eight in all—stood one of the sleek silver monsters, perfectly at attention, glowing red eyes looking at him with quiet, emotionless reverence.

The experimental trials had been lively, Pierce reflected, staring right at the metal monster, still holding the agent’s shoulder in a punishing grip. The earliest sacrificial victims had thought they might _survive_ the experiments when, toothless, the suits had begun to practice their target-seeking abilities. But in a matter of weeks, the suits had become lethally strong, lethally fast, and lethally accurate. Watching them, Pierce had been confident they’d make good soldiers one day.

Then 028 killed its target in less than three seconds. 

Even Pierce had been impressed.

He’d demanded a hundred more like it, and his terrified underlings had nearly doubled the order. 

Army in pocket, he’d smoked the Avengers out. And they’d _scattered_.

Now he needed to draw them in.

Releasing the faceless agent, Pierce kept walking, his silver suits following obediently. They were each equipped with a bracelet that rebuffed the kill command, and Alexander wore a tag around his neck for added security. They wouldn’t turn on him, or any of his most loyal underlings.

Unless he said so.

“You know,” he told 095 and 096 companionably as they rode in an elevator. “I almost regret not being here to _watch_.”

The suits said nothing. Pierce smiled. Perfect obedience.

Perfect soldiers.

. o .

Alexander had gotten his eye for an eye, Tony mused, looking out the window as the Tahoe zipped along the highway, trying to suppress the nervous energy buzzing under his skin, urging the miles to go faster and still dreading their completion.

He didn’t regret spying on Alexander, accepted the cost of reverse-surveillance for a leading edge, but he disliked the risk of exposing Barton’s family-in-law to potential retaliation. _They’re in Colorado_ , Barton had assured, seconds before he embarked on his remote reconnaissance. _Trust me, they won’t come back till I give the word. ‘Utah’ is our code red._

Frustrated at his forced inaction, Tony took to the initiative. Leaning against the driver’s seat, Tony popped his head over the central console to ask, “How come you get to drive?”

“Because,” Clint said, reaching up to shove him back like a nosy dog. “Sit down.”

“That wasn’t very instructive,” Tony retorted, reappearing and biting the hand that tried to rebuff him. 

A strong arm curled around his middle and pulled him back into a warm embrace. “Tony,” Steve rebuked, voice a low rumble.

“Oh, now you’re taking his side?” Tony grumbled back, squirming in his hold.

“We all know I can drive circles around you, Stark,” Clint added, apparently unable to resist.

Never one to shy from a challenge, Tony sucked air through his teeth sharply, his intention to spit on the bastard clear enough that Fury snapped, “ _Enough_.”

Swallowing, Tony scowled and unbuckled, clambering into the farthest backseat with Laika, who wagged her tail hopefully at him. “Hi, sweetheart,” he told her, momentarily forgetting his ire as he rubbed her head and settled next to her, buckling in carefully. Cupping her head, he told her, “My one true friend.”

“Good to have aspirations,” Clint chimed in helpfully.

Flipping him off, Tony repeated to Laika, “You are my _one_ true friend.”

Her tail wagged against the seat. He kissed the top of her head and felt anguish and hope froth in his chest.

. o .

_Monday, December 16, 1991_.  
 _T-minus two hours, fourteen minutes._

“Ah. Stark.”

“Pierce.” They clasped hands, briefly.

“Lovely to see you again, Mrs. Stark,” Alexander Pierce added with a cordial little bow of the head.

“A pleasure as always, Alexander,” Maria replied calmly. “How’re you?”

“Well,” Pierce said, looking between them with a polite smile. “As I imagine you two are soon to be.” Conspiratorially, he leaned forward and asked, “Are you sure you trust that boy of yours alone for so long, Howard? I’ve heard he’s a handful.”

Howard Stark’s expression became grim. “To be truthful, Alex,” he said, then paused for a long moment, looking over his shoulder. Lowering his voice, he looked at Pierce and said, “He needs a tough hand.” There was no trace of paternal warmth in his tone. “He’s gone completely off the—”

“Howard,” Maria interjected quietly, chastising.

Standing stiffly, Howard cleared his throat and said, “I’m sorry, Secretary. I’m not a man to air out his affairs for all the world to see.”

“I understand.” There was a real touch of sorrow in the Secretary’s voice as he added, “It’s painful to watch our children disappoint us.”

“A lesson you wisely avoided,” Howard grunted. “Should’ve—”

“ _Howard_ ,” Maria rebuked, more sternly.

“Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve,” Howard finished, a touch waspishly, looking away and then back at Pierce with steely politeness. “We ought to be going. Have a meeting with the Commissary.” Extending his hand again, he shook Pierce’s once more and added, “Best be off.”

“Safe travels.” Smiling at Maria, he added, “Don’t worry, Mrs. Stark. I’m sure he’ll fall in line.”

“Not a doubt in my mind,” Maria said quietly, her tone full of bottomless surety.

 _T-minus nineteen minutes_.

Driving to the airport, Howard could not contain his words. “I just want him to be—”

“Like you?” Maria set a hand on his across the console. “No, you don’t.”

Howard sighed, gripping the leather, ignoring the implicit offering to turn over his hand. “If he so much as scuffs the floors, I’ll teach him the meaning of civil obedience.”

“That would be dangerous, Howie,” Maria warned in a quiet undertone, squeezing his hand.

Howard snapped: “It’s not a woman’s business to teach a boy how to become a man. Just look at him—he’s soft, he’s dull. Asleep at four in the afternoon! Back in my day, a real man would teach his son—”

“I don’t _want_ a ‘real man’ to teach our son,” Maria said, almost impishly, but her voice was serious. “You cannot beat a boy for being a _boy_.”

“He’s _twenty-one years old_ ,” Howard thundered, gripping the wheel with both hands, the warm imprint of Maria’s on the back of his own cooling. “That’s a man by any measure of the stick, and yet he acts like—”

“Howie,” Maria entreated, in a different voice, “Howard, please, be careful.”

Howard sank his foot on the pedal, revving the car, thundering right back, “I will not be treated like this! Not by my own blood, not by my _wife_!” Then, like a storm passing, he eased off the gas, and settled back into his seat calmly, and, with a soft clearing of his throat, offered his upturned palm on the console. Maria’s hand was a touch clammy, but she clasped it immediately, gently, earnestly. He felt small for just a moment as he said, “Now, look, here—I am a good man.”

“You are.” Maria squeezed his hand gently. Her fingers were shaking, barely noticeably.

“I have done everything in my power to raise a good son.” Squeezing her hand, not tightly, but firmly, he added, “Now, see, Maria—he will be a good man.”

“Of course, Howard—”

“He will,” Howard said, nearly but not quite walking over her quiet affirmation, needing her to understand, “I will teach him, I will show him. There is not a thing on this earth I cannot move that needs to be moved.”

“Howard—”

“I promise you.” Squeezing her hand again, he insisted, “I will set him straight, I will set him _right_.” With a soft sigh, he released his vice-like grip on her hand, simply holding it instead. “A man of my stature should not be embarrassed to speak of his own blood in good company.”

Maria was quiet. He prodded her, “Is it right of me to feel that way?”

“No, Howard.” She pulled her hand back, setting it neatly on her own knee, looking out the window. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not you I’m—”

“I don’t know—” She cut herself off. Drawing in a long breath, she finished, “I don’t know what the answer is, Howard.”

Setting his hand on her knee, calm and sincere, Howard said, “A father ought to teach his son how to become a man. It is not his mother’s place to do more than nurture. And you, Maria, you have raised a man of great potential. I will make him great.”

“Don’t hurt him, Howie.” The words were soft enough they were almost inaudible over the windshield wipers swishing away snowflakes. “Please.”

“I won’t.” It was a gruff promise, reluctantly delivered. Howard squeezed her hand again before releasing it, setting both on the wheel. “He’s got good bones. He’s from good stock. I’ll steer him right. He just needs—”

 _Time zero_.

There was a loud sound, almost like running over a deer, but there was no deer, and then Howard barked, “Shit!” as realization smashed over him. He smashed a foot on the brake, but it was too late—the brake line was _gone_ , and the car careened forward wildly, at nearly forty miles an hour.

“Howard!” Maria cried, just before—

The white noise was terribly loud, the darkness in Howard’s vision unbelievably dense, refusing to be blinked away. He felt like he’d been hit by a sledgehammer, repeatedly, as he—coughed, struggling to sit upright, crunched against the wheel. “Maria,” he gasped, wheezed, reaching for his belt to free himself. It was hard to see her, and there was an acrid smell, and sharp heat from the front of the vehicle, and panic swept him. “Maria—please!”

Stumbling out of the car was agony, alighting his nerves, sending him to the gravelly dirt, ice-cold and dappled with his own blood as he coughed on it. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” he said, so breathlessly as to be inaudible, and began to crawl, desperate to reach her, to free her from the inferno spreading rapidly across the hood. “Please, Maria—”

He could not yelp as a hard hand suddenly curled in his hair, wrenching him upright, chest too compressed to get the air needed.

He blinked rapidly, eyes watering with pain as white hair was yanked to the root, his neck bent uncomfortably as he gazed up into a—into—

Mouthing like a fish out of water, he managed, “Sergeant Barnes?”

“Howard,” Maria cried, softer, desperate, and he _had_ to get to her, goddammit, apparitions be—

The apparition smashed a metal hand hard into his head, and he was alive for the first blow, and dead by the second.

_T-plus fifty-one minutes._

Sipping from a glass of white wine at a Christmas party, Alexander Pierce frowned in thoughtful concern as a woman in the crowd said softly, “My God.” Then, louder, she said, “Please, turn that up.” A gentleman managed to get the little black-and-white TV at a higher volume, and the reporter confirmed:

“. . . _Stark, and his wife, Maria, have died in a car crash_.”

Later, when pressed, Pierce would reflect simply, “A terrible accident.”

_T-plus three hours, six minutes._

In private, Pierce would add, “I’m not a man to praise, and you’re not a man to accept it.” The Soldier stared mutely at him, hands folded behind his back, standing at parade rest. “The world is no longer primed for your kind,” he added, pacing slowly, sipping on a stronger drink, making his head pleasantly hot, immune to all possible emotion, even triumph. It would not do for a man of his stature to allow his clear eyes to be clouded with victory, but it was _victory_. “We don’t need _super-soldiers_.” He finished off the drink and set the glass down. The Soldier did not reply. When he’d first met the Soldier, he’d asked his handlers, _Then why does he have a tongue?_

With an arrogant little shrug from an arrogant little man, Arnim Zola replied reedily, _The better to scream_.

“We just need obedience,” Pierce finished. “No more outliers. Understood?”

The Soldier bowed his head mutely in acknowledgement. He said nothing.

Pierce said, “Finally. A man who knows his place.”

. o .

**Present.  
 _Monday, January 21, 2013._**

_“Ah. Good morning, Mr. Stark.”_

_“. . . Good morning, Bambi.” Looking around the empty balcony room, Tony cleared his throat and added, “You got mail?”_

_“Oh, yes.” Stepping forward, Bambi extended a folder to him. She smiled. “You may want to sit down.”_

_Nodding once, he allowed with thin-voiced sincerity, “Thank you, Bambi.” Heart beating fast, he added, “You can go now.”_

_She walked, and he looked down at the folder in his hands, which were trembling._

Don’t open it.

_Leaning a hip against the couch, Tony looked up when he heard the door open. “Tony?”_

_“Pep?”_

_She shook her head, covering the business end of a wired telephone. “You’ll want to take this.”_

_Nodding, he straightened and stepped forward to take it. He didn’t let go of the folder._

_His hand shook harder as he reached for the phone and said, “Thank you, Pep.”_

Don’t answer it.

_He pressed it to his right ear, and began to shiver uncontrollably at the dial tone that answered him._

_With nowhere to put it, he cradled the phone in his arm, folder unopened, and jerked when Rhodey said, “Tony, you oughtta see this.”_

_“Rhodey?”_

_Standing with his back to Tony in front of a TV, Rhodey fiddled with the remote, and stared, entranced, at the lifeless static that appeared. “God,” he began, voice low, making the hairs on the back of Tony’s neck, “this is . . . .”_

_Reaching up helplessly to cover his ears, awkward with his unwanted gifts, Tony nearly dropped it all as a hand propelled him forward. “C’mon, there’s a press conference in one hour, aren’t you even dressed?”_

_Blinking, looking down at himself, clad in a robe and clearly fresh out of bed, he cleared his throat and said, “I’m not going.”_

_“Tony.” The hand on his back crowded him into the elevator. The doors slid shut loudly. And Obadiah Stane said, “This can end one of two ways.”_

_Looking out the opaque windows, Tony swallowed hard, still clutching the noisy phone and unopened folder, and turned to look at him._

_Brandishing a wicked-looking knife in one hand and a document, neatly pressed in a formal folder, with a pen in the other, Obadiah demanded, “It’s your choice.”_

_Back to the corner, Tony stared at the document, at Obadiah’s flat expression, at the knife, gleaming silver. Too shaken to do anything else, he reached forward with a trembling hand for the pen, and the knife cut clean through it, sending—_

Gasping, Tony flailed upright, heart _pounding_ in his chest. He could feel something heavy and furry next to him, a warm wet nose snuffling near his ear, but he ignored it, looking around the car— _car?—_ wildly. Right hand aching—he dared not look down at it, terrified to see what had become of it—he fumbled to get out of his little prison, disoriented by the quiet, by his unfamiliar surroundings.

Where the _hell—_?

He stood in a gas station in the middle of Nowhere, America, maybe one hour before dusk, struggling to understand.

“Hey, Stark.”

Turning on his heel, shirt clinging to his chest, hand clinging to the reactor, he stared disbelievingly at Clint, wielding a gas nozzle with a placid expression. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

With a meaningful shudder, Tony said shortly, “Where the hell—?”

“’Bout an hour away from Sioux Falls.” When Tony stared at him in blank disbelief, Clint added unhelpfully, “South Dakota.”

Feeling like he’d fallen through a curtain into another dimension, Tony slowly oriented himself towards the setting sun, then pointed emphatically in the opposite direction. “We’re supposed to be going _that_ way.”

Shaking his head, Clint said, “Not yet.” The gas nozzle clunked; Clint replaced in its holder, adding, “We’re making a pit stop.”

Blinking several times in quick succession, Tony demanded, “Is this really the _time_ for a road trip?”

Looking at Tony flatly, Clint said, “Calm down. You’ll see why.”

Hating him, suddenly and to the bone, Tony barked, “Fucking _tell me_ or I swear to God, Barton—”

Inexplicably, Clint held up a hand, and caught a bottle of Gatorade with a grin. “Nice toss.”

“Comes in handy,” Steve added, barely outside the doors to the little store, holding up a red bottle in Tony’s direction. “Want one?”

Growling low in his throat, Tony said, “I _want_ to know why the _hell_ we’re in _South fucking Dakota—_ ”

“You’re peachy.”

All three of them turned towards the owner of the world-weary voice.

“Oh, hell, oh, I knew it,” Clint effused, racing across the lot full-tilt to Natasha as she walked alongside the highway, looking nearly as world-weary as Tony felt.

When Clint skidded to a halt next to her, she kissed his cheek, stole his Gatorade, and promptly gulped it down, pausing just once for breath. Passing the empty bottle back to him, she looked them over and added, only a touch breathlessly, “So. Boys. What’ve we gotten ourselves into?” 

There was a long pause, interrupted only by the quiet encroaching night characteristic of _can’t believe I’m in South-fucking-Dakota.  
_

Then: “How the _fuck—_?” Tony began, but he was interrupted by Steve loping across the lot in six great strides and sweeping Natasha up into a hug fit for a rom-com.

Making a soft exasperated sound, surprisingly hurt— _that was_ my _hug—_ Tony put his back to their little huddle, watching Fury reappear, sipping from his own cup of coffee. His gaze flicked gratifyingly over Tony, then the three hooligans by the road, fit to be run over by a semi not paying attention on the lonely one-lane highway. Looking back at Tony, Fury approached, and, oddest of oddities, offered his cup.

Absolutely sure that he’d fallen through a parallel universe, Tony nevertheless took the offering, charitably only taking one big gulp before passing it back. “How—?” he began, and got even less far before Fury said:

“Scatter protocol. Everybody holes up in the same place—”

“—everybody goes down,” Clint finished, making Tony flinch at his sudden proximity. “Divided we survive.”

Looking between the two of them, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to the bone, Tony floundered mutely for words, looking over at Steve and Natasha, who were speaking too quietly for him to hear. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he grimaced tightly when it jostled his right hand, stuffing down his simmering irritation less successfully.

“We could’ve picked you up sooner,” Clint added to the love-birds.

Shaking her head, Natasha called back, “If I’d missed you here, I would’ve risked it.”

“You’re not hurt?” Steve was saying in an undertone Tony suspected he wasn’t meant to hear, but sue him if he hadn’t drifted closer.

Shaking her head, Natasha said something in a genuine undertone that he couldn’t make out.

Tony finally halted a few feet away from them, refusing to scuff his foot on the gravel impatiently as he waited for their little talk to end. He raised both eyebrows in pointed disbelief when Natasha looked at him. “Stark,” she greeted tonelessly.

“Romanoff,” he replied, equally coolly.

“Was starting to wonder about you.”

Affronted, Tony said, “Could say the same about _you_.” He looked away, then growled, “Couldn’t have _told us_ where you were?”

Natasha looked at each of them in turn, her expression telling. “Well,” she said deliberately, “this would be one hell of a coincidence if I _hadn’t_.”

Left out of the loop and pissed off about it, Tony glared at Steve, who frowned thoughtfully at him. “Fuck you, you couldn’t have _told me_?”

Looking abruptly apologetic, Steve began, “Tony—”

Shaking his head, Tony said seriously, “We wasted half a _day_ and nobody thought to let me in on this?”

“Nobody wasted anything,” Clint said seriously, once again seemingly materializing next to him. Tony stepped away from him, feeling cornered by their unity, their _loyalties_. Hell, they were S.H.I.E.L.D.’s, first, Avengers, second. Even Steve, _Captain America_ , signed his loyalties off to the organization trying to kill him. Tony alone was the outsider.

 _You’re not gonna believe this_.

Shaking his head abruptly, disturbed, he forced himself to back down from a fight: “No. Of course not.” Clipped, he told Natasha, “It’s good to see you.” Then, with an exaggerated stretch of his arms overhead, he added, “I’m taking a walk, and it can _fucking wait_ , all right?” He directed the last part at Clint, who looked confused. Clint flicked his gaze over to Steve, who offered no answer, judging by his more pronounced frown.

“You okay?” Clint asked.

When Tony broke, it wasn’t loud—it was polite, almost warm, as he said aloud, “I’m perfectly fine,” and retreated to the rental, freeing Laika and instructing calmly, “We’ll be back.”

It was getting properly dark, now—the joys of winter, early and lingering darkness—and Tony wasn’t familiar with the terrain, but he’d been in far less familiar terrain and made it out just fine. There was something comforting about it, roaming alongside the darkening roadside, Laika disappearing in the woods, returning periodically to sniff at him, tail wagging.

It felt good to stretch his legs, breathe fresh air. For a moment, he envied Romanoff—who couldn’t have walked the _entire_ way but must have abandoned whatever metal steed had carried her at least within hiking distance. Then he thought about not knowing if anyone was at the end of the road, and he was alone, and shuddered.

Steve gave him the courtesy of a ten-minute lead. 

Drawing up alongside him, Steve asked seriously, “Tony?”

“Did I say I wanted a hiking buddy?” Tony asked, not looking at him.

“ _Tony—_ ” Steve caught him by the arm—gently, but strongly enough to halt him. “Please. What’s going on?” His voice was low, soft. Concerned.

Tony hated it, that he was _concerned_ about him, and he said so aloud: “I’m not glass.”

Brow furrowed, Steve said, “No, I know you’re not.” Almost absentmindedly, he tugged Tony further from the road, deeper into the woods. “Please. I can’t help—”

“—if you don’t know what’s going on?”

Steve was quiet for a long moment, gently chafing his hands up and down Tony’s arms, pressing warmth into them through his borrowed coat. Tony found emotion welling deeply within his chest, and he had to look away to keep from giving voice to the pain in his chest that had nothing to do with burnt metal, seared skin.

“I can’t _be_ here,” he burst out, traitorously, too close to Steve’s warmth, his concern, his listening ear to not say it. “Okay? Home is _that way_.” It was harder to be exactly sure, with the sun’s low glow occluded by trees, but he pointed down the road, regardless, saying emphatically and not entirely away from tears, “My family, _my_ family, is in danger, and we’re going the _wrong way_.”

Frowning at him, not confused but deeply compassionate, Steve said quietly, “Oh, Tony.” He didn’t draw him close, just kept rubbing his arms up, and down, comforting in its rhythmic quality. “Sweetheart—” He paused, then gathered Tony close, burying his face in Tony’s hair, after all, breathing close to him, awash in warmth. “I’m sorry. I should’ve—”

But what he _should have_ was a mystery, as there was a sudden yelp that, louder than a crack of thunder, drew both of them towards the road, further into the darkness.

Tony said breathlessly, “Go,” and Steve was gone, running, faster than he could ever hope to keep up, chasing the empty echo. Dangerously close to panic, Tony ran as fast as his legs would carry him, nearly twisting an ankle in unexpected divots, closing in quick—

He felt the world drop out from under him at the sight, mouth dry as a tomb. “Please,” he began.

Laika shook on the ground nearby, one leg crumpled as she tried to get up. Tony almost didn’t even see Steve, who had frozen, staring blankly at—

“Please,” Tony said again.

The black-clad assassin looked at him, briefly, his eyes oddly lamplight, like Steve’s were sometimes. _Super-soldier_. Calmly, the man looked at Steve, then, with exceeding care, knelt, and unclipped Laika’s collar. He turned it inside-out, and tossed it at Tony’s feet, never taking his eyes off Steve.

Tony wanted to close his eyes tightly, _It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream, oh dear God please be a dream,_ but he didn’t dare look away. The three of them stood in the little woods next to the empty road.

Finally, helplessly, Steve managed a single word: “Bucky?”

The assassin clicked his fingers.

Animal in its violence, stunning in its speed, the suit pinned him down, crushing him, knife-like hands dug carelessly into and around flesh.

But Steve was not one to be bested, and with what must have been a herculean effort, he flung the suit off his back. It crashed into a nearby tree with a dull thud, and began to lift itself up again.

Tony thought, _Please, please, please_ , helpless, reeling, backing away instinctively when the suit turned to him. The assassin watched, like he was only there to watch, as they fought tooth-and-nail. The suit landed hit after hit, but Steve was strong and tough and fast, and he began to dismantle it.

As Steve faded before him, the suit too fast, too relentless to bring down easily, the assassin stepped closer.

Panicked, aghast, Tony shouted, “No!”

In one desperate movement, Steve ripped one of the suit’s arms clear off, and caught the hand wielding a knife slashing towards his chest.

Tony didn’t think as he saw the suit, already picking itself up, lunged—he ran, he leaped, he pinned the bastard down as it writhed underneath him, holding onto the remaining arm for dear life. One solid blow to the chest and he’d be a goner.

There was the crack of a gunshot, and the assassin reeled back. Tony jerked violently in surprise, accidentally releasing the suit. The assassin, gripping his throat, making a wounded but not mortal moan of pain, looked somewhere over Steve’s shoulder, somewhere _behind them_ , and then, soundlessly, turned and ran, disappearing.

The robot lunged for Steve, and he went down underneath it, too exhausted or hurt to throw it off. Before Tony could even begin to regain his senses, Clint Barton was barreling into its side, forcefully overthrowing it. He wasn’t strong enough to rip the free arm off, and there was no mortal blow to be dealt, so all he could do was hold it, desperately, and finally crack out, “Need a hand here!”

Tony answered the call, their combined weight enough to keep the lethal arm down as the suit twisted in loud, wordless fury, trying to free itself. Finally, finally, finally, Steve nearly tripped on top of them, and, with the authority bequeathed on a man with superhuman strength, rent the arm clean from its metallic shoulder.

Reluctant though they were to let the suit up, they backed off, battered by its energetic movements, and watched it jerk and swing and trip, off-balanced, struggling to right itself in the snow. “Christ,” Tony said.

Steve lurched after the dying beast, and though it stumbled into him like it still had arms to serrate, he grabbed its metal head in both hands, and tore it off.

Blinded, disarmed, alone, the suit lay lifeless on the forest floor, and red eyes abruptly went dark.

Swallowing bile, Tony turned to look at the fuzzy shape that pressed against his leg, little whining noises and front foreleg upheld, but tail, impossibly, still wagging. “Oh,” he told her, unable to vocalize anything, anything, as he crouched and picked her up in his arms, gingerly as he could, trembling violently. “Oh, sweetness.” He clutched her to himself, ready to cry but too ablaze to, watching in mute shock as Clint slung one of Steve’s arms over his shoulder, his free hand on the gun on his belt.

 _Where did you get a gun?_ Tony didn’t ask, numb to such worldly queries as he carried his dog-daughter in his arms, still shaking. He didn’t care, couldn’t process any of the words Clint was saying, or even the tone—he could only guess they were, _What happened, what happened?_

Tony thought of the collar on the ground, of Steve on his morning runs, of . . . of somehow, _some way_ , a seemingly innocent stranger slipping a tracker on it.

Tears, finally, streamed down his face, unseen in the darkness, because he’d been careful, _so_ careful, but he hadn’t checked—hiccoughing, barely able to breathe from the weight on his chest, heavier than Laika could ever be—they didn’t go far before Fury and Natasha were there, not saying one word as they half-helped, half-hauled Steve into the car. Clint reached for him, for _Laika_ , and he lurched away, and carefully, carefully, climbed into the trunk with her in his arms. Someone shut the door after him.

Someone was talking, several someones, in fact, something about _staunch the bleeding_ , and he wasn’t bleeding, maybe his heart, as he clutched Laika as gently as he could, sobbing silently. _Wake up,_ he begged, but he would not, he _could not_ , because it wasn’t a dream.

Oh, God, it wasn’t a dream.

. o .

Des Moines was nice, Tony thought numbly, as he sat with Laika in his arms, and Fury-of-all-people at his side, in an emergency vet clinic, at 1:44 AM.

They were nice people. They were very nice people. He could not think complexly.

They X-rayed her and declared the fracture easily fixed. Thank God. Thank God. They wrapped her front leg in a cast. She wagged her tail at them. She was always happy to see anyone. He cried. He cried. They thought he was sad for his dog. He was. 

She yelped once. The vets were quick to comfort her. Tony wanted to scream at them. He kept his mouth shut tightly. He breathed in hard. He listened. He held on.

They were outside, then, and panic was like a monster stalking him, a danger in every corner, and where was Steve? and where was he? and oh, God, oh, God. He sat in the parking lot, and could not stand up for five minutes, silently shaking to pieces, clutching his hair, and Iowa was mercifully quiet at this time of night, and no one asked him why he was weeping in a parking lot. Fury carried Laika to the car, then nearly carried him, sliding an arm around him, pulling him forward, moving him along, _not here, not now_.

He was surprisingly aware of the sound of a key card _snicking_ through its mechanized lock. He thought, _Don’t leave me_. He sniffled helplessly, holding onto the wall for support even as Laika, tail wagging furiously, hopped over to see her true master, sniffing energetically at Steve's foot. “Hey, sweet thing,” Clint greeted her, picking her up, and Tony wanted to scream, _Don’t touch her_ but he was already putting her down on the bed next to Steve.

Pale and grim and awake and alive and bleeding in half a dozen not-insubstantial places, Steve looked at Tony, unable to muster a shadow of a smile. Tony understood. He sat on the edge of the same bed, head in his hands, and then he turned his head, bit his own wrist, and screamed against it for what could not have been long but felt long.

He’d nearly bitten it bloody in an effort to stifle his anguish. Natasha, silent, was sitting on the floor, sifting through their things, not-for-the-first-time, looking for any, any, _any_ damning misses.

 _He knew_ _all along_ , Tony thought numbly, as, with a semi-audible little groan, Steve curved an arm around him, beckoning him closer, and Tony went, shuffling along, wrapping both arms too tightly around Steve and his half dozen barely-bandaged wounds. He pressed his cheek against Steve’s shoulder, shut his eyes tightly, and tried desperately not to cry, afraid he would not stop.

He thought, _I should be glad_ because they were alive, and the assassin had been wounded, however dearly, for now. _I should be glad_ , he thought, because they weren’t on foot, and they could put long, desperate miles between them and their assailant, speeding down the highway as fast as they dared go, well over the speed limit and well beyond caring. _I should be glad_ , he thought, because Pierce had given them hours, _time_ , to imagine they were safe, that home away from home could still be home. 

_I should be glad_ , he thought, because Natasha was not dead, even though she could not have been more than ten miles from the assassin at his closest.

 _I should be glad_ , he thought, tears dampening the shirt underneath him, that Pierce wanted them _alive_.

But he was not glad. Because he knew what it meant. He knew what it meant that Pierce wanted them alive. He’d seen too much, a man huddled in a cage with a monster ready to tear him to pieces.

 _Oh, God_ , he thought, and finally shuffled away, limping wounded though unhurt to the bathroom, and dispelled the bile slowly poisoning him.

. o .

He felt better, actually, having thrown up until his stomach hurt, washed his mouth out until he could taste the rocky earth it had percolated over to arrive in their hotel room, and finally scrubbing his face red with a towel, in a desperate attempt to dispel all the terrible emotions trying to be reborn.

Someone had brought his suit—they’d brought all their meager possessions along, and between them, had maybe a dozen items to speak of, things that could help, two guns, two knives, the clothes on their backs, their electronic _not-trackers not-trackers_. He knew, immediately and bitterly as he surveyed the small archaeological site Natasha had created to ensure that nothing else was poisoned, under the watchful eye of Laika, lying on the bed across Steve’s legs, occasionally letting out a whiny breath that made Tony want to kill someone—he knew that he would never sleep in the Tower again until he had washed the whole place clean of Alexander Pierce’s bitter reach.

 _It’s the best spy organization in the world_ , he told himself, looking over at the suit, folded up in its briefcase form, grabbing it by the handle and dragging it across the carpet. _Of course they can find a few moles._

Steve didn’t speak to him, and neither did Clint, who had _Animal Planet_ on, and was watching a documentary about prairie dogs intently. Fury was leaning against the headboard on the same bed as Clint, eyes shut, equally silent. Natasha kept at her task, likely doing a fourth or fifth run, now, and also listened silently. None of them was willing to abandon their little nest for the dangerously empty room next door, instead listening to David Attenborough soothe, _Prairie dogs are a type of ground squirrel, which prefer the intensely dry climate in the western United States to make their extensive underground burrows_.

Steve watched him, though, as he brought the suit over, looking at him in silent secondhand anguish, like he was hurting for Tony instead of himself, and Tony kicked the suit-box over gently, and he folded his arms tightly over his chest, and he watched with mute gratitude as Steve finally, without so much as a creak of protest, shuffled forward and put it on again.

Breathing like an astronaut, deeply through the suit, Steve looked at him with glowing white-blue eyes, and Tony huddled on the bed beside him, small under his arm, smaller still for the red armor. He muttered, almost out of earshot of Natasha, and certainly Hawkeye, with his hearing aids, and Nick, with his eyes closed, “O2 at 60 sat.”

He was wasting air, he knew, oversaturating the suit when sea level air was perfectly sufficient for most humans, but he could feel the way some underlying tension melted out of Steve’s rigidly held form as he sat up against the headboard at a slouch, Laika curling up nearly entirely in Tony’s lap instead, head still on Steve’s metal knee, and David Attenborough went on lightly, _The coterie remains ever-vigilant for hawks and coyotes_.

Chest tight, Tony leaned against Steve as Steve breathed the suit’s reserves of air, accelerating an accelerated healing quantity in desperation, in _need_. He had attended to Laika, who slept on his lap with no trace of guilt or anger, no sense of existential dread, no understanding that what had happened was not normal, only gratitude for a warm place to sleep at night. He had to, for his own sanity, and for Steve’s sake, look after Steve, too. He would not forgive himself if he did anything less, not when he could do _more_.

It occurred to him that maybe Steve was wearing the last Iron Man suit he would ever have access to, and once he depleted the O2 tanks completely, it could not fly any higher than, perhaps, ten thousand feet before dizziness would become a problem. At fourteen thousand feet, permanent human settlements became nearly impossible. At twenty-six and higher, the Death Zone began, where no human being could last for long before succumbing to hypoxia. His climbs to ninety thousand feet would be impossible without vacuum-sealed, supplemental oxygen. His days reaching for the sun could be few.

He’d gladly never fly again, he thought—eyes shut, feeling the suit move, just the tiniest bit, with Steve’s inhales and exhales—if it meant that Steve could rest easier.

And he would never, not once ever, again risk his life so thoughtlessly. _I have to be more careful. For her. For me.  
_

 _For you_.

David Attenborough went on, _Prairie dogs are deeply familial. While the Gunnison’s prairie dog is more solitary than other subspecies, most prairie dogs spend much of their days together, foraging and grooming and looking out for one another_.

Moving slowly with the rise and fall of the suit, Tony thought, _Maybe we are all prairie dogs_ , and might have laughed, if he had not simply wanted to lie in silence, and be glad of just one thing:

 _We’re still alive_.

 _Prairie dogs_ , Attenborough added, _are a resilient animal. Despite their docile demeanor, they can—and will—fight to protect themselves and their coterie. Even black-footed ferrets, which thrive on other small mammals, have a run for their money against the most iconic of grassland inhabitants_. . . .

. o .

“I love you,” Tony told the armor and its sleeping inhabitant, the quality of his breathing so familiar to him that he did not need to ask to know if he was awake or not. “I love you. I’m sorry.” Rolling his cheek against a metal shoulder, he pleaded, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Whispering, eyes burning, he insisted, “I’m sorry.”

Metal fingers flexed slowly, and then with a louder sigh, Steve slid his arm around Tony. Laika, who had, fallen asleep near Tony’s feet, did not wake as he repeated softly into the still-lit room, too afraid to turn the light off, too grateful knowing that as long as he did not he could clearly see the door behind which Clint and Natasha and Fury slept, giving them some semblance of privacy, some taste of home, where it was just them, and their dog, and their little life together.

“I’ll fix this,” Tony promised, voice still so soft even Steve might not have heard it.

But Steve slid his hand over his shoulder purposefully, gently. With a trace of metal and no small hint of muffled exhaustion, he said, “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

Tony imagined what could have been, had Steve not come after him—and huddled closer, shivering. With a deep rumble, Steve sat up, bringing Tony with him, and with only gently fumbling metal fingers, found the mechanical release. Oxygen steamed around them briefly, one last breath of super-oxygenated air before the suit broke its own vacuum and ceased to make more, waiting to be enclosed again.

But Steve shimmied and shuffled and tiredly peeled his way out of the suit, every movement stiff, hurting. The fresh air had done him good—his color was better, more flushed than ghostly—but Tony knew it was only a start, that until they took care of Pierce, they could not heal, not really.

Too wired to sleep, too tired to sleep, Tony watched him stand up, rubbing one big hand over Laika’s resting head, folding back an ear lightly. She lifted her head briefly, considering them, before settling once again, tail swishing gently, bright blue bandaged leg making Tony’s throat ache. _I’ll keep you safe,_ he promised her, scooting along, cupping her head and kissing the top of it gently. _I’ll keep you safe_.

Steve left the bathroom door open, and soon steam wound its way out of it, misting along the ceiling. Unsure but wanting, Tony followed the trail, aware of the metal box in his chest, and how little he could do to protect it against short-circuiting, and subsequent death.

 _I am a machine_ , he thought, aching, yearning, despairing quietly.

Still, he wanted, and the warmth was nice, and he sat on the closed toilet seat for a moment in quiet appreciation, eyes closed. He nodded forward, jerking awake, not dreaming, heart pounding, and blinked in surprise as he heard the water turn off.

Blinking in bewilderment, he looked over as Steve slid the curtain back, looking at him quietly, contemplatively.

Then he asked, barely a question: “You trust me?”

Without bothering with a response, Tony stripped out of his grimy clothes, shedding invisible stress lines with them, and reached up, almost self-consciously, to rub at the arc reactor, feeling sore and cold and weary, and alone, naked in a bathroom in the middle of Des Moines.

The water was lush and warm and perfect as he sank into it, a shudder of relief rolling over his shoulders. Steve’s thighs were sturdy and kept him elevated enough that the reactor was inches from the water, his hands steady around Tony’s hips, his eyes very blue as he looked at him earnestly, aware of the trust he was asking for, with nothing to keep the reactor safe, should he fail.

He didn’t, and there was a quiet intimacy to just sitting on his lap, a raw closeness without urgency. Steve kept one hand anchored on Tony’s hip, the other running gliding over his left arm, the same soft chafing motion, almost pulling, almost rubbing the cold, the grime, the terror away with each pass. They were so close, and yet they were quiet, as feeling seemed to work its way back into Tony’s legs, and Steve painted warmth across the tense muscle along his back until Tony melted against him, bracing his forehead against Steve’s damp shoulder while Steve rubbed the back of his neck, just below his hairline, over and over and over.

The water stayed warm longer than Tony thought it would, and as he pillowed his cheek on Steve’s shoulder, dangerously close to pressing the arc reactor against him, and his still dripping chest, he was aware of just how much heat he put off, how much the serum was keeping them alive.

In more ways than one, he thought, pressing a kiss to Steve’s shoulder, above where he could see a shallow but mean puncture wound, more like he’d been hit with a sharp blunt object than stabbed. Steve hummed softly in appreciation, then used the hand not steadying Tony to grab a towel from the floor, folding it over the edge and encouraging Tony to rest his right arm on it. Then he repeated the same soft, pulling, chafing, brushing, and it was the kind of patience he used to buff his shield in the middle of the night when he thought Tony was sleeping, and Tony wasn’t entirely dozing nor entirely awake as he leaned against Steve.

He scratched lightly at Tony’s neck, soothed a hand down his flank, pressed kisses to the side of his head whenever the fancy struck him, and stole away some of the cold, the terror, and the darkness. He encouraged Tony to wrap his arms around Steve’s neck, and used both hands to soothe warm lines up and down his back, coaxing the tension away, so gentle and reverent that Tony did not shake, even though it was breathtaking to have the arc reactor so exposed, to know Steve could touch it, hurt it, tear it away, and wouldn’t. Even when Steve smoothed his palms up his chest, never coming more than an inch within the reactor, Tony breathed steadily. Trusting. Trusting.

At some indeterminate point, the water did grow lukewarm, and with begrudging awareness, Steve encouraged him to sit up on the ledge, pressing his own cheek against Tony’s knee for a moment, eyes shut. Distracted, Tony spiked his hair, then smoothed it down, feeling cool in the air and yet cleaner, warmer for having been near so much warmth. Steve looked up at him after a moment, eyes full of aching affection, like he couldn’t imagine not having Tony there to enjoy the small, quiet peace between them.

They had only the clothes on their backs to begin with, but Steve seemed nonplussed at the dilemma, simply piling the laundry near the door, for future contemplation, it seemed. Yawning, Tony reached up to ruffle his own hair, still spiky from the warmth of Steve’s fingers carding through it, over and over, he fell gracelessly into the bed not occupied by Laika and shut his eyes.

Opening them, what could not have been seconds later, he found himself facing Steve under the covers, the white-blue glow of the reactor the only real light in the room. Tucked in firmly, the heat between them—both Steve’s body heat and the reactor itself, projecting only a tiny but not negligible amount—was substantial, comforting against bare skin, strangely vulnerable yet strangely not, with Steve equally exposed and equally comfortable beside him, breathing deeply, steadily.

He shuffled forward, and ducked under Steve’s chin, and Steve fanned a hand across his back, between his shoulder blades. His right hand hurt, but not much, and Steve’s heart beat strongly under his ear, lulling him. With one of Steve’s legs tucked over his, he felt untouchable, surrounded. Safe.

Safe. 

He drifted off to a soft sound, a sound that almost was not there: “Love you. Love you.”

And with every beat of his own heart, he echoed it. _Love you._

 _Love you_.


	50. NO TURNING BACK

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, champs—we made it! Fifty chapters. I am inexpressibly excited to take you to the summit of this arc. I'll see you on the other side.

_Thursday, April 12, 2012.  
S.H.I.E.L.D., H.Q._

“You look unwell.”

Steve Rogers stood in the doorway to his S.H.I.E.L.D. appointed living quarters, meeting the Director in the threshold and replying quietly, “Are you here with a mission, sir?”

A beat. “No,” the Director lied, looking past him for the briefest moment, taking in his living quarters. They were messy and empty and incongruously overfull, hardwood and scattered, every bit as picked apart and raw as he was. He had too much, and not enough, and every bit of it was embarrassingly unkempt, all of it everywhere, none of it his. They’d given him miles of paperwork, a week’s worth of clothes, and seventy years of unanswerable questions, and he’d turbulated between trying to get through the mess and ignore it all. He’d settled on what he needed, when he needed it, and ignored the rest. He had a prodigious knack for geography, a reckoning for memorization, a stupendous ability to absorb even difficult and lengthy anecdotes, but the more he heard the words _the future_ , the more it felt like a heart attack. It made him physically ill, and he didn’t want to _know_ , didn’t want to be . . . be _part_ of it. He was ready to burn it all and move into an emptier littler box, to do absolutely anything to get away from the piles of knowledge he didn’t want. The _amenities_ he didn’t want. He wanted what they couldn’t give him, and everything they did give him, it just _agitated_.

Everything _agitated_.

The only thing he’d touched was the empty notepad, ostensibly for notes on important things, that he’d used for doodles. _Doodles_. Monkeys, mostly. Nobody ever understood why he drew monkeys, but they made him smile, and they were easy, and they meant something to him when they wore his stars and stripes, even if that something made him feel sad.

Looking at the Director, somber in his black uniform, somber in his bearing at midnight in the empty hallway, Steve prompted, “Where, sir?”

Fury gave him a once-over, just a quick glance that conceded little, then admitted: “Belarus.”

 _Where?_ Steve didn’t repeat. “Sounds a long way away,” he fished, carefully.

“It is,” Fury confirmed, holding the folder distinctly behind himself, hands at parade rest.

Steve nodded once. He preferred a long way away. Fewer flashing lights, fewer interviews overseas. They assumed he didn’t speak their language, gave him space, like he was too fragile outside the states to be crowded. Unbeknownst to them, he could mingle with natives on three continents in their own dominant languages. He could disappear with civilians. It was the brass, the _bourgeoisie_ he couldn’t bear. “How many days, sir?”

“Haven’t decided.” It was Steve’s turn to frown. He let it be stern rather than upset. Firm, annoyed. People backed down when he was angry. Fear got you trampled. “You look unwell,” he echoed slowly, sounding almost—surprised. “Are you hurt?” The accusation in his voice stung.

 _I was good_. 

He was. He had been. Done everything they’d told him, done the mission right, done it _well_.

Amsterdam was a good test run, a low risk mission with good returns. He’d practically begged for it—he was going crazy in his own head, and in the field, he had better ears, better eyes, and a better gut feeling than any agent in his shoes. He was like a dog that could sniff out a land mine without stepping on it. They could send him places no man dared go, and he’d come back unhurt. He was a new tool in their belt.

 _You need me_.

He needed to be needed. That was how he would survive, how he would get through today. If he couldn’t _be someone_ , today, he wouldn’t survive. Yesterday was yesterday; yesterday didn’t matter. Today mattered. He couldn’t cry about yesterday, couldn’t get bent out of shape about yesterday. Yesterday was yesterday and yesterday was _gone_.

Amsterdam was easy, a good taste of what happened on low risk S.H.I.E.L.D. missions. Nobody got hurt on the home team, and they even came out ahead of their timetable, and it was almost normal. But then he made his first mistake: he skipped the so-called “cipher” and spent three hours learning S.H.I.E.L.D.’s fiendishly abstract code to file his own formal field report, drawing it up and sending it off with his own numerical signature as confirmation. 

And his supervisor, whose numerical name was not the Director’s or Commander’s number but a number just like his, nevertheless, updated his official file with one note: _paranoia_. It boiled in him because he’d thought the decision showed initiative, resourcefulness, pulling his weight, learning the lingo, doing his _job_. _I’m no slacker_. He’d always filled his own reports in the field. It was the thing to do, but apparently, it was a sign of paranoia, of _guardedness_.

The Director had checked in on him— _twice—_ to ask if he’d intentionally skipped a medical follow-up. As if he’d failed to report an injury and tried to hide it by doctoring his own record. Deeply affronted, wounded almost to anger, he’d stiffly asserted each time that he had hid _nothing_ and would happily prove it in front of the whole damn Council, if it helped them sleep at night. 

He wasn’t particularly proud of himself for that one, losing his temper, speaking so crudely in front of his superior, but the Director hadn’t batted an eyelash, saying that that “wouldn’t be necessary.” Steve hadn’t rolled his eyes, but it was a near thing, not deigning to remind the Director that even if he _had_ sustained an injury on the job, given a twelve-hour head start, the serum could likely heal any surficial wound, making it impossible to tell.

And still Fury doubted him. Didn’t _trust_ him.

He’d just have to prove it, that was all. Hardening his jaw, he husked aloud, “No, sir. I’m fine.” A bit of real anger crept into his tone as he reminded, very seriously, “I don’t see how this is relevant to the mission.” The Director could doubt him all he wanted, but he was good enough, he didn’t need to _prove_ it, he’d _already_ proved it, dammit, he’d earned his stripes—

“Don’t you?” the Director interjected, cuttingly.

Steve straightened to his full imperious height in his plain SSR uniform—white shirt, khaki pants, a soldier stripped of all his mettle, every dignity, every hint of identification—and nearly snarled, “No, sir. I don’t.” Fury didn’t raise an eyebrow or bite back, didn’t so much as twitch under his scrutiny, and he realized, abruptly and shamefully, that he wasn’t even wearing shoes.

Where the hell were his shoes?

A lump lodged in his throat, hard enough that he could not speak for a moment, could not bear to hold the Director’s gaze, abruptly ashamed, like he had spoken out of turn. “I’m—sorry, sir,” he managed, looking down at his bare feet, then away, feeling like he would be sick.

“Don’t be sorry.” The folder appeared abruptly in his field of view. It was a mercy and an agony in its own right to take it, like falling on his own sword. His fingers _shook_. He wanted to slam the door, to run, to pretend it wasn’t happening. He could only grip it harder, make his hand stop shaking. “Do better.”

“Yes, sir.” He held the folder tightly, too tightly. Crumpling the paper. Smoothing it, smothering his own shaking, he added, as conversationally as he could, “You don’t usually deliver these in person.”

“No,” agreed the Director. A long, long beat of silence passed between them. Then Fury admitted, “I hadn’t seen you in a while. Wanted to make sure you weren’t dead.” There was a certain dryness to his tone that was met with dissonance in his one eye when Steve dared to lift his gaze and meet it. “I am not a man inclined to make social visits, you understand.”

“Of course not, sir,” Steve agreed readily, feeling cold and stuck under his scrutiny, caught in a living nightmare, all because he didn’t have his damn _shoes_ on. In front of his superior. 

In his own room. Why the hell should he have his shoes on?

 _Because you should be ready_.

“Do better,” the Director repeated, and there was an odd tonality to it, an almost warble. Like he wanted to say something else. _Do more. Do less_.

Steve didn’t know what to say, other than the obvious: “Yes, sir.” Then, to ease the jagged edges he had carved between them, he added, “Thank you, sir.”

“For what?”

Almost, _almost_ idly, Steve lifted the folder, and saluted it, just a touch. “Gets . . . stuffy, around here,” he tried, the vaguest attempt at banter. The words felt awkward in his mouth. Fury’s blank expression didn’t help. Everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. was so goddamn _blank_. He didn’t know how to make heads or tails of it. He swallowed, straining to say something that would erase the board. “I won’t let you down, sir,” he decided.

“Haven’t yet, Rogers,” Fury allowed, turning around. “Just don’t forget your shoes this time.”

Face burning with shame, Steve closed his eyes and managed, “No, sir. I won’t.”

. o .

**_Present.  
Tuesday, January 22, 2013_**.

“All of you need to know the man you’re dealing with.

“You’ve seen him on the edges. Cap—you know his number. 0-1-0-1-0-2-2. Barton—you’ve seen him in person. He’s . . . larger than life.”

For once, the Rhetoric among them offered no witticism, and neither did their Captain. The Director, seated on a ratty little couch almost at the apex of their semicircle in the darkened predawn hotel room, went on.

“Before he rose to the rank of Secretary, we gave him the _Cor Aut Mors_ to see where he fell, just like all agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” He paused, allowing those three words to echo in the densely silent room. _Cor Aut Mors._

 _Heart or Death_. 

“As you know,” the Director went on, “it’s a morality test. An intelligence test, too. One that’s designed to be nearly unsolvable. A way of getting to know you, long before we get to know you.

“No one has ever gotten a perfect score,” Fury reminded, a story they had all heard at least once, usually just prior to taking the test itself. The _Cor Aut Mors_ was S.H.I.E.L.D.’s very own _Kobayashi Maru_. No Captain Kirk had ever cracked their code. “Getting within thirty points of a perfect score is exceptional. Alexander Pierce—” he slowed to let the words settle into the room, like molten lava brushing against the ocean shore, heavy and inexorable in their weight, and then finished sonorously, “scored two-negative.” A long, long beat passed as the weight of those words drummed on, echoing in the echo-less room. “Two points shy of a perfect score.” His gaze fell, pointedly, on one man in the dark room. “Your father was twelve-negative.”

A chill spilled down Tony’s spine like liquid mercury.

“Alexander is,” Fury carried on, slowly, deliberately, “the most calculating person I have ever met. Knows when to get in—and when to get out. Has had a say in every mission S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever run. He came up with a good portion of them. Our ledger is classified.” He looked briefly around the room, then elaborated, “But each name on it was, in some way, selected by Pierce, or with his approval. There are . . . more names on it than I care to admit.”

The silence was deafening. Tony felt a sudden urge to get up, to _walk_ , to flee the darkness pressing in on them from every corner. He could imagine, suddenly and inescapably, the souls of the dead crowding the room, filling every corner, shouting, brawling, cacophanying for retribution, terrifying in their number, one death for every three field agents was still _six hundred_ candles snuffed out without trial. And still there were more, unable to cluster even in his imagination into such a finite space. His chest felt tight as the ghosts clamored in the hall, waiting to be let in and exact their ugly revenge, one by one, stroke for stroke, score for bloody score.

There were more than could be named or avenged, more than could be sequentially numbered below a five-digit scale. They wouldn’t begin with zero-one. They’d start with 0-0-0-0-1 and let the counter scroll.

Even righteous, humble, kill-no-one-he-couldn’t Captain America had twenty-eight S.H.I.E.L.D.-related deaths on his conscience. And he was just one of 33,000-odd employees that called S.H.I.E.L.D. home. Of them, just over twelve hundred were active field agents, Alpha rank; twice as many were “reserves,” Omega rank, future or past field agents. If each agent had a lifetime record of just three targets, three accidents or purposeful marks, the cumulative death toll rocketed quickly past ten thousand.

 _A war_.

1-0-0-0-0.

And that was the _beginning_. Who was to stop them? Would they celebrate Pierce’s number, 0-1-0-1-0-2-2? Would they drink to the inverse, 2-2-0-1-0-1-0? Fuck, that was over two _million_ people.

Even if they didn’t dream big, 0-0-0-0-1, that, _that_ was the scale of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s grisly operation. Room for 9,999 bodies in the basement. And maybe one more. 

Maybe 99,999 more. 

And maybe 999,999 more.

S.H.I.E.L.D. wasn’t a _peacekeeping_ organization, not under the hood. It was a counter-terrorism organization. Its _job_ was to dig up the mole hills of the world, to stamp out ants, to eradicate the Kunars, all in a code so obscure even he could barely translate it. They probably started at 0-0-0-0-0-1. He hoped, for his own sanity, that they didn’t budget millions. 

He didn’t know if he could look Fury dead in the eye if there was one more zero out front, if the Council had ever said, _We could sustain a million losses_ , and survive.

And then he remembered a nuke headed for the city, and thought, _There are at least six zeroes_ and had to bow over his own hands for a moment, swallowing hard.

In a cosmic instant, they would have wiped seven million people off the face of the Earth. 7-0-0-0-0-0-0, _gone_. The scale of the tragedy was monstrous, beyond comprehension. A good-sized concert hall full of 7-0-0 people was overcrowded, too many people to shake hands with, too many to know on a personal basis in any capacity whatsoever. A stadium full of 7-0-0-0-0 people was huge and loud and its own ecosystem. The Earth was home to 7-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0 inhabitants, a number so huge it was never even thought about conversationally, _I have a billion friends, I have a billion numbers in my phone, I have a billion dollars_. 

Well. _Tony_ could think about the latter, but never in such crude terms, such irreducible numbers, one followed by so many goddamned _zeroes_. . . .

Hands abruptly cold and clammy, Tony reached across the vast valley between him and the nearest body in the darkness, seated on the edge of the bed like him, and found Steve’s right. He gripped it bruisingly in his left hand, cold to the bone, stupefied by the admission, by the _reality_.

( _You lie and kill in the service of_ liars _and_ killers.)

“He’s smart who he surrounds himself with,” Fury went on, like he hadn’t admitted that S.H.I.E.L.D. had killed hundreds if not _thousands_ , _tens_ of thousands of people behind closed doors, had admitted to a carnage so viscerally huge it defied comprehension, stunted a full confession. And with Pierce as the puppeteer, they were bracing themselves to do so on a scale that staggered. 

Tony thought, briefly, of a door kicked in, of malevolent red eyes and stake-like iron hands descending like knives towards his chest plate, ready to carve out his beating heart, and wondered what it would be like if he didn’t have a suit of armor to keep those claws away.

It had to be quick, the crude claws digging in, jerking through wet muscle and heaving bone, cutting through flesh and bone with pneumatic strength, incredible, indescribable, shattering.

It wouldn’t be quick.

Pierce had promised that much.

He shivered. He could _feel_ it, too vividly, too _centrally_ , a real phantom pain, claws in his chest carving him up. He brought Steve’s hand up surreptitiously, crushing it against the arc reactor, trying to keep the illusion of knives and not a drop of anesthetic away from the present. It wasn’t working, but it was almost enough when Steve curled his arm around him, pulled him more fully into his embrace instead. Tony leaned into his embrace, gripping Steve’s hand tightly, tightly holding onto his panic.

“He chose you all,” Fury said, ever calm, ever cool, like he couldn’t see them in the darkness, like he didn’t know what was coming for them. He had his gaze pointedly fixed on the other bed, where Natasha lounged, with Clint on the floor nearby, Laika at his side, her chin on his lap. “Each and every one of you. I created the Avengers Initiative, but he brought you into the game. Romanoff.” He spoke her name like exoneration, and met her gaze, somber, still. “He introduced me to you. Told me you were more than just a myth. That you were very real, and very much an asset we wanted working for us, and not against us.”

She said nothing.

“He wanted your brother,” he told Clint, not quite dismissively. “An Ivy League graduate with a taste for adventure? Rare breed.”

“Rare,” husked Clint, quiet but not disappointed agreement.

“I don’t need,” Fury added, almost in a dry rumble, “to explain why he wanted you, Stark,” turning a spotlight on him. “But in case it bears repeating—”

“It doesn’t.” That was Steve’s voice. As implacable as the voice of God.

Fury moved on. “You. You were my prize,” he told Steve, and Steve did not flinch, but Tony knew he wasn’t blinking, holding the Director’s gaze completely, arrestingly. His arms were firm, his chest a rock wall under the thin material of one of Clint’s borrowed too-small t-shirts. “Pierce thought you were long gone. I had . . . an inkling. An _idea_. If Howard Stark was still looking—”

“He was an idiot.” That was Tony’s own voice. Cold. Brusque. Defiant.

“He was right,” Fury reminded.

“He was _wrong_ ,” Tony seethed furiously, like the darkness made it anonymous, safe to say whatever he wanted to. It was almost perfect, even though their eyes had adjusted long ago. No one stepped in. He let it burn inside him; it was easier to bear than the pain. “He would have believed in unicorn dust if he thought it would make him live longer. Look how long it made him live.”

Steve squeezed him comfortingly.

He was beyond comforting.

Drawing in a shallow breath, Tony hunched forward, away from him, cold and alone and far too alive, and snapped waspishly, “He doesn’t get any _credit_. He never found the _Valkyrie—_ none of you did, it was an _accident_. It was a fucking _accident_ , you don’t get to _claim it_ , it wasn’t your _Moon landing_ , you just got _lucky_.” With sudden ferocity, he lurched up, lurched forward, kicking over a cheap little coffee table like it would make him feel better, the shadow of another man visible in his silhouette as he seethed, “I told you to stop it! I told you to stop it! I told you to _stop looking!_ ”

The silence ricocheted, loudly, and it was Tony himself who finally staggered back to equilibrium and collapsed back onto his seat on the bed with a loud huff, burying his head in both hands for a moment, one useless, trapped in a mold. Drawing in a tense breath, he insisted in a stiff, too-proud undertone, “I _wasn’t wrong_.” It was barely a breath. He didn’t have hackles to raise, but the animosity radiating from him was nearly palpable, the anguish of being caught out in the open, of voicing something he didn’t _want_ to voice impossible to retract. “And you weren’t _right_ ,” he accused, dropping his hands, pointing his left at Fury, stern in the darkness, sterner in the ensuing silence. “It was. . . .” But his shoulders sank, his argument evaporating, momentum fading as his own sense of a final point dissipated. “It was an accident,” he said numbly, absolving no one, congratulating no one. “An accident.” A hand settled on his left knee. It seemed colder, somehow, but just as soft. Gratefully, he rested his own left hand on it. Holding onto it. “It wouldn’t have happened twice.”

“I don’t know.” Clint. With robust normalcy in his tone, he drawled, “Should’ve seen Coulson on the day he shipped out. Ready to trample around the entire Arctic Circle once Fury cut him loose.” With a nearly invisible shrug, he conceded, “Might’ve taken a few years, but we’d finally figured out we were looking in the wrong bucket.” In an even thicker drawl, like he could smooth over the rough edges with sheer will, he insisted, “I saw the satellite readouts myself. It was either one hell of an asteroid or a plane. Once we got sonar, we found the _Titanic_. Once we put enough _Sputniks_ up top, we found the _Valkyrie_.” A beat. “Even if it was empty, we would’ve—” But he paused, and pointedly left it unfinished.

“It would’ve been expensive.” Fury, again. His voice had not changed. It never did, Tony thought numbly. He wondered what it was like when the man made tough phone calls. “And . . . we haven’t raised the _Titanic_ yet. Unless there was a compelling reason to—” For a moment, even he seemed to pause. “Well. It’s a hypothetical. It wasn’t empty. Was it?”

“No, sir.” A familiarly cool voice, somehow removed from Tony even though it was right beside him, separate from the conversation in its levelness. “It wasn’t.”

“And this,” Fury redirected, in a tone of voice used to rally the troops, to lead them to the slaughterhouse with chins held high, “this is not a hypothetical. We take Pierce out, or he takes us out. Everyone in this room is a target. He knows you, better than you may even know each other.” 

He paused for a long moment, letting the information settle like sand in the water between them, drifting slowly to its bed. Tony thought it was almost a tragedy, that he would die not knowing what Natasha’s hopes and dreams were, and Alexander Pierce would; that he would never know if Clint preferred mountain biking over kayaking over fixing up old cars, yet in his endless supervision, in his endless watchfulness of numbers, Alexander Pierce would. Alexander Pierce knew all their _Cor Aut Mors_ scores; he knew them, better than Tony ever would.

But that wasn’t true, Tony rebuked himself. He knew how they played Monopoly. He knew how they took their coffee, whether they watched the big game on Sunday or sat out in the rain on a stormy day. He knew that Clint’s favorite color was purple and Natasha wore jackets even on warm days, for peace of mind, and for extra knives. He knew that Bruce could keep up with him at Jenga and Clint at Uno, and Thor was capable of shouting requests from three floors down and liked blueberries almost as much as Tony did, which made keeping them stockpiled during his visits rather challenging.

He knew that Natasha didn’t like anyone to touch her but was inversely generous with contact, like she was reassuring what was hers was still there, and Clint was silent on bad days—sometimes with his hearing aids off, though it was impossible to tell if he did so or chose to not hear them, chose to not answer, and Tony never pressed him, after, later—and Bruce could disappear for days at a time if someone didn’t check in every so often. Even Thor, who always spoke like he was the host of the world’s most gracious party, could occasionally, almost fearfully, slip into a somber state, standing alone and requesting to be left there, reminiscing about his long, long life.

“Your strengths,” intoned Fury, a reminder, a damnation. “Your weaknesses.” 

It was a chilling pronouncement, one that made Tony’s hand tighten around the hand curled comfortingly around his knee. Those, Tony knew less of. They were all careful people. It was painful for them, more so than any wound, to limp in plain view, to stagger, to show bruised and broken skin. They were invincible and immortal. But they were all human. Mortal. Fallible. They had trigger points, and they would break open and bleed, if reduced to them.

Tony swallowed. The hand on his knee squeezed again, gently, rhythmically. A promise in the darkness. _I’m here_.

“What needs to happen,” Fury went on, and they hung onto his words like he held the book of time in his hands, “what can _only_ happen,” he clarified, and the distinction felt like a vow, like a promise, “is the end of S.H.I.E.L.D. Our last goal is to gather the loyal. Remove the distemperate few. We begin tomorrow off the books. S.H.I.E.L.D. as any of you know it is over. It has become one man’s crusade. One man’s army. He won’t surrender. He won’t seek peace.” A long beat. 

Leveraging himself to his feet, Nicholas J. Fury, former Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., stood to his full commanding height and pronounced into that dark, silent hotel room in Des Moines: “Avengers. Today is not about the world. It is not about God or country or the greatest good. It’s about one man. And our only job?” A short beat. Cleanly, he met the eyes of each of the room’s four other human occupants. Then he finished, “Take him down.”

. o .

_Extracting File 0029891  
Date: 04012012  
Time: 2232-2258_

TRANSMITTING . . . TRANSMITTING . . . TRANSMITTING . . .

STARK: _You have five seconds. Four . . . three . . . two . . ._

_“We found him.”_

Lingering at the kitchen island, Tony paused, unscrewing the top off his favorite cognac and pouring himself a drink. He was tempted to hang up—Coulson had called him _twenty-three_ times in the past six hours; even J.A.R.V.I.S. sounded tired when he reported for the umpteenth time, “It’s . . . Agent Coulson, sir”—but he was duly impressed that Coulson had actually managed to hold his attention, and catch him off- _guard_. 

“Found who?” Tony asked, reclaiming his equilibrium and picking up his glass. “Because you know I really don’t ca—”

“ _We found Captain America_.”

Tony didn’t drop his glass, but it was a near thing. “. . . You what?”

“ _Stark_ ,” Coulson entreated, his voice sounding desperate and breathless and elated all at once. “ _We found him. We found Captain America_.”

Tony checked his watch, saw the date, and declared, “Bullshit.” He hung up, tempted to smash the phone. April fucking Fool’s, Stark.

His phone rang again.

Pouring himself another drink, he downed it and let the phone cycle through another call, shaking where he stood. When he felt like he wouldn’t yell, he picked up the second call. He was proud of how dry his own voice sounded: “Come to apologize?”

Coulson was as flat as he, but still jittery, hushed: “ _It’s not a joke. We found him_.”

“Don’t fuck with me, Coulson,” he repeated, losing patience. “He’s been dead in the water for seventy years, nobody, not a soul could have survived _seventy years_ at the bottom of the Atlantic, and I swear to God I am blocking you—”

“ _Not the water,_ ” Coulson jittered, speaking over him, breath misting static, hushed and loud at once. “Ice. _Arctic team got a ping on the radar three weeks ago, followed the trail, we’ll brief you when you come in, but Stark, we found the ship, we found the_ Valkyrie—”

Coulson sounded one step away from hysteria. In a mouth suddenly dry despite the drink, Tony managed, “So, you’re . . . you’re, what—bringing the body home?” It was scarcely the _and they lived happily ever after_ ending he’d dreamed of when he’d seen his father, in a state of almost ecstatic despair, leaning over maps, in a fury of despair, because he was supposed to be the man who found Captain America, and now they had, and now they were going to rebury him. 

_And he died happily ever after_.

He took another sip of his drink, but it tasted like ash in his mouth, and he set the glass down, afraid he would drop it in fingers quickly going numb from a thing that was not cold.

There was a weighted pause on the other end of the line, an odd loud sound, more billowy static. Then: “. . . _It seems right, doesn’t it? I mean, he’s been in . . . Stark, he’s in the middle of a glacier. In Greenland. Kangerdlugssuaq, have you heard of it? We can’t just—”_

“Why not? Sounds entrancing,” Tony interrupted, firm, proud of the conviction in his tone, as firm as he’d been the day he’d taken over his own company from every trace of Obadiah Stane. “You should leave him.” _Let dead man lie_. It seemed . . . _wrong_ , indecent, to dig a man up just to put him in the ground somewhere else.

Coulson’s voice hardened, carrying a familiar edge to it as he stated, “ _Not up for debate_.”

“Then I’m hanging up.”

“ _Stark—_ ”

Tony hung up.

And the phone rang again. 

He walked away from the partially finished kitchen and settled with a huff on one of the few pieces of furniture littered around the floor space, looking out at the dark city. Stark Tower was slowly coming to life around him, in its final phases of construction, but it still felt abominably empty, like an office building, or maybe a hospital. Eerily uninhabited in places, and bustling in others, all the same. 

His phone ringing again seemed painfully loud, like it was carving knives into his skin. After four rings, and J.A.R.V.I.S.’s neat voice proclaiming, “It’s Agent Coulson, sir,” he could not take it. “Take a hint,” he flat-lined.

“ _Please don’t hang up again_ ,” Coulson quipped back, just as dry, just as humorless.

Tony was tempted to do precisely that, but he held onto patience long enough to growl, “Then stop calling me.”

Coulson went right for the jugular this time: “ _Stark, your_ father—”

Tony shut the book: “Has been dead for over twenty years. Don’t leave a message.” 

A staticky sigh was the only response at first, and Tony surprised himself by not hanging up. He found he couldn’t, literally could not press the button, tears occluding his vision. Goddammit. He was neither sad nor mad nor glad nor anything feeling except _bad_ , yet he could not make trembling fingers still, could not make tight throat unclench, could not make himself move a muscle to hang up. Sensing a rare opportunity, Coulson seized it.

Quietly, Coulson entreated with plain humanity, “ _Tony,_ _this is . . . this is huge. This is unprecedented_.”

“One day,” prophesied Tony, “our grandchildren will say the same of Amelia Earhart.”

“ _Please_.” It was not like Coulson to beg. Tony closed his eyes. “ _We’re . . . honestly, Stark? Honestly_.” There was a loud crunching sound, unmistakable in its cadence, footsteps on snow. For a moment, the sound of windy static was nearly deafening, and Tony grimaced, holding the phone away from his ear. A long time seemed to pass before, all at once, the staticky sound went quiet, and Coulson said in a fainter but less noisy tone, “ _We’re flying blinder than we’ve ever flown here, Tony_.”

Those words unsettled something in Tony. “I don’t mean,” he began, almost drolly, needing some formation of equilibrium to keep him from vomiting, or screaming, or laughing madly, because my God, they’d found Captain America, and were calling _him_ about it, like it mattered, “to tell you how to do your _job_ , but if you can’t figure out to dig up a body, then you sure as shit shouldn’t try to—” His throat seemed to close again. He draped his free hand over his eyes. “Why am I even telling you this? Fuck off.” Squeezing the bridge of his nose, he added more coldly, “And honestly, Coulson, we left a flag on the Moon, the Norwegians left Amundsen in Antarctica. Put up a cairn if it makes your heart happy, but let the poor bastard have his grave.” He could picture S.H.I.E.L.D. agents gleefully chipping in with their shovels and chutzpah, and added with steel in his tone, “You want my input? _That’s_ my input. Have some fucking decency.”

“ _It’s—complicated, Tony_.” Tony. Tony, Tony. He hated Coulson calling him Tony. There was something wrong about it, like he was his _friend_ , his _buddy_ , when his friend and buddy would never dream of digging up a body and calling it a moral good. “ _With the serum—we can’t leave it to chance_.”

Slowly, Tony flattened his hand on his face, muffling his voice slightly. “What the hell are you talking about?” It was getting late. His head was just the slightest bit fuzzy, mostly from lack of sleep and lack of food and lack of any order, and now _this_. God, he hated S.H.I.E.L.D. Always stealing what little peace of mind he managed to grab. “What’s left to chance? Need me to come take a pulse for you? For fuck’s sake—”

“ _Animals_ ,” Coulson said, speaking slowly, like he hadn’t spoken—or, rather, like he hadn’t ever heard of _animals_ , and so he should be duly impressed to learn about them, “ _can sometimes survive extraordinary cold. It’s called—_ ”

“You are,” Tony interjected, spacing the words so he was not misunderstood with his hand still over his face, “fucking kidding me.”

“ _Cryogenics_.”

Tony left his hand where it was. The silence felt deafening. “It’s been _sixty-seven_ _years_ ,” he rasped, like Coulson was not merely proposing a rogue science but a criminally insane one. “Do you know the amount of _damage_ , the amount of—”

“ _No one is saying anything_ ,” Coulson said— _hushed_ , like he’d said something untoward, like _he_ was the nut-job proposing cryonics, not merely cryogenics, oh no, but _cryonics—_ the unholiest of the unholy! the whole body freezing and rejuvenation of human beings! bah!—as a comparable science with certain species of frogs becoming partial popsicles for a few weeks at a time. It was ludicrous to imagine that an amphibian becoming a rock for a brief period and returning to its ribbitting merriment was equivalent to a human being undergoing the same procedure. They wouldn’t be reviving a human-person. 

They would be, at very best, be reanimating a blank slate. At second-best, they would be enlivening a _corpse_. It made cold creep down his own spine, and he pressed his hand to his mouth instead.

Coulson chattered on like this was entirely normal fare: “ _If there’s even a chance that we could—then we have to try. And if he’s not—_ ”

Dropping his hand and all semblance of not participating, Tony barked, “Mary Shelley, _Frankenstein_ , ever heard of it?”

A beat. “ _It’s not like that_.”

“It is _exactly—_ ” Breathing in deeply—because he was _shouting_ , fuck—he said as calmly as he could, “I know S.H.I.E.L.D. likes to dabble in the dark arts from time-to-time, but is _necromancy_ really something we—”

“ _It’s not necromancy_ ,” Coulson insisted. “ _The serum, it. . . . We haven’t ruled out the possibility that . . . he might still be alive._ ”

Tony shivered involuntarily. That was the only possibility that was actually even worse than Coulson’s let-there-be-new-life proposal. 

Trapped, alone, in perfect darkness, and silence, and stillness, frozen to the marrow, for sixty-seven years. _God, I hope the bastard died on impact. Please, please, have died on impact_. The thought of being left to suffocate for the better part of seven decades was utterly unfathomable. He didn’t want to even try to, so he pushed past the thought, clarifying faintly, “In the _ice_?”

There was a brief pause, like Coulson was measuring the words. Coming to the same realization as he. He had to have already realized it, Tony knew, having spent hours trying to reach him. His voice was measured, his vote cast, when he finally spoke: “ _If he is, we can’t—we can’t just leave him, Stark._ ”

STARK: _. . . How long?_

COULSON: _Hours. We’ve got a supply ship en route. Should be breaking ground before 0200._

STARK: _And hope to God He forgives us?_

COULSON: _Didn’t know you were a believer._

STARK: _After a day like today? I’m not sure what I believe_. 

COULSON: _If it’s any consolation . . . we’re all breaking new ground here._

STARK: _Just don’t fall through it_.

END TRANSMISSION.

. o .

Stark Tower. A beacon of clean energy.

Famously, it was the only self-sustaining building in New York City. On a grid, it stood alone, no fuss, no muss, no ties interwoven to the dense mechanical gridlock that claimed as its members every structure known to mankind before it. Such fragile ecosystems trembled at the mere breath of interference, a sea of wild grain hushing under the same breeze, everything vibrating at the same frequency, vulnerable to the same impulses. A temple of blue-white light, it was a testament to the power of turning the lights on and leaving them on, all day, every day, because the sun never turned itself off to save energy. 

In fact, the lights never turned off. Even when the Tower seemed darkest, there was always a strong current of motion, of reserve energy. Excess and unused power was rerouted rather than turned off, like a machine running all the time, its main arteries cordoned rather than its beating heart stilled, its corollaries intricately built to redirect a stable power flow in a thousand subsidiary directions. There were four arterial veins of power, compared to a primary and secondary and occasionally tertiary wave found in most buildings. There were dozens of fail-safes. Turning out every light was like draining an ocean. The water kept rising. The lights kept burning.

All that energy was generated far below, in a giant tokamak. It was shaped like a torus, which itself was shaped like a doughnut. Tori were truly wonderful tools. They possessed wonderful symmetry: each slice of the doughnut revealed either a square or circle which repeated itself indefinitely around the torus and revealed properties of the given torus, _expectations_. It was a slice of time that, rather than stretching out in a line, looped back on itself, and repeated indefinitely. The infinity of pi, the symmetry of a line, the elegance of time, all in the shape of a doughnut. Math was beautiful.

And because of its closed loop nature, it had no end point. It could keep going. _Forever_.

The tokamak was not _merely_ anything in its grandeur and complexity—or its budget, and even a billionaire could turn red in the face at the thought of powering an entire _city_ with one, at least under present economic conditions—but should it demean itself to be _merely_ anything, it was ‘merely’ a furnace. The real fire was the tiny collisions of its submicroscopic fuel.

As the particles raced along the torus’ loop, they were driven into near frictionless orbits by giant magnetic rings placed along the torus’ walls. These rings defined boundaries, funneling the runaway particles, forcing them inward, confirming the inevitable collision. With each loop, the particles moved faster, building up catastrophic speed. 

Under ordinary cosmic conditions, most atoms, if ever they met, bounced harmlessly off each other, like billiard balls, knocking gently past each other before continuing on their cosmic journey.

In the tokamak’s jaws of super-hot sub-luminous cosmic death, the two met like super-heavy runaway trains. They smashed with a violence that defied belief. They did not merely collide: they _fused_ , their atomic impact so thunderous they rewrote their core being. They became one entity. In the process, they ejected weaker by-products and a thunderous quantity of raw heat energy, enough per capita to make coal look dead in the water.

And, as any employee of Stark Industries was proud to demonstrate, flicking a light switch, it was the violence of that energy that did everything from powered the coffeemaker in the lobby to the high-speed centrifuges used in the bio-labs. It was that cosmic crack of the gun, that explosive lightning bolt harnessed in a literal bottle that was redefining Stark Industries in the 2010s. Saltpeter was the Bronze Age’s weapon; tritium and deuterium were all the rage, and the new gunpowder. Stark Industries wasn’t selling new tech, new ideas; it was selling _lightning_ , the ability to produce on an unprecedented scale.

Ounce for ounce, fusion energy was four million times as powerful as coal energy. 

And everything, from lights, to heating fixtures, to cars and trains and stoves and taps, ran on coal.

They weren’t cutting edge. They _were_ the edge. They were the wave, the tide that raised all ships. International physicists arrived daily for the chance to go downstairs and kiss the ground above the tokamak, to see the torus for themselves. Their stocks, slumped since their CEO took a three-month holiday in the desert, were stratospheric, and only climbing higher. 

Predictions that Tony Stark would be the first trillionaire were only offset by derisive remarks from peers in the coal—coal, _fossil fuel_ , it was all the same, if it came from the earth it was not as efficient as the very star dust that made the sun _burn—_ industry with plans to harvest asteroids, who sensed _retirement_ in the air, a billionaire not on the cusp of a revolution but _decay_ , a man who had burned through his own stockpile, who had spent too much time on his own youth, and had none left for the present, the _future_. 

People who had known Stark for years claimed he was more energetic at fifteen than forty—a shocking claim analyzed by tabloid experts with genuine concern, as if it was an uncommon condition that might recur if not watched very carefully—that his zeal for life was not there for the very energy he was championing, that he looked _tired_.

How could a man who looked _tired_ be the one to storm the world stage with an energy four million times more powerful than anything it had ever seen? He couldn’t.

In an anxious, hushed voice, the old man warbled aloud, “Now, I don’t know what this is all about—”

“Good,” interjected Pierce, standing in a sterile white interrogation room, a mere twenty-minute supersonic flight from ground zero, flanked by 095 and 096. “I don’t like getting blood on the floor.”

The old man stopped looking around, meeting his gaze, averting it. “All right.” Glancing between 095 and 096 uneasily, he repeated, “All right. What do you want?”

“See?” Pierce said, one corner of his mouth lifting up without mirth. “A man who knows how to play ball.”

Swallowing visibly, the old man said, “All right. I’ll do what you want. Just don’t hurt my kids.”

“Such a tired line,” Pierce said, smile evaporating, never there. “You shouldn’t worry. They’ll be all right.” He gestured idly at 095, standing perfectly at attention at his left. “I heard you have a knack for these. Do you like them?”

The old man stared at the suit for a long, long moment. He worked his jaw, and Pierce saw a witty retort die there. 

He lived longer because of it. “Utilitarian,” the old man said aloud, very polite, very quiet. He didn’t seem to know what to add, and Pierce finally prompted:

“Magnificent.”

“Magnificent,” echoed the old man. “Look strong,” he allowed gruffly, and Pierce let him live longer still, nodding ever so slightly.

“They are,” he agreed, turning to 096, on his right. He held out a hand and the robot took it promptly, perfectly, matching up with the bracelet. It shook his hand firmly but not tightly, those lethal killing claws never even scraping his flesh. Releasing the monster, turning to face the old man, he offered lightly, “See for yourself.”

“I see,” the old man said, softly, looking paler but still with a firmness in his voice that did not cower.

Pierce actually smiled. The first technician had panicked, tried to run. He’d had 095 eviscerate him. Such a mess. “I’ve heard you know a thing or two about Stark’s tokamak.”

The old man’s eyes revealed him, a sharp gleam of interest, surprise, and sober awareness shining in them. “Yeah?” Then, carefully covering his tracks: “Who hasn’t?”

“Most people,” reminded Pierce, turning. He tapped 095 on the wrist, and the robot promptly stepped forward, sinking a clawed hand into the old man’s shoulder, not quite deep enough to puncture but a firm, caught-on-a-line hold. “You can run, if you’d like,” he added, just to see if he’d try. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

Breathing just a touch quicker, the old man said, “I can see why.” Then: “Is this necessary?”

“I don’t take chances.” Turning back to him, 096 standing respectfully at his own side, no theatrics needed, Pierce added seriously, “Stark is a traitor. He’s gone off the reservation. Our goal is to salvage what we can while containing him.”

“Seems . . .” A thin noise of pain. Pierce turned to look at him, and smiled at 095, which had stepped on his foot, and not moved it. “D’you mind?” he asked Pierce, a touch imploringly. Pierce didn’t even blink. With a huff, the old man repeated tightly, “I see.”

“Good,” Pierce repeated calmly, turning around again, walking with 096. They’d follow. If 095 broke his foot, that was the old man’s problem. Humbling never hurt a man. “I know you’re friends with Stark,” he said, shooting the elephant in the room without pausing. The robots were silent as they walked, his own steps smooth and steady; the old man limped audibly. “I’d suggest forgetting that friendship, promptly.”

“Y’ ever had a _friend_?” the old man asked, almost dryly.

Pierce paused, 096 stopping exactly at his side, their coordination perfect as they turned. For one beat, Pierce was tempted to say, _Kill him_. But this was the mastermind, the head of Zygo Technology. He was Stark’s peer. Rash action would do him no good, only extinguish an opportunity. So he said, “No.” 095 stepped on the old man’s foot again. It crunched audibly. He made a thin noise of barely stifled pain. “Tell me about tokamaks, Lee,” Pierce said, lightly, almost conversationally. “It’s dense reading. I’d hate for Stark’s secrets to die with him.”

He heard the old man swallow again. “Well,” he began, slowly, uncertainly. “What do you want to know?”

Weighing the merits of revealing his intention against the cons of a potential leak, Pierce finally decided clarity won out: “How to build one.”

“Build one?” the old man repeated. “Planning on. . . .” He could almost see the gears turning in the old man’s head, without turning around. The robots were silent, utterly emotionless, incapable of expressing feeling that they were bastardized clones, that they were conceived not as insights, as originals, but _insurances_.

 _I have my insight_. Let Stark do the heavy lifting elsewhere. He was always good at the balancing act, at making everything happen at once. He’d brought the Avengers together, after all, and look what they’d done. He, Alexander Pierce, had singlehandedly saved the world. 

It would have made a lesser man laugh at the _irony_ , but it merely made him smile privately as he stood before the Council and accepted their cool congratulations on his clever balancing act, his endless ability to pull rabbits out of a hat and earn accolades for it. _Of course_ he’d known that it would be fine, that Stark would find a way. And if it hadn’t, then New York City was a small price to pay for the world.

Admittedly, he had hoped that they would kill each other within the first week of real contact. There was no clearer indication of future cosmic friction than the _Cor Aut Mors_ scores, and putting a twenty-nine negative and a seventy-six negative on an air ship had seemed like a pretty neat way to ensure they’d cut their teeth on each other and maybe blow the whole godless experiment up in Fury’s face. Stark was egomaniacal, Rogers was an idiot; Stark was a coward, and Rogers was a nation-less _rogue_ , who would never swear allegiance to a flag. Barton was a cool forty-two negative, right where Pierce wanted Alpha tier agents at, and Romanoff had been a rare prize, _eleven-negative_ , as ruthless as they came, which made their match-up one of Fury’s rare golden ideas. 

But the Stark line was poison, rotten to the _bone_ , and Erskine hadn’t chosen a man of good stock for the super-soldier program, he’d chosen a fellow degenerate out of a twisted sense of empathy. They said Erskine spoke with an accent. Rogers certainly did. It was an affront to the nation that their _icon_ , their _walking god_ was incapable of speaking cleanly. 

At least he _looked_ Aryan. People were superficial and ugly, and they would forgive plenty of flaws if someone looked strong, good. Stark was short and dark and scarred, visibly the weakest link in a lineup, famously the weakest link in the _gods among men_ tier. As long as Rogers made one mistake for every three hundred words or so, they’d forgive it. 

Pierce? Pierce made one mistake for every eight thousand words. He spoke clearly. He spoke _well_. He commanded. He was old enough to be a _leader_. Captain America was a _joke_ , a caricature. 

He was doing the nation a favor. Euthanizing an inbred. You couldn’t change a man. A bastard would never be anything more than a bastard, no matter how good his shield, or how strong his armor. Take that away, and he would bend and _break_.

He wanted to break him, more than Stark. Stark, at least, was a _nuisance_ , but he was a man who _was_ more, who could have been a peer, a man of good stock polluted by an incessant need to be a _contrarian_. He was a child who had never become a man, who had never known a firm hand. Howard Stark was a coward and a _hack_ , but he hadn’t been wrong: his son needed a firm hand to straighten him out. Pierce could have given it to him, surely—had he cared. But he hadn’t cared about saving people from themselves. 

Let them find their way or drown. The strong survived.

But Rogers was born a degenerate. Nature had tried to stomp him out, to drown him when he was still small enough to be scruffed and held down in a barrel. And then _Erskine_ gave _him_ the serum, _him_ , and the United States of America decided that his blood was too valuable. And at the time, it was. 

_At the time, it was_.

The only thing worth a penny was that serum. It was the way to make strong men _stronger_. Rogers’ blood polluted it. He’d wring it dry, and maybe let 095 show him what a strong man was.

Disgustingly, it still wouldn’t be enough. Rogers would probably enjoy showing him that he was tough enough, like a weak man could ever be made strong by surviving torment. But strength was not surviving. 

Strength was _thriving_. 

And Rogers failed to thrive. He limped, rabid and listless, drained by the war that he’d failed to endure ( _weak men don’t survive_ ), caught in the web of the new millennium ( _weak men don’t adapt_ ). He fumbled through peace time, strangled in his own skin. Throw a gauntlet at his feet, and he stared at it, uncertainly, a boy, a stupid, untrained, uneducated, mulish boy of a man who didn’t deserve the stars and stripes on his back. Pierce didn’t know what end would be suitable for a man given who had been so much _pride_ , but he would find it. What sort of end could strip him of all that undeserved _honor_ , remind a weak man who dared to hold his head high that he could _never_ be strong because some men were _born weak_.

Stark, he’d rip out his heart. It was always fun to watch strong men die, because they never thought they could die. Weak men confronted death all the time. Strong men didn’t, and they were scared to die. They tried to insulate themselves, and when it hit them, the light of revelation was like discovering God. It was powerful. Nothing made a strong man _stronger_ than killing a peer. 

Pierce did not rule because he killed weak men. He ruled because he killed the strongest.

“I see,” Daniel Lee said a third time.

“Good,” was all Pierce said, walking alongside 096, the strongest man not alive. “I hate wasting breath.”

. o .

The Avengers Tower. A beacon of clean energy.

A slaughterhouse.

Tony couldn’t quite believe his eyes. He wanted to pinch his own forearm, to confirm that he was imagining it, that the blood on the flood was a mistake. The clean white illumination was as strong as the day he had left, midday, like no one had thought to turn off the lights for the night. It threw every dark red streak into relief, made each step a nauseating exercise.

“J.A.R.V.I.S.,” he croaked, voice almost too low to be audible, “J.A.R.V.I.S., how many—?”

The scene lit up differently, then, and Tony saw, briefly, black-suited, dismembered bodies, pieces traced in digital blue, J.A.R.V.I.S.’s clean, uncomprehending voice confessing in a hushed tone, “I . . . can’t discern a clear count, sir, but at least nine, possibly as many as thirty-seven bodies.”

Removing the helmet to retch was wise to avoid a disgusting mess in his face plate, but the reek of decay, of dried blood was unbearable, and he realized that he was several paces ahead of even Clint, who was marble white and holding his shirt over the lower half of his face, meeting his gaze grimly, not shaken but viscerally appalled. Natasha had disappeared. Eyes watering, nose filled with the stench of death, Tony warbled, “What the hell happened?”

Shaking his head, Steve alighted beside him, eyes dark, unreadable, neither sad nor angry, almost completely blank. His chest wasn’t moving, and Tony realized belatedly that he was holding his breath—smart man, smart _move_ —but it was eerie, watching him pause, then move along, not stopping by any of the dismembered, moving forward intently, like a hound on a scent. _Impossible,_ Tony thought, couldn’t scent if you couldn’t _smell_ , and he gagged again, retched, and then heard a low, terrestrial growl that nearly scared the nausea out of him.

Clint had managed to sling his shirt halfway up his face and tie it in the back, and he advised behind his improvised mask stiffly, “Mask up.” Making a hoarse sound, Tony obliged, gasping raggedly in his mask, J.A.R.V.I.S. helpfully kicking up the ozone filter, blanking out the odor until he couldn’t smell much of anything, settling his stomach. On one level. 

The low, earthquake growling was louder. Clint put a hand on his armored shoulder, briefly, then flitted after Steve, already reaching for an arrow strung on his shoulder, barely armored, barely _armed_ , but Steve had a knife and hell in his eyes, and Clint had a long-range weapon.

Tony had a fully functional _Iron Man_ suit. He forced himself to move, zipping along, rounding a corner and feeling his heart drop to his toes.

Pinned underneath no fewer than—eight? nine? fucking hell—suits, the Hulk hunched forward, breathing raggedly, in great, swelling, growling breaths, green skin smeared rusty. They’d gotten their claws in every inch they could manage, and he’d clearly dislodged them dozens of times, _hundreds_ of gouges visible, still healing wounds, the last eight clinging to him like ensnared vipers strangling their prey, determined to die on top of it. His eyes were partially open, an ugly smearing wound nearly suturing the right one shut, and his lip had curled up into a deep snarl as he looked at Natasha, standing opposite him. 

Like a great slumbering beast arising, the Hulk stirred. The suits moved, too, tensing, holding on, digging in, haunches, arms, back, underbelly, one barely inches from his vibrating throat. Eyes completely black, the Hulk shambled fully upright, bringing the suits more fully to life, and a guttural, animal, anguished cry rent from his throat, raw and bracing, and Tony could only plead, “Don’t move. We’re here to help.”

Like his chance for vengeance had finally arrived, the Hulk lurched forward, crashing into the wall, nearly crumpling Clint, who barely dove out of the way. 

An animal possessed, the Hulk roared and flailed, the suits clinging to him like leeches, holding on so tightly that even his energetic stomping, shaking, and thrashing did not remove even one. Tony heard Clint shout, “They’re gonna kill him!” and realized they couldn’t _wait_ for him to stop. 

Hulk shrieked suddenly, so loudly that Tau-185, his hearing-loss protocol, kicked in, and Clint crumpled over both ears with a matching howl of pain. Then two bursts of blue, almost bullet-like flashes of light, hit the suit on the Hulk’s throat. It _spasmed_ , locked up, and died. Tony barely registered Natasha taking aim at a second suit from her perch under the balcony railing one level up—smart woman, getting above the fray—before the Hulk was on top of him, knocking one massive green arm clean into his chest, pushing him into the concrete floor.

If an elephant sat on his chest, the suit would whine politely in protest but take it. With the full weight of the Hulk crushing him violently into the floorboards, presenting at _last_ a target he could actually _hit_ , it was like a slow but inexorably powerful meteor forcing him into the center of the earth, pulverizing him, a big mean angry herd of elephants with a score to settle. He heard every bridge in the chest plate, Axles E-through-P, buckle, nearly but not completely crumple, and would, in some distant reflective way, realize that one more hit would have brought the whole house down.

The hit never came, though, because someone above had finally pissed the big green man off _just_ enough to make him stop pummeling the little tin man for two seconds to deal with them instead, and Tony used the opportunity to fire up both repulsors instead, blasting Hulk _skyward_ , like a fucking _piñata_ , and might have laughed under better circumstances at the howl of real surprise it got him before Hulk landed with a loud rattling _thunk_ twenty feet away.

“Fucking _cool it_ ,” he wheezed, suddenly more pissed off than terrified, shaking so hard his armor rattled as he pried himself out of the hole in the earth he’d been forced into, entire chest decidedly more concave than it should have been but not hurting anywhere near as much as it should have, had the suit not been triple-skinned. Two insulating layers. Thank fuck for preparedness.

Swallowing hard, still shaking, he lifted his hands, trying to control his own response to hit the right target, help the _home_ team and not accidentally blast one of his fellow compatriots to kingdom come. Nobody paid his shaken self any mind, busy playing Monkey-in-the-Middle with Hulk, who was spraying droplets of fresh blood with each lurching movement but only carrying six suits, now. _Go team,_ Tony thought charitably, popping off a shot to knock him off-kilter as he swung towards Clint, giving Steve an opening to grab a suit on his left shoulder and haul, and then the thought fizzled as the Hulk spun and forced him to knock off another quick shot, narrowly keeping him from decapitating Steve and/or the robot he ripped forcefully off the green guy’s back.

Breathing hard, visibly struggling to keep from vomiting again from sheer adrenaline or relief that nobody had lost a head or an arm yet, Tony charged up and fired off another, stronger pulse that nearly knocked Hulk off his feet, and Natasha shocked him again, buckling him to his knees, five suits obstinately clinging to his legs and lower back. “Three down,” husked Steve, suddenly nearby, pushing him back gingerly, hand almost hovering over his concave chest for how lightly it was touching him, and Clint was similarly backing off, and even Natasha seemed to be pausing for a moment, waiting. They watched the beast settle for a moment, breathing hard, too, the pulse of beating hearts and tearing claws, burning red eyes nearly enough to cool things off.

And then, Natasha said, “Oh my God,” and at first, Tony didn’t understand.

But Steve said, “Natasha,” and she said:

“I’m out.”

Tony didn’t understand, but then he saw the Hulk exhale, a deep, exhausted, final thing, collapsing forward, underneath five suits.

He seemed to crumple under the weight of them, his next breath not coming quiet as deeply—no. Not filling as much space.

Tony couldn’t have said who jumped in first: Natasha leaped over the railing and Clint slid nearly to home plate at nearly the same moment Steve collided with him, and then there was such a firestorm of metal and roaring and _oh my God they’re all gonna die_ that he didn’t know if he ever consciously chose to join the fray or was dragged, like an errant star into a horizon-less black hole, into the fight.

It was like the world’s worst game of _Twister_ : Tony in his two-hundred-pound metal suit trying not to crush Bruce Banner, who was twisting in a vague confused attempt to escape the clawed monsters that were sluggishly trying to reclaim their equilibrium as their original target abruptly shrank, leaving firm, irremovable handholds open, and Steve had three of them under control, one under each arm, a third pinned between his legs, presumably, because one was crushed under Clint, who seemed to be trying to hog-wrestle it into submission, and Tony himself was conveniently the new pinata, sprouting no fewer than forty new pressure points J.A.R.V.I.S. helpfully informed were stab wounds. All surficial.

 _Don’t break_ , he entreated the poor hurting Mark X, gasping for breath in the suit, lying diagonally across Bruce and Steve, who was holding his suits so rigidly Tony could hear the metal creaking as he tried to brute force shear it. Clint was snarling under his breath, trying to get a better handle on his suit, which only hadn’t killed him because Bruce and he had collapsed forward onto it, effectively pinning the poor bastard under three Avengers.

The suit not pinned was busy trying to saw Steve’s head off, which might have actually worked if Natasha didn’t have it in a stranglehold, putting a swift end to its crusade with a sharp shock from her Black Widow’s Bite. They fell backwards, but the bastard didn’t die immediately, thrashing violently, suddenly, and Steve grunted loudly, “Tony!” and Tony managed to forcefully lift a metal arm being forcefully snuggled by a murder-bot to blast the other murder-bot trying to kill Natasha so she could give it a second, lethal hit to the chest.

“Running a little low on power, boys,” she huffed, voice strained, crawling out from under the dead suit.

“Barton,” Steve grunted, and Tony could all but hear his teeth cracking as the suits flexed, straining, the exact inverse of lifting a car off a trapped child, imposing the weight of one on the Iron legionnaires to keep them from their savage mission. “Holding up—?”

“Yeup,” Clint replied shortly.

Groaning, Bruce asked, “What happened, what happened?”

“Not the time,” Tony said, his own voice strained, gasping in alarm as one of the suits, couldn’t tell which, broke free. “Got a runner—” Natasha was on it, shocking it and announcing:

“On empty, boys!”

There was a thin moan of despair, and Bruce groaned, “Oh, fuck,” and Tony admitted:

“‘Bout sums it up.”

There was a loud and extremely unpleasant _cracking_ sound, like bones breaking, that made Tony wince, and then Steve said tersely, “Tony, roll to the left.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Tony,” Steve repeated, voice tight but very level. “Do it.”

Afraid he was maybe crushing him, despite the seemingly suicidal nature of the order—at least he was a _shield_ , those claws were inches deep and could disembowel in less than a second—Tony yelped in alarm as they promptly descended to do just that and Steve growled, almost as low as the Hulk, and rolled on top of the suit to his own left, the second suit clinging to him like the blood-sucker it was. The suit formerly pinned in his right arm wasn’t moving, its own chest caved inward, and Tony had a moment to think, _holy hell_ before he was lunging for metal suit crawling up to Steve’s belly, prying at it as he held both clawed hands of its companion, a snarl of pain and fury on his face. 

He could only hope Clint, Natasha, and Bruce could handle _one_ suit between them, because even with his own Iron Man suit, their position was precarious, more so with the second suit’s clawed grip already embedded on Steve’s hips, dug in but not deep, a desperate grip that Tony interrupted, yanking hard. “Bastard,” he grunted, and finally, finally tugged it free, dragging it away. After being half-pummeled by the Hulk, squashed by the Avengers, and beaten with an inch of its life by Captain America, it wasn’t putting up much of a fight any more, but the fact that it wasn’t coming quietly was enough to make Tony want to scream in frustration as he finally fired up his own gauntlets and laid on the heat for nearly three seconds, burning it out.

Storming back to Steve, he planted a strong foot on the suit’s metal head and, exerting enough force to lift a small space shuttle, crushed it. The suit went limp.

And then the hall went quiet, but for their breathing, heavy, ragged, wet with relief.

Looking over, he saw Clint kick the dead suit at his own side once for good measure, a grim look in his eye as he looked at Tony, brushing a hand through sweat-soaked hair, spiking it. “So,” he announced grimly, “that was easy.”

Bruce moaned thinly. “I feel like I got hit by a truck.”

“Join the club,” Tony advised, reaching up to rub his chest, swallowing to shove down the urge to vomit again. He didn’t know if he had it in him, literally, spiritually, metaphorically. They hadn’t even gotten inside a hundred yards of Pierce, and he’d rattled them badly. He had to keep it to-fucking- _gether_. “Pack a wallop.”

“Tony?” Half-naked and trembling, still dripping red, Bruce shakily pushed himself up from the marble floor, blinking owlishly at him, eyes saucers. “Iron Man?”

“In the flesh?” Flicking back the helmet, Tony grimaced at the raw smell, embellished by the special odor of human exertion and leonine musk that was vaguely Hulky, and added, “What, do you think I give this out for rentals?”

Still gawking, Bruce tried to stand, crumpling, looking torn between ecstasy and agony, expression overjoyed and deeply pained. “Oh, God, Tony,” he breathed. “I thought—we thought you were—”

“I was wrong,” Steve cut in, quietly, breathing deeply, a touch raggedly, beside him, hair mussed and expression smoothed over again, like he hadn’t almost lost his head to the Hulk minutes prior, or nearly had it sawed off by a metal monster seconds after that. “Y’ all right?”

Blinking owlishly, Bruce held a bloodied hand to his forehead for a moment, eyes shut tensely, frowning. “No? What happened? Where am I? What are—?” Gesturing vaguely, distraught, he added, “What’s with all the blood? Why am I—?”

“Maybe,” Tony suggested, flicking the helmet back up, if only to breathe ozone, unable to bear the combined sensory input, the emotional input—Christ, how was he going to get within ten feet of Pierce, if this was what he could do ten, twenty miles away?— “we take a rain check on that, buddy,” he advised, almost gently.

Still holding his hand to his head, Bruce said slowly, “I don’t feel so good.”

Clint slid an arm around his bare, bloodied shoulders, carefully helping him to his feet. “We’ll get you cleaned up,” he said quietly, looking at Tony silently, imploringly.

Nodding once, Tony wasn’t quite prepared for Bruce’s quiet, almost desperate little, “I didn’t kill anyone, did I?”

Silence.

Bruce made a quiet noise, looking around, and Clint steered him towards the elevators, and Bruce entreated, “Please.”

No one said a word. No one. _Someone. Please_.

“Please,” he repeated, bleeding on the floor, pale and shaken and bony, hollow-eyed with shock and unable to believe the carnage, the literal _carnage_ around them, just around the carnage, “I—I didn’t want to kill anyone.”

 _I’m gonna kill him_ , Tony vowed, swallowing, picturing Pierce in his white-walled castle, pristine, untouched, his own home turned into a bloody battlefield. _I’m gonna fucking kill you_. He’d imagined intangible revenge since Pierce had shut the door on him in that dark room, tied to the chair, but it beat stronger in his chest, rawer, a new kind of adrenaline, darker, closer, more intimate.

 _I’m gonna rip your fucking heart out_.

. o .

Standing in the underground garage with Laika at his side, Fury acknowledged somberly, “It’s a hell of a deterrent.”

Tony pointed the lit repulsor at him, hand shaking. “Don’t,” he warned, and nothing more, mouth running, heart jittering in his chest. _Don’t say a fucking word. I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking kill you_. The garage was in order. Smart to send Fury below first. Bit risky, but he’d had J.A.R.V.I.S. scope the place out first, and he’d reported only one life form, and Tony had to breathe hard and fast to avoid throwing up again, lowering his gauntleted hand and stalking over to where the war council clustered, leaning his metal forehead against Steve’s shoulder unself-consciously.

“It’s a risk,” Steve was saying, his voice a steady rumble, utterly emotionless, like _it was Tuesday_ , or _we should take care of the bodies_. “He could have planted traps.”

“Nobody got past the—” Clint began quietly, then halted, grimaced, and spat, equally unself-consciously, on the pristine floor. Tony didn’t care. “Like the big man said. Hell of a deterrent,” he rephrased, keeping his voice low.

Natasha and Bruce huddled out of earshot. The latter sat on the floor, huddled with his head in both hands, wearing Clint’s own shirt. They hadn’t decided to go upstairs yet. Upstairs was the cache they’d come to retrieve. _We came for Bruce_. But the cache of tools and weapons made their mouths water. Hell, a chance to chance their shirts made their mouths water. Pierce had driven them to such an edge that even the barest necessities appealed, and there was some basic desire to die in a clean shirt. 

The thought of going to war made Tony want to vomit. He leaned heavier against Steve, a bulwark. Steve didn’t flinch, leaning back against him, deliberately. Into him. “It’s been eight minutes,” Steve said. “Forty-six seconds,” he added, not showing off, just pointing out the exactness that Pierce would care about. “Response window passed two minutes and eight seconds ago. Either he’s slacking—”

“Or luring,” prompted Clint, Devil’s advocate.

Steve tilted his head vaguely in concession. Tony thought he heard Natasha murmur something in a language he didn’t know. He heard a very, very muffled reply from Bruce, also in the same language. “Or luring,” he allowed. “That’s sloppy work. Unpredictable.”

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Clint asked grimly, a conversation closer, final agreement.

Steve’s grim smile was not visible, but audible. “Let’s find out.” Then, turning his head, almost nosing the helmet, reaching up to cup the side of it, he added, “Hey. Can I talk to you? We got a minute.”

They didn’t—not with Pierce’s time tables, response times in seconds, second waves, _third_ waves—but Tony nodded, letting him lead, resisting the urge to yank Laika’s leash from Fury’s hands, to blast the man in the chest, see how _he_ liked having his chain yanked, enjoyed the push and pull of never knowing what lurked behind the door, never _knowing—_

Breathing heavily, Tony stepped into the stairwell with Steve, gasping when Steve reached up and manually disabled the helmet. “Hey,” he said, soft, anguished. “Hey.” Cupping Tony’s head in both hands, protective and familiar, he tangled them deep in mussed-up sweaty hair and pressed his forehead against Tony’s gently. “Easy. It’s okay.”

Teeth chattering, Tony tried to nod, tried to say something dry and honest, _of course it is_ , because his head was full of white noise, everything was fine, and found himself gripping Steve’s arms like vices instead, his right hand throbbing but curled as tightly as he could morph it in metal around Steve’s warm forearms. Steve stroked his thumbs against his skull, gently, warmly, over and over, eyes shut, and Tony found his own eyes shut, and the rest of the world thankfully far away.

“Easy,” Steve repeated, his breathing thankfully soft, his words as calm as Tony wished he could be. “We’re okay.”

Gripping him tightly, Tony managed in a thin voice, “I’m gonna kill him.”

Grimly, Steve replied, “I know.” Tilting his head up, he pressed a kiss to Tony’s forehead. “But I’m okay if he walks if it means I don’t lose _you_.”

Blinking, floored, Tony looked at him, and Steve’s eyes were open, honest as could be as he said seriously, “I’m always gonna choose you, Tony. You’re _my_ mission. To hell with Pierce.” Rubbing a hand casually, affectionately against the grain of Tony’s hair once, mussing it up further, he added, “I’ll send him there if I can, but he’s not my _priority_. Got that?”

Letting his head thunk gently on Steve’s shoulder, Tony closed his eyes again, listening to his heartbeat—faster than normal, fired up, ready to go the full mile, to fight all the live-long-day—and exhaling slowly. Trying to let go of some of the rigid tension between his shoulders. He didn’t quite manage, but at least he wasn’t shaking quite as hard, didn’t feel like he was about to start crying.

“I wanna nail this bastard to the wall,” Steve murmured. “I really do. But there’s no tomorrow worth a dime if you’re not in it. Got it?”

Nodding, brushing his forehead against his shoulder, Tony said, “You know that goes both ways.”

Squeezing the back of his neck gently, Steve said, “Yeah. I know.” Letting him lean close for another long moment, he repeated, “I know.”

“Long as you do.” Drawing in a fortifying breath, Tony leaned away, reached up to rub his own brow gingerly with a metal hand. “Okay. 

“Let’s go get this son of a bitch.”

. o .

_Extracting File 0029997_  
Date: 04012012  
Time: 0341-0420

FILED BY: 0-1-0-1-0-2-2

[DECRYPTION COMPLETE.]

R.S.G. life signs detected. F.N.J. recommends proceed with extraction and ALL EFFORTS made at full resuscitation. Mission A-GO.

Odds of success inestimable. Event 0:1. Patient 0.

Preliminary cost estimate: $1.026 million, incl. staff. Security Level 8+ ONLY.

R.S.G. b. 17 d. 45. 94y.o. History of chronic illness, incl. asthma, cardio., scolio., tuberculo. (m). Exposure to S3, Vita rays, and Zyklon B btwn 43-45. Lifetime history rheumatic & scarlet fever.

According to S3 file, immune-function “greatly enhanced.” Post-S3 testing confirm: complete resistance to 93 common viruses, excluding 4 _redacted_ [returnflag:0101022] and at least _redacted_ untested [returnflag:0101022]. Suspected resistance to +200 common viruses. 

Healing time greatly increased. Fracture healing time increased by 600-4000% [returnflag:0101022]. Laceration healing time increased by 500-1500% [returnflag:0101022]. Chemical, burn, freeze healing time increased by 100-300% [returnflag:0101022]. 

Decrypted _redacted_ : Vulnerability to chemical/temp.?

Speed enhanced. Field tests indicate max. range +60 mph. [returnflag:0101022] Suspected max. range: 80-90 mph. 

Decrypted _redacted_ : Adrenaline boost = +90 mph?

Strength enhanced. Field tests indicated max. dead-lift 1500 lbs. [returnflag:0101022] Suspected max. range: 2000+ lbs.

Maximum recorded fall height, field test: 90 feet. No reported serious injuries.

Curiosity or hero? Viable blood sample instructive. F.N.J. suspects bare minimum VBS obtainable. VBS could lead to replication of the S3.

Wait-and-see.

0-1-0-1-0-2-2


	51. DOWNFALL, PART 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cheers to 500k! <3

“Sir, the Mark XI is not ready for deployment,” cautioned J.A.R.V.I.S.

“Easy, J.,” Tony replied quietly. Then he severed the Mark X’s spinal cord. For the last time, bright white-blue eyes went dark. Standing in front of the lifeless suit, Tony called out in a surprisingly indifferent tone, “Could use another set of hands here.”

Approaching him from the far corner of the lab, Steve silently took the helmet in both hands, prizing it carefully from metal shoulders at Tony’s direction. He said nothing about the decapitated suit lounging grotesquely against the bench, seemed beyond speech at what it represented. Tony justified himself anyway: “It’s easier than replacing the chest plate. Here, it’ll connect to the Atlas 7—there.” 

It took some futzing, some frustrating one-handed maneuvering on Tony’s part, but then, finally, the polished Mark X helmet clicked into place on the silver Mark XI’s upper body. “No fuss, no muss.” He fussed anyway, checking the latch with his one good hand, leaning forward, sweat-soaked shirt clinging to his back, right hand hot in its case, the rest of his body cold and trembly, head throbbing with the beginnings of an irrepressible headache. “Thank God for interchangeability,” he praised, grateful that he hadn’t gone _too_ eccentric, too irreplaceable. It alarmed him how few suits he _had_ , how in his long hall of Iron Men, only five were remotely functional.

The Mark II and III were so primitive their primary charges lasted less than three hours apiece – hardly the sort of thing one wanted to go to war in. The working Mark V was a tank, but it was a bare-bones construction, with hardly any embellishments to its name, and too weighty for high-altitude flight besides—he’d be lucky to clear certain _skyscrapers_ in it. And then came a line of the dead: the firstborn Mark I, demolished in the desert; the defunct Mark V, lacerated by Whiplash, and the sputtering Mark VI, crushed by the helicarrier blades and ultimately decommissioned during the front half of the Chitauri battle. 

The first Mark VII was completely untested when he’d first deployed it, and it had succumbed to the vacuum of space before its first day was out, making it the shortest-lived suit of them all; it seemed apt that the morning glory of suits had a clone that had survived longer than nearly any other in good condition, albeit in a state of arrested development as he plowed onward to the suit that would die in a week to Anuxa’s violence, the ill-fated and nearly ill-gotten Mark VIII, conceived not because it was needed but because he desired _more_. 

Yet he had reached forward with the Mark IX, making it bigger and better, and it was those reinforcements that had saved his life in Norilsk when the elevator had come crashing down. He had never looked backwards since, and so it was not backwards that he looked as he decapitated the poor, Hulk-smashed Mark X but forwards, to the prototypal, unfinished Mark XI, and its gleaming silver chest-place, denser and tougher than any before it.

There was only one issue—albeit, Tony acknowledged, a substantial one—that muddied the waters of his plan: the Mark XI was unfinished. It was not merely unfinished: it was _not made_ , so threadbare that it did not even _have_ a helmet. It was a skeleton of a suit, with gauntlets, boots, and chest-plate at the ready, the latter the last part of his stellar journey that he had made it shortly after the future Steve Rogers arrived bearing bad news. He’d certainly _wanted_ to speed up the process, but there were other things on his mind. He’d done the best he could with the time he had, and the result was a brilliant carapace of armor that was nearly five times stronger than its nearest competitor, the humble Mark VII, 2.0. Had it been merely twice as strong, he might have chosen its inferior, but knowing, _feeling_ the blunt impacts of those knife-like hands, he could not bet on anything less than the very best in his arsenal.

Still, he understood exactly J.A.R.V.I.S.’s trepidation as he, like a madman, destroyed his most sophisticated suit for tomorrow’s better suit. Pulling the box with the detached gauntlets inside was a sobering reminder of just how unfinished it was.

Sliding one chrome-black gauntlet on took nearly five minutes, latching, twisting, bending, coaxing, and finally securing it in place—like wrapping boxing tape, he thought, in neither anger nor despair as he mutely finished setting the right gauntlet into place, and wordlessly let Steve handle the left. He approached the task with an artisan’s care, neither soft nor hesitant about it but exceedingly comfortable, like he installed these gloves every day and had no doubt that he would satisfy his client. 

Steve was fast, and he didn’t have to work around the makeshift soft cast they’d wrapped his right hand in; in less than two minutes, Tony had two chrome-black metal hands, and it was easy enough to instruct, “Let’s do the boots next.” The meaning was plain, and he didn’t even need to articulate it to Steve, who crouched and, again wordlessly, began buckling them into place. 

The boots were simpler than the gauntlets—little more than glorified crampons, Tony thought affectionately, resting a black gauntleted hand against Steve’s hair. He ruffled it briefly, admiring gold on black, wondering if his nonchalance stemmed from the numb fear of death or the exhilaration of finally getting to _test_ the Mark XI. It was unfinished, but to hell with it—he wanted to see what it could _do_. Then, in less than a minute, Steve straightened and stepped back, expression still implacable.

He flicked his gaze over Tony once, like he was a puzzle to be solved, then looked pointedly at the carnage of the Mark X, with its missing head and crushed chest plate. He looked away, looked upwards in divine supplication, before he covered his eyes momentarily with both hands. 

“Steve?” Tony tried, thrown, easing to his feet. Steve swallowed, eyes still covered. Tony took a step towards him, and he tensed. Pausing, rocking back on heavy metal feet, aware of what could happen if he pushed too far as his right hand twitched in its captive armor, Tony repeated, “Steve?” With an unsteady exhale, Steve let down his hands, expression ashen, jawline tense, staring straight ahead, entire demeanor radiating discontent. Not daring to push his luck, Tony retreated another step, and, with an almighty heave, he even managed to drag the Mark X off the lab bench it rested on and onto the floor.

It was there, almost accidentally, that he saw the body.

It didn’t seem possible that it was a body at first; just a tarp-shaped form that could be nothing _other_ than a human body. With a strangled yell, Tony lurched back violently, stumbled over himself. Steve caught him before he could pitch, righting him, stabilizing him, and he could feel his own heart pounding against Steve’s chest, pounding violently against the _arc reactor_ , and he swallowed and swallowed and swallowed again, and still his cold tap water mouth tasted like ash and decay, his stomach aching with how badly he wanted to expunge that last forty-eight hours from his memory. 

He couldn’t believe he couldn’t smell it, except J.A.R.V.I.S. had a cleaning protocol to remove ghastly odors, largely of the chemical fume variety. One offhand remark of _This reeks_ would be enough to trigger an air wash protocol later on. And it _would_ reek, Tony thought numbly, gripping Steve’s skin underneath his shirt with far too much force and yet nowhere near full power, metal disconnected from its source. The boots had kick; the gauntlets had fire power. But they were largely harmless when detached from their roots. They _were_ heavy, dragging him earthward, towards the body under the table, the body next to the Iron Man suit, the body, the body.

He swallowed hard and rasped, “How?”

Steve guided him away, nearly dragged him across the floor, and planted him on a chair. “How?” he demanded, _shouted_ , too anguished to stand, staring in numb concession as Steve returned to the table. Steve crouched and with a heavy hand reeled the body out from under the table. It susurrated across the floor in a way that Tony knew, at once, he would never get out of his head; he knew it would wake him up at night in a cold sweat, yearning to forget, when he least expected. In the present, he shuddered head-to-toe and forced himself to watch, to not imagine phantoms, to trust when there was nothing else to see or do, as Steve dragged the body into the open, into the floodlights of the lab.

And then, when it was there, Steve spoke at last, in a slow weighted rasp: “I don’t want you to see this.”

It was an easy out. Steve knelt beside the bag on one knee, like he would stand and walk away without ever revealing what was inside the package if only Tony agreed. And Tony almost said, _Okay_. But then he thought of Kunar and of blood in the sand and of what he had needed to know to move forward. Of what he had needed to see, no matter how awful, to live the truth.

“I have to,” was all he said.

Steve didn’t question it, but began unwrapping the mummified body methodically, unwinding the black storage blanket repurposed with single-minded purpose, the first tiny movement breaking the seal. The first thing Tony noticed _was_ the smell, the cloying odor of decaying human flesh. It was not animal but volcanic, a charring weighted scent that stuck to the inside of his nostrils and pressed on his tongue, made him reach up to cover his mouth and nose with a hand before he had consciously decided to, in a desperate bid to shield himself from it. Even Steve seemed repulsed, momentarily frozen with only one band of black cloth in hand. Then he rallied, undoing the remainder of the wrap without delay, a man committed to his mission as he unwound and unwound and unwound, lifting the body with one hand and unraveling with the other.

Without ever elevating his gaze to the body’s prone face, Tony noticed three things in gradual succession—first, a ghostly white hand, open at its side; then, the shallow landscape of a traditionally masculine torso; and finally, the length of an adult stature, fully articulated. Still without looking too closely, he observed that the body was well-dressed, wearing a well-fitted dark blue suit, not the comparative clothes of an unfortunate civilian caught in the crossfire, but a higher-up entangled in the web of lies. Even its shoes were polished, chillingly real. 

He fixated on them briefly, on the idea of the man wearing them getting up and walking away, so immediate he had the urge to warn Steve, _get back_ , even as the scent of retched decay became nearly overpowering, a visceral reminder that it was a long gone concern. The dead did not walk. He had to bury his face in his sweat-stained shirt for sanctuary, escaping the smell as much as the sight.

When he emerged, Steve was gone. For a moment, a pulse of fear so profound it nearly shook him apart rattled over Tony. Then he heard the lab sink in the corner running, heard hands scrubbing violently hands and face, and let out a breath, still staring at the corpse’s white hand, dangling limply at its side. He didn’t look any higher or farther up, refusing to identify it, refusing to let his brilliant mind wander farther, to recognize the dead. 

There was comforting truth in what he already knew – a white man ruled out James Rhodes or Virginia Potts, and the dimensions didn’t fit a man of Happy Hogan’s commanding stature – but he knew he would dream of those shoes, of their owner, if he never looked. The sink seemed loud and silent, blocking out every other noise as he rallied, and rallied, and rallied, and finally forced himself to look up at its face, in one rapid movement.

At first, he believed his own lie, because he _could not_ have seen what he saw. It was impossible. It was too quick a glance. His eyes didn’t focus right. His mind was tormented, on the verge of collapse, the weight of Pierce’s betrayal—of S.H.I.E.L.D. at large gunning for him and Alexander Pierce in particular vowing to make his death painful and long—converging to create a breach in reality, where instead of seeing the truth he saw a disfigured lie. It wasn’t impossible, he thought numbly, mouth dry as the desert as he looked away, for such a hallucination to emerge, an oasis in a literal desert, a nightmare superimposing reality.

It made him terrified to look again, almost as scared as he had been to look down a second time, and see metal and wires jutting out of the arch of his own chest, a double-take that had confirmed his worst reality as true.

 _It’s real_.

Sucking in a deep, suffocatingly thin breath, he forced himself, shoved himself to his feet, and marched over. He couldn’t look at the body from a distance. He couldn’t trust his own eyes from a distance. The shoes were scuffed, up close. The whole suit was in a mild state of disarray. The torso was disrupted, and something seemed deeply wrong that he refused to investigate, refusing to look up from its hand, grotesquely held by his gaze, like he was holding onto it for comfort, for assurance. _Don’t look away, and it’ll be okay_.

He looked up again.

The decaying self-image was a mirror he had been meant to see. 

Rotting flesh had begun to subsume into something inhuman, distorting the perfect unreality of his own grey-faced visage. There was no kindness spared for the dead. No coroner’s compassionate touch had been applied to neaten the insipient marks of death. The mask didn’t look like him, and yet it looked _exactly_ like him, and he wasn’t sure what was louder: his own pounding heart, or the trembling hand rattling as he reached for it, curled into a black-chrome claw, ready to tear the skin off the monster, because it could only be a monster, it _could not be real_.

 _This is what it means to lose your mind_.

He gripped an ear, and it began to tear, and that was when his mind walked out, letting go at once, too late. But it was not the awful torture of his own actions, of desecrating the dead, that affixed him to his spot. It was the way, suddenly and unexpectedly, the skin tone shifted, from ghost-blue to ghost-grey, and he followed the seam with a black-chrome finger, and thought, _Don’t tear off its face_ even as he traced the seam, and peeled back the edge, and began to do exactly that, revealing more ghost-grey underneath ghost-blue.

An electrifying feeling swept over him, a thrilling feeling of discovery and relief, of _this is not real_ and _I have you now_ , and he did not know what he expected to find underneath it all. All he knew was that he had to _keep going_ , every hair on the back of his neck standing as with single-minded purpose he peeled back the thin skin, barely cognizant of the way it warped oddly around his own fingers, turning _black_ , shimmering briefly like a chameleon, before resuming their blue-grey appearance of manufactured death. And then, in one smooth movement, he pulled the mask off entirely, its last sticky hold disintegrating as it tore a small hole in the body’s cheek and came loose.

Dropping the strange snakeskin aside, Tony sat back on his knees, staring at the body and its mutilated face, and for a moment was as stupefied as he had been when it was his own macabre face staring back at him. Rigor mortis had set in, making an ID even more difficult, but he knew at once what he had known as Steve unveiled the sheet—and he wondered if Steve was trying to drain the harbor with how much water he was pouring out; and more pressing still, he wanted to shove his own head underwater and _drown_ , rather than deal with this, this _monster_ —and he knew that it was not someone he loved.

He stared at it uncomprehendingly for a long minute, utterly unable to place it.

Then it clicked. He gripped his own knee tightly for support, swallowing hard, swallowing _ash_ , as he stared at the face of the mole, no longer locked up behind comfortingly clear glass. An earthquake rattled under his skin, making him tremor, yet there was no emotion behind it, everything beyond apathy and silent reckoning _gone_. He felt nothing—not sadness, not anger, not even twisted pity, as his gaze swept downward, and settled on the grotesque cavity in the body’s chest.

His own heart throbbed, and he let go of his knee, pressing his metal hands firmly against the reactor, leaning backwards, arching, so he didn’t hunch forwards, towards the body. He breathed shallowly through his mouth, aware of every heavy beat, of the gaping wound in the body’s chest and the metal sticking out of it, an alien spawn that didn’t belong there, and his own fingers curled—painfully, white-hot painful, and still he could not make his right hand uncurl, not once it had locked into place—around the reactor, determined to rip it out, get it out of him before it ate him _alive_. 

It had eaten this man alive, torn him open like a plague, metastasized from sternum to ribs, from core to extremities, necrosing all the way, killing everything in its path. 

It was a miracle Tony himself had lived. No doctor he had ever met had truly _believed_ the images they had seen, because there was no feasible way a car battery could be shoved into a person’s chest, turned on, and made not to kill them.

Prying his hands off the reactor, the life- _giving_ reactor, he pressed the backs of them—not the fronts, he would never touch a living thing with the fronts, God, no, not if he could avoid it—against his eyes, obstructing his field of view. Then he drew in another short breath and lowered them.

Anger pulsed through him like a wave, like a sickness, and without thinking, without entertaining the consequences, he reached out and yanked the crude reactor free of the man’s chest. It came. He clutched it in his left hand, aware of the molten taste in his mouth, not sickness, not dread, but anger. Pure, unwavering, debilitating anger, growing inside him, burning up everything that got in its way.

There was a cavity in the man’s chest like his own, but the man in front of him didn’t know what life with a car battery was like. He didn’t _know_ what it was like to _live_ through it. He had never borne the jeers of being part-man, part-machine, never known the torment of walking around suffocating under the weight in his chest. 

Hating something as he had never hated before, and he had grown up under his _father_.

This man had not survived more than a few minutes of the agony, Tony knew, that he himself had endured for _five years_. 

Ho Yinsen had tortured him—and he had taken nearly _every_ resuscitation clause out of his will because of Ho Yinsen—Ho Yinsen had saved him, had given him a chance to return to a _normal_ life, in a manner so unspeakable that it made doctors ill to see the X-rays; it wasn’t his fault because Ho Yinsen had acted under duress, under threat of execution at the hands of unspeakable people, to cut his chest open and force metal into him by taking bone _out of him_ , precious real estate he had never sold, selling toxic anoxic metal for priceless irreplaceable bone; Ho Yinsen had strapped him down and taken him apart, wrenching apart and cutting down rib after rib, hacking, sawing, doing whatever he had to to get metal in, and bone out, metal in, _bone out_ —

He crushed the fake reactor with enough force to pulverize a human heart, but it didn’t matter. Not even slightly. 

The man in front of him was already dead.

The man in front of him hadn’t even been in that cave on that terrible night, he thought, vision greying, a long way away from caring that he _wasn’t hurting him_ , that he couldn’t hurt him. The man in front of him hadn’t been wielding the makeshift bone saw or holding the cloth loaded with chlorophyll as his eyes rolled in nameless horror at the realization that they had waited to see if he would survive before knocking him out, that _the lessons started now_. The man in front of him hadn’t been there every time after, when they had shoved his head underwater, when they had left him cold and sick and dying—

Because he had _memorized_ their faces.

Or maybe, he thought, reaching out, grinding his teeth with the strength of his animosity, maybe he _had_ been there, wielding the cloth, standing just behind the bucket, laughing, jeering alongside them, just out of sight. After all, he’d been out of his head, _out of his mind_ , barely conscious half the time, and the names and faces of Cell Eight were many, and few, no more than fifty at their peak. He had taken out twelve on his own rescue mission, more determined to _save_ than to _kill_. When Steve had arrived, half a decade later, with only one purpose in mind, only twenty-eight had remained, and he had wiped them off the face of the Earth.

The sole survivor’s comeuppance lay before him. 

Tony stared down at him, shaking with nameless emotion. He waited to feel sorrow, like he had felt on the sands, staring at all those bodies, faceless and nameless and human in their last seconds. Anguish, for a fellow human, in enormous pain, in unspeakable agony, like he’d felt for a man huddled in a corner while a bastardized Iron Man suit cradled the bloody stump of his left arm. Regret, for a sacrificial victim like he, who hadn’t survived to speak of the Other Side. 

But there was something so raw about a face and a chest wide open without a drop of blood on the floor, something beyond words, that left him feeling nothing. He felt numb. He felt awful. He felt entranced, and broken, like his connective tissues had been frozen, severed, leaving him stuck to the floor. He thought he must look alien, with his black metal hands and feet, hunched over the grotesque body and its missing metal heart.

Disgusted, aghast, he swallowed hard, and tried to stand. And then, all at once, it was like the glass shattered on the floor.

He hunched inward, curling in on himself, and covered his face with the backs of his hands, and fell apart.

. o .

“Full check,” Tony instructed. His voice had no tone. He sounded very calm. “Run Alpha, Beta, Gamma scans, run it back to me.”

“Of course, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied.

On his planetary scale, the Mark XI was Martian: it had surpassed its Mercurial conception, its Venusian blueprint, and its Earthly flight power, boots and gauntlets. Now it was fully outfitted for war: it had armor and basic artillery. It still lacked the Jovian helmet, never mind the Saturnal tech that made Iron Man suits infamously sophisticated. Uranian weapons were late additions to the game, heavyweight add-ons that affected aerodynamics, impacting flight. Neptunian embellishments were last, effectively anything that came after all was said and done—and beyond.

But the body was all he needed, and it was powerful. It was chrome-black metal from head-to-heel, with exposed metal legs and a fully articulated metal torso ready for action. It had the same approach as an old-school suit of armor: flexible lower half, boots that wound up to his calves without the protective armored plating but exposed connective tissues and shielding, and an impenetrable upper shell, shoulder plates and arms fully articulated. He always started top-down with covering—his logic was simple: if he wanted a vacuum-seal, he wanted the breathing apparatus included in the vacuum seal; in a shark full of tanks, he’d rather have exposed legs than water-filled lungs—and he felt powerful as he flexed both arms experimentally, twisting around nearly completely, testing the suit’s flexibility.

It was unpainted, unfinished in every way, but it was powerful, lean, and lightweight. Disarticulated, it weighed just eighty-six pounds, and he could walk with no firepower whatsoever, albeit strenuously. He could land a real punch, with real power, with a dead suit, something that could not be said of three-hundred-pound Mark V, or even two-hundred-pound Mark VII. 

And when he turned it on, giving J.A.R.V.I.S. the very first All Systems Go after he got the All Systems Clear? He _flew_. 

Instantly, he rose several inches and then halted, hovering on a mat of hot air, perfectly balanced. His control was phenomenal—he’d installed thrusters at diagonals on opposing shoulders, front left and back right, creating a spearing effect that pinned him planarly. And it was the crux—and suddenly, he was both free and fixed in space, the ground settled under his weightless heels. He could stand still in space, and the sensation of total control was beyond shocking, it was _exhilarating_. It was the reality that there would be no more haphazard wobbling and rocking and steadying himself. The dog days were over. Catastrophic somersaulting was gone. He’d cracked the code. He could _stand_ on _air_.

Just to test his newfound stability, he kicked up the power, did a full-frontal somersault, and landed as smoothly as if he’d done it on ground. His feet never whispered across the floor. Even the vertigo was minimal. 

Breathing hard behind the mask, he resisted the urge to shout, to tear out his own lungs on a jubilant cry, because he had cracked the hover angle. He landed neatly and lightly on his feet, and J.A.R.V.I.S. said, “Flight battery at 540 hours, sir,” and did let out a victorious little snarl, flexing both hands like claws, ignoring the zing of razor-sharp pain that lanced from middle finger to the center of his wrist on his right hand. Looking down at the blue glow against the black metal, he experimented, forcing his hand to move until his forefinger and middle finger trembled into obedient submission, his hand curled in a mockery of grasping an invisible cup, and used his improvised claw to scoop up the black blanket and toss it over the body on the floor haphazardly.

Stepping back, he lifted his left hand, palm fully extended, and heated up a full charge. Then, slowly, he watched, almost in a dream, a pale white hand curl around his metal black one, and force it down, the charge still burning, still ready to let the ugly cairn aflame. It was no contest of strength—even half-finished, the Mark XI had enough fire power to lift 100,000 pounds per square inch.

It was like brushing a feather off a sleeve. There was no struggle, no straining of muscles, no mechanical whirring or whining or bending. Where once the metal would have bent and broke and strained, he had spent hours—precious time not even _making_ the legs, exposed as they were, a whisper at the back of his mind, _don’t look down, I have a heel_ , like Achilles dipped in luminous water, preserved for all time but for one damnable point—hours and hours ensuring he would not be broken or bent or forced any way he did not want to go. And like gravity defied, he had won the matter as well. He had measured. And he had overcome.

So he settled his hand exactly where it was again, very aware, now, of the human hand resting atop it, not forcing it anywhere, not even trying, recognizing the futility of the task. _I can destroy you_ , he wanted to say, driven by some numb part of him, that he could turn and prove it, that curled wretchedly in his broken right hand, trembling in its mangled arc, that hurt and throbbed and would not wield the tools he even needed properly, so he could not suture the mask on like he wanted to but needed those human hands to help him. _I could hurt you_. He wanted to say the words aloud, to make the hand let _go_ , but he was afraid what would come out if he spoke. What he could not retract or unsay, as he stared at that body with nothing but hatred, burning inside him, hating something more than he had ever hated before, and wanted to burn it to ash.

 _It won’t heal you_.

It was a whisper, toxic, sudden, and the strings of his arm went limp, the charge cascading downward, petering out after nearly three minutes of warm-up, a lethal burst that could have literally incinerated _bone_ into a sooty, smoky nonexistence. _It won’t heal you_ , the whisper repeated, as he stepped back and away, away, gaze flinching to the Mark X, his beautiful creation, his _wonderful_ suit, that had been loyal and trustworthy, mutilated for the sake of these killing hands, for this killing suit, for this chance at _survival_ , _I will destroy you if I have to_.

Terrified of the lurching, uneasy ground underneath him, he cut all the cords, leaving him alone in his dark, heavy suit, alone in the Mark X’s brilliant mask, connecting seamlessly to the Mark XI’s untampered body and its powerful killing hands, sinking lifelessly to his sides, limp and helpless.

In breathless anguish, he turned away from the body, limping heavily, hardly able to carry his own weight in the armor, not daring to take it off, to expose himself to the open air again.

And then he felt a presence beside him, pronounced without the suit to alter reality, like a weighted shadow, and then he felt an arm sliding around his back, dragging a metal arm over human shoulders, taking on _his_ weight, and they walked out of the lab together, leaving the bodies behind forever.

. o .

Steve Rogers had known suffering. He wasn’t sure what flavor of suffering he would call this: hot, like finding out the rumors were true and they were burning people; hot, like his mother was dying of tuberculosis and he was supposed to sit still and _watch_ ; hot, like fresh blood spat in his face and the ever-depleting supply of edible meat; hot, like being called _Captain_ when he was a mutineer and a sham and a liar and a traitor to his country because he wouldn’t fall in line if it saved his brothers; hot, like the teeth of a bear trap crunching around his left ankle, the crudest of tools used in the most harried of circumstances, and how could a kid like him hope to carry a nation when he couldn’t even watch where he was _going_?

This kind of suffering was mind-numbingly cold.

He knew, he _knew_ he wasn’t fit to lead or speak or even exist, but he had to, if only because it was how the marching orders went. _You walk, or you die_. There was no alternative, and he was not about to stop. But as he stared at the lifeless body and its missing head, he had to turn away, tired of it, of making new memories on the battlefield. He had to pretend it did not exist, had to pretend none of it was happening anymore, just like he had learned to not look at faces, only dog tags, when he had to ID a body. And that was how he got blood spat in his face, reaching for the chain on the neck on a body that wasn’t dead, moaning for help in the last six seconds before it—he—died, and if he’d been vulnerable to any sicknesses the unlucky bastard might have had, he might have cared more about it. As it was, he’d just scrubbed it off with dirt and water when he could find it. He’d moved on.

He’d learned not to look, but he was getting careless, _looking_ , now, and so he made himself be more careful as he unveiled the body under the sheet. He did not look at its face, although he inevitably looked at its neck, for dog tags that weren’t there, and that drew his eyes to its chest, where the arc reactor was, and he had to pause, and rally, and move on. He moved methodically, suppressing any attempts to recreate the body’s life, to identify the body as anything other than a corpse, an object, not a person, an object, not a human being. He imagined, once, that it reached for him, and cold sweat dappled the back of his neck, unshakably afraid that it was alive, and he had made a mistake, and that he was not helping a living person, and he was hurting someone.

It was that, more than anything—the idea, the louder silent echo of misidentifying death, that drove him away, forced him to flee. He didn’t consciously decide to abandon his post—no good soldier _ever_ decided to abandon their mission, to flee their country, to go missing-in-action. They broke: running like their lives depended on it. They were often found dead days later; killed by their terror, driven beyond self-preservation, into rocky shores like sailors on doomed seas desperate to land anywhere other than the wretched water.

The water thundered around him, driving thoughts from his head and fear from his pounding heart, and he gulped it down and shook it out, let it drive every blessed memory from his skull, let it soak into his skin like the only memory that mattered, and the darkness was deep and cold and safer than anything lesser than it, the only darkness he knew he wouldn’t outlast and still it wouldn’t kill him. He wasn’t sure if he ever turned the water off, or if he ran out of water and that was why his hand fell on the faucet handle, and why the deluge ended. It was indecent to overuse, after all, even though he was a fish outta water at the riverside, always hogging, wanting more than he should, just to pretend for a little while that the world was right on its axis, _before_. Before. When everything seemed easy, like it should be.

 _Let’s all go to war, just for a little while_.

He spat his last mouthful into the sink, folding forward for a moment, pressing his forehead against crossed arms on the edge of the sink, hunching there, driven to another place, where he was seated on a busy train, listening to the rattle and the busy chatter, and oh, _let’s just go to war for a while_ , and how they’d smile and smile and pretend they’d be coming home someday, to wives and kids and lives. They’d all believe it, know it in their hearts, that they’d be coming home even if their brothers wouldn’t, just like their fathers hadn’t before them. _Let’s all go to war, just for a little while_ , they’d all parade as they signed up one-by-one, saluting Uncle Sam, the only father most of them had ever served, trembling in their barracks and wishing for something like summer in the stifling middle of it, cold and alone and missing everything warm. _Let’s go to war, just for a while, just for another day_.

Like a tune he’d carry in his back pocket for the dark and dreary days, as if there was ever an after.

Hawking up another mouthful, he shuddered around the tight feeling in his chest, around the blood red tint to the water he washed down the drain and coughed a coupla times to clear his chest. He would be all right, he knew, in just a little while, in just another day. Everything was easier tomorrow. Everything was better tomorrow. He could keep going, and so he did, like he was supposed to. He just had a bad day, was all, bad cough, bad cold or some-such, and he shut his eyes for a moment, pressing a hand to his chest where it hurt, feeling haunted eyes on him just before an iron hand smashed his own shield right into his chest, cracking bone. Shouldn’t be alive, he thought, the taste of copper heavy on his tongue, lucidity more a dream than a temptation as he weaved for a moment longer. Shouldn’t have survived the train or the ice or any of it.

He turned back to face the light of day, and he was struck, first, by the black suit, watching from a distant, slumped against the sink with one hand on it, as Tony pulled it on methodically, like chain mail, overhead, clipping it on, almost entirely with his left hand when he could avoid it. He could hear the words, _Could use a hand here_ , but they weren’t a directive, so he stayed back. He ventured no nearer, in fact, as he watched Tony don his battle armor, moving with such admirable calm that he thought, _I am no longer fit to fight_. This was a war he was not fit to enlist for, he knew, a war where his own skin and bone would not cut it. He thought of 4F and how many times he’d seen red over it, how many times he’d choked on his own breath in private over it, being so mad he couldn’t stand it, and how, looking at Tony Stark disappear and Iron Man arrive, utterly, completely ill-suited he was for this fight.

The hand not wrapped around the sink flexed helplessly, reaching for the only real weapon to his name, but he’d dropped it in the streets, or lost it over the side of a train, maybe, it was fuzzy in his memory where he’d misplaced certain irreplaceable things, and his lungs burned, and his mouth stung, and he wanted more than anything to lie down, and maybe fall asleep for a few more decades. Maybe then, he thought, with grim resignation, he would emerge in a world where he would be so unnecessary, they would not even ask him to try to be enough for them, and he could be nothing in peace. They still thought he was something, so he would try.

 _I am. I am something_.

He felt less than nothing, cold on his feet, soaked and shaking and struggling to stay upright. He felt sick, and slow, and like a man who’d gone too many rounds in the ring. He wanted Iron Man dance—spin, pirouette, lunge and roll— and the tight feeling in his chest grew.

 _I am something_.

Then Iron Man faced the something on the floor that Steve did not dare look at, and Steve found himself coming closer to them as Iron Man lifted a hand. He thought, _This isn’t right_ , and reached out, captured that metal hand gently, as dark as charcoal yet shiny, too, like boot polish, precious as a gem. _This isn’t right_ , rang louder in his head, as he gripped the metal hand and, with intent, pushed it down, lowering it from its target.

But Iron Man was strong, stronger than the serum in his veins could hope to be, working with sinew and bone, and without so much as a twitch of effort upraised his hand once again, realigning. Steve felt despair well up in his throat, realizing that there was nothing he could do, staring not at the target but at that metal hand, and what it was trying to do. _Don’t hurt yourself_.

It seemed nonsensical, inane, and yet it worked—all at once, the arm lowered, and Iron Man sagged. _Tony_ sagged, all the bells and whistles of his suit flickering off, leaving only his dark metal shell behind, and as he limped away, Steve could not stand behind, could not do nothing.

Still, he lingered, just a moment, just long enough to see the body, and the strange crumpled paper skin beside its face, and the dull face of death that was not Tony Stark at all, and felt a mixture of relief more profound than air suffuse him, and utter, unquenchable exhaustion.

It seemed like hours passed, and somehow no time at all before he found himself tugging the zipper closed on his own black tactical gear, covering his chest—dark blue bruising aside, he’d live—before, like a car crash, he froze in front of the bathroom mirror, aware of his own pale, newly shaven visage, dressed for a fight yet hankering for the opposite as he flexed his hands in uncuttable black gloves. He didn’t know what had slowed him down, why he’d paused at all when he’d managed the complex laces on his boots and all the complex words and gestures between _there_ and _now_ without fail but faltered, here.

Then in his mind’s eye he saw that crumpled paper skin, the final victim of his one-man crusade.

He stared numbly at his own face. He reached up and dragged a nail down his own cheek, searching for a seam. He didn’t find it, but paranoia kept him searching, then scrubbing at his face with both hands, hard enough to chafe, nearly clawing at his own skin in animal desperation, and then it was those black metal hands gripping his own, holding them loosely but away from his face. 

Planted like a tree in front of him, Iron Man stood mutely. 

Steve could not see his own reflection in the opaque red and gold mask. He looked at the eyes, at exactly where Tony’s were behind it, and despaired, averting his own gaze. He twitched his left hand, still captured in Iron Man’s— _Tony’s_ , it was Tony underneath all that polished perfect steel—right, and it didn’t _give_ , but it flinched a little, and he knew it was a weak point, a place where he could break _free_. And in his own armor—his own black-tact gear salvaged from S.H.I.E.L.D., the very organization he’d set out to destroy now cloaking him in the gear he’d use to slit their throat—he didn’t feel like an exposed nerve. He felt like a rival, like he was supposed to meet the challenge or die trying, and for one second, he thought he just might snap.

Then Tony encouraged, “Easy, Steve.”

His voice was metallic, but it was Tony—his own voice worn, threadbare, but still emphatic, still _something_ , gripping Steve’s hand firmly, almost painfully tightly, before releasing him, only to pull close in a crushing hug. “I’m here,” Tony said, voice soft but near, not a whisper but a promise, “you’re here. The rest we’ll figure out.”

Steve could barely breathe in his grip, but the metal was warm, and he could hear Tony breathing under the mask despite the filters, and he nodded once against his polished shoulder, grip settling briefly along his back, squeezing his own wrist rather than daring to touch the metal. _I won’t hurt you_.

He hung on, and allowed Tony to lean into him, for what felt like too long, knowing that Pierce’s response times were in the minutes, not hours, and if there wasn’t a response team already on top of them, it would surely be closing in. He squeezed Tony, knowing he could feel it, not really, and stepped back, letting him go. He did not touch his face again.

Even stabilized, he felt exhausted, and he couldn’t see it on Tony’s face, but a heavy, steadying hand fell on his shoulder when he took a step and faltered. Just a little. Just enough. “’m okay,” he vowed, and it was a promise. “I’m okay.”

Tony lingered, then let his right hand slide off Steve’s shoulder, still curled slightly, and nodded.

Together, they marched on.

. o .

“If,” Clint was saying, tapping his fist lightly against the table, “we attack them head on, we’ll never make it past the first wave.”

“If we wait,” Bruce replied, head in hands, voice muffled, “there might not _be_ any survivors.”

Grim silence followed.

Gathered not in the living area they had so often called home but in a windowless conference room three floors, the newly assembled Avengers held a final war council, bedecked in war gear, wearing matching grim expressions. Even Clint looked ashen, leaning though he was with both feet on the table.

“What’s our main objective, here?” Natasha asked, the voice of reason. “Survivors? Or—”

“Survivors,” Steve interjected firmly. Tony thought it was telling that he sat at Fury’s righthand, despite the last seventy-two hours, the upheaval of their lives, how they would never again report to the man at the head of the table as their superior again if S.H.I.E.L.D. burned. “Our main objective is survivors.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. employs over 33,000 people,” Clint reminded, once again diplomatic, toneless, arms folded on his chest. “Natasha’s right. We have to focus on taking out the big guy. Or none of this is gonna matter.”

Steve looked at him levelly, and Tony didn’t know what to make of his expression. He’d never seen it on a living human person before, only in photographs, the grim haunted war-torn expressions of those who had been overseas for too long. _I’m out. I’m done_. Captain America was never done. It was chilling to see, and disarming, and he couldn’t help but entertain the thread that he could almost see percolating between Natasha and Clint: _His heart’s not in this_.

Tony’s was. He wanted to burn the whole house down. To hell with Pierce. To _hell_ with Pierce’s Army.

If he had declared war, casualties were an inevitability, not an avoidable consequence.

And still Steve drawled, almost placatingly but mostly in the same worn tone, “This is not a takedown, this is a hostage crisis. Pierce has all the cards stacked in his favor. If we go in, guns blazing—”

“He’ll light the place up,” Bruce prophesized, lifting his face from his hands. He looked like he’d been hit by a truck, reeling, barely present. “Oh, God.”

“Exactly,” Steve said calmly, and then, frowning at him, he added, utterly nonsensically, “Banner, sit down.”

Nodding, _already seated_ , Bruce merely planted his arms on the table and put his head in them. If Steve noticed his error, he made no effort to correct it, to quench concerns regarding it. Tony saw him run a hand across Laika’s head under the table; in the comforting confines of the suit, he was free to stare at it, and he saw it tremble visibly before Steve lifted it again, flattening it on the table and insisting, again in a not all there tone, “We need to focus on the civilians.”

“Cap, there are no civvies at S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Clint said bluntly, determined to move with the tides before the water came in and drowned them all. “None. Each and every one of us knows what we signed up for, when we joined on, whether we signed up as a field agent or a ground worker—”

“They don’t deserve to die,” Steve said shortly, sharply. His voice was climbing in pitch. Tony wished, suddenly, that he hadn’t chosen, almost absentmindedly, to sit across from him at the table, one seat over. He never liked to sit too close to Fury, believing it stifled him creatively, made him inclined to follow the _sir-yes-sir_ routine. Instead, he’d opted to sprawl in his suit, and now it was costing him, leaving him out of comforting reach as he saw the flush burn the back of Steve’s ears. “This ain’t a _war_ , Barton, it’s one man’s—”

“Pierce has made it _war_ ,” Clint retorted. “There is no zero-casualty outcome, Cap. I’m sorry.”

Steve looked momentarily to Fury, who merely looked at Tony, disconcertingly enough. Seated in the suit, he could feign anything, but instinct had him staring back, meeting his gaze. “I think,” Tony began, and then paused, licking his lips, clearing his throat, aware that _everyone’s_ eyes were on him, and his metallic voice carried a weight far greater than he was prepared for it to project, yet where there was a tremble in Steve’s every movement, his own conviction was rock-solid, “I think we bring them right here.” 

He mirrored Clint’s posture, no small feat in the suit, planting both feet on the table, crossing them casually, exposing where the big metal plates _weren’t_ , the weaknesses for all the world to see. To his surprise, Clint deferred his own insolence, planting both feet on the floor. There was deafening silence as the Avengers listened to him as he declared with the gravity of God: “Pierce wants the Avengers? Let him come and get us. This place is a _fortress_.” 

Gesticulating freely with his curled right hand, he insisted, “There is no way to bring it down from the outside. None. Short of a nuke or a small air force, which I doubt Pierce will be procuring. So we let him know we’re here, then we bunker down under and let him come to _us_. He wants to take down the Avengers? Let him _try_.” 

Smiling grimly behind his mask, he added, almost humorously, “And, if we fail, history will absolve us.”

. o .

And _that_ , Tony would reflect, was precisely when it all hit the fan.

One minute, he was king of his castle, presiding over the strongest task force in the world, and the next, the conference room went pitch-black. Not merely the main power—the auxiliary went out, too, leaving no backups, and no traces of supporting light.

Suddenly, Iron Man became the brightest object in the room, bar none. Moments later, Clint held up his phone, flashlight tool projecting ghostly light. “The hell?” he muttered. “A power outage?”

“What’re we looking at, J.?” Tony asked.

“I’m—not entirely sure, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. hedged. “Meteorological events are unlikely to cause a disruption of this scale, and given online reports, I can detect no alternative events that would trigger a disruption of this scale. Given this information, I can only assume that it was a—”

A shiver walked down Tony’s spine. “Manual disruption,” he filled in numbly.

“My guess exactly, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. finished, sounding subdued. “I do not anticipate that the power will return manually after a disruption of this scale, sir. It would be my advice to investigate the source and perform necessary maintenance.”

“My first question,” Tony began, lowering his feet slowly, careful not to step on Laika, who loped over anxiously, head low. “It’s okay,” he promised, running his cupped hand over her back before she pressed her side against his metal leg, growling low in discomfort. The fact that he could _feel_ her warmth through it reinforced the electric reality of his own exposure, the inherent vulnerability of the Mark XI numbing him. He felt no danger, only an unbroachable sense of security as she sat next to him, her casted front leg sticking out. “My first question,” he repeated calmly, “is _how_?”

“Cut the cord,” Clint said, setting his phone on the table so the light fanned across the ceiling, bathing the room in eerie white light. “Isn’t that obvious?”

“It would be,” Tony said, surprising himself with how calm his own voice was, conversing in the cave, looking at the unflappable faces around him. “Except the only way to the basement is through the front door. And there have been _no_ —” he confirmed the count with J.A.R.V.I.S., a scanning sort which prompted a ninety-second delay as J.A.R.V.I.S. sifted at his command through old security footage, tapes backed up on the Iron Man’s interconnected private Internet—precisely the same web of tech that allowed J.A.R.V.I.S. to communicate seamlessly between suit and building whenever he needed, a network he was thanking his lucky stars for now—and read the result off with bulging eyes, expecting a resounding zero, when—“Jesus,” Tony said, surging out of his chair, startling Laika underneath him. “What the fuck?”

“Stark?” Fury began, rising slowly, tension in his shoulders. “What is it?”

Ignoring him, Tony switched to an infrared view, already rattling off orders, _scan, scan, scan everything_ , but J.A.R.V.I.S. entreated: “Sir, without power, I am limited to the suit—”

Growling in dismay and fury at his own lack of foresight, Tony blurted out, “We’ve got forty-eight hostiles on grounds, and I have no idea where they are.”

“Forty- _eight_ ,” Bruce repeated in an incredulous wheeze, tripping out of his own chair. “How—”

“Not important,” Tony said, even though it was, because far more important was the fact that they had _fifty hostiles on grounds_ , and counting, and no idea where any of them were. He sicced J.A.R.V.I.S. on every security feed on the ground level prior to the outage. He was already moving towards the door as he relayed the results: “Looks like two-to-one human-to-suit ratio, that’s something.” Dizzy with his own anxiety at choosing an interior box as their unintentional battlegrounds, he noted, “This is a terrible place to defend.”

And that was when an Iron Legionnaire kicked the door in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *rubs hands together* Are ya ready, kids? <3
> 
> For the record, it will definitely not take a month for "Downfall, Part 2." <3 Sorry to keep you waiting, and since I have involuntarily given you a month to recuperate between updates, if you are so inclined and it is itching inside of you, I will welcome any comments as it has been a while since I have seen your lovely faces! That delay is totally on me, and I WILL see you very soon in Downfall, Part 2, regardless.
> 
> Stay well and have a wonderful week, champs!


	52. DOWNFALL, PART 2

The reason the Avengers worked well, Tony thought, was _communication_.

When he shouted, “Get down on the fucking ground!” Clint Barton, the only one in his direct line of fire, dropped like a stone. Tony shot off a cold white repulsor blast instantly, knocking the Iron Legionnaire back two stumbling paces. It didn’t _quite_ make it back into the hallway; a jagged clawed hand caught the doorframe and sank in with a noisy crumpling sound, steadying the monster. Then a glowing red hand lifted jaggedly in the darkness and alighted on him.

Lighting up another charge and barking out an urgent call— “Everybody up against the wall, I need a _clean line_ to the door”— Tony knocked off another cold potshot, but the Legionnaire had an iron grip and didn’t stumble this time, holding steady under the hit. He didn’t flinch either when it shot off an answering starburst, scattering red light like a comet across his chest plate, hot enough to set clothing on fire. “J., we taking on water?” he barked, holding his ground and loading up another white charge.

 _Focus up. Stay right here. Right here_.

“Suit integrity is at 74%,” J.A.R.V.I.S. answered calmly, a dizzying, laughable affirmation of what he already knew. _Good as new_ , he thought cheerfully.

“You got your line!” Clint shouted, and Tony didn’t waste another second, using one powerful kick to knock the table over and a second to send it careening forward, smashing into the doorway with a thunderous rattle. With its clawed fingers embedded in the doorframe, the Legionnaire had no time—or incentive, Tony thought grimly—to run. Its chest splintered on impact, its red eyes abruptly going dark as its last red shot arced harmlessly towards the ceiling, bursting like an errant firework.

Letting out a dark heavy breath, Tony announced into the sudden dubious silence, “Okay. Okay.”

The crack of a gun made him jerk, even as the shot pinged harmlessly off his mask. He ducked, but not before a second hit bulls-eyed over his right eye, knocking out the right field optics system. _Too close, too close_. Half-blind and cursing colorfully at his luck, Tony turned to favor his right side, letting his left side lead, a one-eyed bandit in the darkness as Clint leaned carefully around the table, cracking off two, three more shots, followed by a heavy _thud_. “Got ‘em,” he announced grimly, ducking down and breathing noisily in the darkness. “Stark, you—”

“Fine,” Tony barked, still chanting, _God-fucking-dammit_ in his head as he scanned the room. “Just nicked the helmet.” He jolted at a hand on his arm, Steve nearly invisible in the darkness and silent as ever across the floor, one hand to his mouth, finger held up in a universal gesture: _shh_. Frowning in incomprehension, Tony felt the lightbulb go off as Steve held up one and then two fingers, tapping the second finger pointedly with his opposite hand. Nodding once, Tony made a point of adding loudly, “We’re all clear.”

“All clear,” echoed Clint gruffly, bless his heart, even as he watched Steve slink noiselessly past him, smoothing a wicked-looking knife out of its sheath into his right hand. Tony flicked a glance over to Natasha in the far corner, one hand on her sleeve and its electrical charges, the other on Laika’s collar, Bruce huddled nearby, looking ashen even in the night-vision view, and Fury, one hand against the wall, the other on his own gun, not upraised, just ready to draw it if he needed to. _Smart man_ , he thought, and jerked involuntarily at a noisy wet gargle, followed by a limp thud.

He called out involuntarily, “Steve?”

There was no response. Just as he was about to ask again, a shadow leaped nimbly back over the barrier, ducking around the Iron Legionnaire like it wasn’t there. Evidently no worse for wear, Steve crouched across from Clint, knife decidedly less shiny as he ran the flat edge across the knee of his tact suit once, clearing off a streak of opaque liquid. He held up a closed fist briefly, informatively. Tony, crouched and nearly suffocating in the silence, drew in a sharp breath and nearly tumbled forward in relief, even though he knew, _We gotta move_.

“They know we’re here,” Clint said, when Steve said nothing, when Tony found himself unable to speak. “We can’t hold this for long.”

“Then let’s go,” Fury advised, his voice calm, implacable, despite everything.

Bruce wheezed, “I can’t.” Tony looked over at him sharply, saw him digging his hands into the floor, trembling from head to heel. The panic and terror in his eyes was plain. “I—I can’t.”

“Bruce,” Natasha warned, her voice toneless, even as Bruce’s back rippled, arched. But he didn’t transform. He just shook like a leaf in a hurricane, and then collapsed inward.

Flattening himself to the floor, pressing his forehead on the ground and wrapping his arms around it, he entreated, “I can’t do this.”

Heart beating fast in his chest, knowing that he was risking his best suit if, by some goddamned curse, Bruce hulked out on him, Tony nevertheless eased across the room, knee-walking in the Mark XI, wrapping an iron arm around him hard. “Hey,” he said, voice metallic but earnest. “ _Hey_. Listen to me.” Bruce let out a soft noise, a cut-off whine, as panicked as a fox caught in a bear trap. “You’re Bruce Banner.” Bruce went still under his arm, as if it was the last thing he had expected to hear, not the rallying, _You got this, come on, get the fuck up, we need you, we need you right now_. Tony let the words sink in, let the weight of his Iron arm sink in, the promise inherent, as he said again, “ _You’re Bruce Banner_.” And slowly, the mussed-up head of hair lifted, wide eyes fixed on him, looking at him like he was promising a death sentence and salvation, and he looked back with one glowing white-blue eye and both human ones beneath it, piercing the darkness and insisting, “And we’re the Avengers. There is _nothing_ we can’t do. Nothing.”

Bruce stared at him, jaw hanging slightly open, before he shut it with a nod, reaching up to rub his face with both hands. “The tokamak,” he said suddenly, dropping them, looking alarmed, “the tokamak, Tony, they got to the—”

“I know.” Tony’s voice was tense; he pulled Bruce to his feet, more forcefully than he intended, but aside from a wobble, Bruce didn’t seem fazed. He looked at Tony rapturously. “I know. And I’m flying blind without it. Can’t lock this place down without—”

The clicking sound reached Tony first, steady and sharp, like rain pinging off a tin roof. Clint, still crouched by the door, didn’t seem to notice, crouched alertly but not anxiously, while Steve said nothing, utterly still. The clicking sound remained distant, but after nearly ten seconds, there was a soft _creeeee_ of a door sliding open. And then it grew decidedly louder. _Click. Click. Click_. 

Natasha sounded the alarm: “What’s—”

Tony already knew: “Incoming.” He let go of Bruce and shoved him back to the floor, ordering with incongruous calm, “Stay down.” Clint tensed abruptly, cottoning on, but Steve still didn’t move until, with Clint’s hand giving his knee a firm shake, he finally looked up, movement slow, not quite responsive. Loping towards them at a low angle, Tony grabbed Clint by the shoulder, careful not to break bone beneath his metal hand, and ordered, “We can’t hold this position.”

“No,” agreed Clint, speaking almost subsonically, the wince barely hidden on his face as Tony eased up on his shoulder carefully. “What’s our move?”

The clicks were growing louder. He looked over at Fury. “Still got your portable basement?”

Fury’s one-eye gleamed. “Comes in handy,” he rumbled, letting go of the gun and slipping the baton out of his jacket. “Not a lot of charge left.”

“Don’t need much. Think you can cut it?” He pointed at the ground near his feet.

In response, Fury pointed the baton downward, and blue light spilled across the dark room like a sunburst. Safe behind the suit and its automatic optic dimmers, Tony wasn’t blinded by the flash, but it was clear that only Natasha and Fury were prepared for the sudden shift, preemptively shutting their eyes—Bruce, Clint, and Steve didn’t have the same warning and were left covering their eyes with their hands or squeezing them shut belatedly. Tony watched in a mixture of amusement and relief as Fury and Laika disappeared, then Natasha nearly throwing a blinded Bruce down the hole, and gave Clint a firm shake, the latter asking, “Where are you?”

Clint gripped his metal wrist, nowhere near hard enough to bend, not even hard enough to _hold_ it as he wrenched it away. A bolt of red shot into the space, splashing across the backwall, before the next hit scattered across the flame, illuminating its pinned brethren in blood-red chiaroscuro. 

“Shit,” Clint cursed, and Tony straightened enough behind the table to knock off a white shot at the Legionnaire at the end of the hallway, at the _Legionnaires_ at the end of the hallway, at least three of them crowding into the confined space, a tangle of sharp claws and clanging steel as they fired bolts of red at their foxhole. “Stark? Where are you?” Clint grabbed at him again, latching onto his shoulder-plate. Tony jerked involuntarily, missing his next shot and ducking underneath the return fire out of reflex than necessity. 

The ensuing wave of heat didn’t let up, and above the strange, rounded whine of each bolt, like skipping stones on thin ice, he could hear them advancing, clicking and clawing and crashing into each other. He wondered if their human counterparts were trembling out of sight, ready to shoot as soon as he knocked their pet monsters out of the way, if they’d take his other eye out and leave him truly in the dark, and the thought was more horrifying than motivating, paralyzing him for a moment.

And then it all seemed clearer, as, without warning, Natasha Romanoff, without a scrap of armor on her, shouldered next to him and asserted very calmly, “Get up.”

He couldn’t move for a moment, and the heat was growing, he couldn’t believe she wasn’t feeling it, but then he noticed the sweat dappled on her skin, the monochrome flush on Clint’s face, and knew that they _were_ feeling it, the adrenaline and agony. Suddenly the fear on Clint’s face evaporated, replaced by rigid surety as she clasped his hand instead and signed something against it, quick and sure. He shook his head, but she just ordered, loudly, “ _Now_ ,” and then counted out, “ _Three two one_ ,” and leaped upright, and Tony yelped and followed her, almost entirely on reflex, putting his back to the advancing wall of monsters.

Without missing a beat, she shoved her gun underneath his left armpit and fired at the approaching Legionnaires, using him like a human shield. He heard a heavy thud, felt the heat against his back, ached at once to turn around and to stand perfectly still and not die, he couldn’t die if he didn’t turn around, except they’d slice his spinal cord if he gave them the _chance_ , and he couldn’t let it happen. Then he heard another thud, another suit down, followed by a terrible sound, grating metal and gnashing claws, and Natasha ordered, “Turn, _turn_.”

He did, seamlessly spinning on his heel as she slipped out of his hold, ducking aside, standing behind the dead Iron Legionnaire as he lifted both hands and fired, crumpling the sole survivor, already tangled helplessly on its latest companion, maybe six feet away, claws dug deep into its metal skin. But that wasn’t the problem, Tony realized, as he saw the humans in the distant darkness at last moving forward, unable to move past the living suit still obstructing the hallway, still straining upright and writhing, lethal killing claws on one hand decidedly available.

Ignoring the suit, he fired up the gauntlets and knocked off six shots, peeling off at least three of them, the remaining three retreating the way they came.

 _Shit_ , he thought, turning towards Natasha as she hauled on his wrist, _hard_ , the screaming suit still bashing at its dead brother, trying futilely to finish its sole objective and impeding its human handlers from advancing closer.

He didn’t ask _Where’s Clint? Where’s Steve?_ as, with barely a breath between the last body crumpling in the hall and his feet skidding as his stomach dropped and he landed neatly on the floor, ten feet below, he found himself in an entirely different scene, a pristine room with a window. _With a window_.

Wanting to sob in relief, he found his relief punishingly short-lived as, with a thunderous impact, the door cracked at the far side of the room. It didn’t matter—and he realized why as Natasha, still half-leading, half-hauling on his wrist, ignoring a deep burn in the floor, ignoring the _window_ , wide open and begging to be used, hauled him towards the door, splintering, and then the jagged hole where the wall met the floor, a narrow jagged opening just big enough for him in his suit to slide belly-first after her. 

He skidded halfway through it, then yelped in alarm as powerful hands yanked him the rest of the way forward, thrashing like a caught fish, desperately to break free, to get a hand up to fire. His right hand throbbed red hot as he smashed it against the floor, and the pain silenced him, suffocating him. His panic dissipated long enough to let him watch Clint and Bruce finish dragging a heavy cabinet in front of the hole in the wall and Steve finish hauling him into the room, holding him firmly around the chest. 

They weren’t a moment too soon: there was a loud splintering noise next door, followed by loud skittering noises and more of those godawful clicking noises, and then, “Shit—they fucking bolted,” and more commands, more quick footsteps moving away. He heard clawing, he heard clashing, and he felt every hair on the back of his neck stand up, certain they were about to be discovered, and he thought, _Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck_ , as he gripped the arm around his chest with his own metal hand, the unbroken one, hard enough to cripple or maim, but he was careful, and Steve didn’t make a sound, and the tact suit held strong.

After a long beat, Steve crawled out from under him, dragging him to his feet. Switching off the night-vision, Tony took in the room—rattled, grim, and silent, but dauntless. He held up his left hand in an OK symbol, then pointedly held the same hand to his lips, an equally pointed _Be quiet_. Nobody contested it, keenly aware of Iron Legionnaires next door, prowling around like discontented metal raptors.

Two-to-one human-to-suit ratio—forty-eight invaders and counting at the time of the outage. With eight human and metal casualties upstairs, and at least two metal monsters accounted for on the other side of the door, that left just thirty-eight hostiles unaccounted for, maybe twelve of them metal. A hysterical little noise tried to bubble out of Tony’s mouth, but he followed his own orders and crushed it down.

The group they’d encountered thus far was just a scouting squad, he surmised, already walking over to the door, heart high in his throat as he twisted the handle slowly. The multipurpose room they’d found themselves in wasn’t exactly equipped for war: with the exception of daylight streaming in through the windows, it wasn’t any better than the enclosed conference room as a theatre of war. Even with the infrared scanner assuring him that there were only four hostiles immediately above him and six below, including two suits downstairs and one suit upstairs— _twelve accounted for; eight dead; thirty unknown_ —he still had to swallow hard to make himself open the door.

The hallway was clear. Nodding, Tony turned back, then held up a hand in a clear _Stop_ signal.

At once, Steve stepped forward, and Laika limped ahead, pausing only when Fury caught her collar again. Tony didn’t stop Steve, merely looked him over once pointedly. _You with me?_

In response, he unsheathed the knife—and there was definitely blood on it now, he noticed grimly—and then pocketed it, looking Tony right in the eye. _Always_.

Looking back at the room, silently, Tony began to shut the door slowly, trying to communicate, _We’re coming back_. He could feel Bruce tense, but Clint seemed vaguely resigned, jaw set as he looked at them. Fury’s expression was unreadable. Natasha indicated her wrist, and its full series of charges.

As soon as the door slid shut, Steve loped off, long silent strides carrying him towards the staircase with great economy of space. Tony watched for a moment, momentarily entranced at not only how fast but how _quiet_ he was, before zipping after him, using the gentlest of propulsion power, careful not to burn too hot, too _loudly_.

It almost didn’t matter—the two Legionnaires were making a hell of a ruckus in the room next door, fighting each other—but they were careful anyway. When Steve eased the door to the stairwell open, Tony became painfully aware of sixteen warm bodies on the lower floors, sentinels and moving actors, guarding the lobby and slowly advancing upwards, taking the high ground the long way without any electrical power. And if he could _see_ sixteen points of active light, his hope that there were only about fifty hostiles was quickly evaporating.

 _Bringing the party to me_ , he thought grimly, wondering how long Pierce had known they were back in New York, if he’d granted them a false sense of security or if he’d struck as soon as he’d figured it out. Focusing up, he floated after Steve, again watching as, with even more excruciating care, Steve eased the next level door open, one hand sliding the carving knife out in nearly the same motion.

Captain America, the Butcher, he thought in a flash of grim humor, using the night-vision to illuminate the darkened hallway in astonishing clarity. The suit was still fighting, and he was aware that at least one poor bastard had gotten too close to it and was on the ground clutching their leg, bleeding profusely. They had one hand on the wall for balance and had clearly hauled themselves as far from the suit as they could manage. Tony watched in numb wonder as Steve, completely uncamouflaged but for his dark uniform, strode silently across the hallway, closing in, the other agent nowhere in sight. It was the Legionnaire, still wrestling with its companion, that sensed a warm body and alighted suddenly on him, lifting a red hand, and the agent jerked hopefully towards him, anticipating backup, _aid_.

Tony shot the suit with a white bolt, and the agent picked up his gun in a hand that trembled badly, and Steve ducked in and slotted the knife home in the agent’s chest. The gun dropped, unfired, and the agent let out a noise that was half agony and half disbelief, little animal cries as they reached for Steve’s arm, not to displace the knife—already, Tony noted numbly, spirited away—but to hold it, blood pouring from the wound.

Already gouged from the leg, the agent didn’t have the strength to make a final argument, but gripped Steve’s arm for a feeble moment, then collapsed with a soft trampled sound, and twitched, shuddered, and died.

The suit fired another shot, and Tony wasn’t paying attention, wasn’t looking at it at all. It wasn’t meant for him, anyway. 

Steve fell back with the force of the blow, and the noise of the impact startled the second fox from his hiding hole, preceding gunfire, alarmingly loud in the silence. _Where is it, where is it?_ Tony thought desperately, switching to an infrared view and discharging a lethally hot burst at the crouched agent behind their door, watching dispassionately as they, too, keeled over limply, gunfire ceasing. He exhaled sharply, breathing in shortly, trying to stabilize. His breaths came so tightly and quickly that he felt a burst of cool fresh air as J.A.R.V.I.S. kicked up the suit’s oxygen saturation.

Not making the same mistake twice, clear-headed with fresh oxygen flushing through his lungs, Tony took a harmless red shot to the chest and fired off a powerful blue burst at the suit, crumpling it forward forever.

Scanning the rest of the floor briefly for life signs, he satisfied himself that it was empty and turned around, looking at Steve, lying on his back on the ground. For a moment, he experienced a terror so sharp it was like a knife in his own chest. But then, with a thin, mangled sound of his own, Steve Rogers planted a hand on the floor, and with wretched effort, dragged himself upright, shaking visibly.

To watch him was to lose all hope, Tony thought, heart deflating, all sense of victory spiraling down a drain, so desperately sure they could and would and _must_ win, yet Steve’s face was crumpled in agony, one hand hovering over his chest like he dared not touch it, the other planted on the floor, mouth gaping open as he, too, tried to catch his breath. Tony didn’t understand, but he crashed forward, not caring if he made a noise of it, as Steve crumpled onto his side, face twisted into a mortal grimace.

“C’mon, buddy,” he cajoled, desperate, earnest, detached from all feeling as he took the still bloody knife and set it out of the way so Steve wouldn’t fall onto it, gathering Steve’s shoulders under both hands, ignoring the sharp pain in his right, allowing the suit to bear the weight. “C’mon, Rogers. Can’t stop now.” He dragged him upright, and Steve hunched forward, curling into him like he was the rack of a medieval mind, and Tony’s hope deflated. 

“C’mon,” he pleaded a third time, not daring to give him even a little shake. “I need you. Please. I need you.” And it was the truth, he realized, a shaking beginning in his own hands that he tried hard to stifle, sliding his left arm around Steve’s shoulders to give his right hand a break altogether, encouraging him to lean on him. Bracingly, he said, “We got this.

“We’re okay,” he promised, even though Steve barely walked, dragging his feet, not making a sound but barely breathing, either. “C’mon, Steve. C’mon.” He felt the weight on his shoulders ease as Steve got his feet under him again, shuffling steps that were better, so much _better_ than nothing. “That’s my man,” he encouraged. “We got this.”

The march downstairs was agony, not only because it was slow—and Tony refused, absolutely, to leave Steve anywhere, not when he could not be sure he would not slip away, in every sense of the word, never to be found again—but because he was so aware that the danger was below, and they were moving _towards_ it, and he wanted so badly to hold onto Steve, to make sure he was okay, but as soon as they neared the door, Steve took a ragged breath and moved away from him, and moved under his own power, mouth still slightly agape.

“We clear?” Clint asked Tony immediately, gaze flicking pointedly to Steve and then staying there. He frowned. “Rogers?”

“We’re clear,” Tony started, but then Steve leaned to one side and vomited up an impressive volume of blood and Tony had to amend, _We are very not clear_.

Amazingly, he didn’t go down, just let out a miserable cough, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, and husked out in agreement, “We’re clear.”

 _Then_ he went down.

“Fuck,” Clint said summarily, looking at Tony in abject horror, like he couldn’t believe it, even as Tony focused on curling his arms around Steve, catching him with a grunt and lifting him into his arms as quickly as he could, right hand stinging so badly it was like holding a live wire. “What the fucking—”

“ _We-don’t-have-time_ ,” Tony reminded stoutly, and that was the truth. Noise of the Iron Legionnaires next door notwithstanding, they had, what, _minutes_ before reinforcements arrived? Feeling churlish and terrified in equal measure, he ordered, “Everybody up, c’mon. Move. Or get left behind.”

Steve groaned softly against his chest. It was almost a plea. _Don’t hurt them_.

 _You know I wouldn’t_ , Tony wanted to remind, his mind a vacuum of calm despite the clashing of misfiring titans on the other side of the wall.

. o .

Barricaded in the penthouse, Tony allowed himself a chance to freak out. Quietly.

“We have no power,” he illuminated, speaking in an undertone, pacing across the floor, “we have no reinforcements, we have no lockdown protocols, and Cap is—”

“Bleeding,” Bruce hushed, and that cut off his tirade very quickly. It wasn’t the word—the word alone would have made him snap, _Of course he’s bleeding, you goddamn idiot_ —but the tone that made him look over where Bruce had unzipped Steve’s jacket, revealing deep purple bruising splashed across his chest. “God, Tony.” He looked up, his expression ashen. “This is bad. Look, you can see—”

And Tony looked at Steve, lying limply on the bed, and promptly regretted it because he _could_ , in fact, see the distortion on Steve’s chest where blood had obviously pooled where it wasn’t supposed to. He swallowed, mouth suddenly very dry. Everything in his head sank into a mist of black static noise, a terrible white noise that pleaded with him, abruptly and emphatically, to surrender. To do anything and everything it took to keep Steve _alive_.

“How long has this been going on?” Bruce was still talking to him, voice passing through a dense mental curtain. He didn’t wait for Tony to answer, feeling Steve’s wrist for a pulse and frowning before pressing two fingers against his neck instead. Tony’s own heart thundered hard in his chest in defiance, like he could insist on Steve’s wellness if he was adamant enough. Bruce seemed lost in his own world. 

Clint, standing sentinel just inside the door, said nothing, jaw locked in dire resignation. Natasha walked the hall. Fury put a steadying hand on Tony’s shoulder, and he realized he had listed forward, metal forehead pressed against the wall.

“Tony?” Bruce pressed quietly. Tony screwed his eyes shut, safely hidden behind the mask. “What happened?” His voice was pleading. “God, what happened?”

“I don’t know,” Tony snapped, tense and short, leaning away from the wall, pulling away from Fury’s support almost drunkenly. “He was fine.” _He was not fine_. He hadn’t been _fine_ since he’d taken off in a dark alley after the assassin sent to kill him in the first place. He’d been visibly at odds when he’d stormed the beaches of Normandy to help free Tony from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s lair, and he’d barely survived their flight to Iowa, never mind whatever acid he’d been tripping on. Their second encounter with the assassin on the outskirts of Sioux Falls had just been the cherry on top for the series of minor catastrophes that Steve Rogers could not afford.

And then there was the Iron Legionnaire and its fiery red bolt, and him without a shield to raise against it.

Determined to set the situation aright _now_ , to act before it was too _late_ , Tony prodded desperately, “What do we do?”

Bruce stared at him, incredulity plain on his face, like he’d asked how to part the fucking _Red Sea_. He blinked once, twice, almost comically, slowly wringing his hands. “I—I don’t know,” he echoed at last, measuring out each word like a cup of brown sugar, needing it neat. “There’s—he’s—” Helplessly, he added, “This is bad. This is very bad.”

Crumpling a metal hand into a fist, seething as red hot pain slipped through it, Tony entreated, “What do we _do?_ ”

“I don’t _know_ ,” Bruce repeated, voice harried and thin. Quickly, he admitted, “He’s lost too much blood, Tony, I don’t know if there’s a trauma team on the planet equipped to handle this.”

Tony’s heart was beating very, very loudly in his ears. Stepping forward, nearly batting Bruce away with a metal hand and restraining himself at the last moment—knowing he would inflict far more damage than he would ever intend on a man only trying to be his friend—he instead reached forward and crumpled Steve’s limp body against his metal chest. “He’s Captain America,” he hissed, and it was meant to be surer, and firmer, and more hopeful, but it came out pathetic, and terrible, and dreading everything he was accepting as _real_. “He can’t die.” 

Bruce stared up at him like he was crazy or out of his mind or too far gone to embrace reality. Like he couldn’t accept that it was a body in his arms. He shuddered at the thought, clutching Steve, _Steve_ , to his chest, ignoring every traitorous animal impulse that said the ghostly pale, purple-splotched body wasn’t alive anymore.

_Still breathing. Still alive._

_C’mon. Don’t die on me_.

Gulping air in ugly, desperate swallows, too close to feeling things, he managed, “What do we do?”

No one said a word. Desperate, despairing, he shouted it, but his voice broke: “What do we _do_?”

Finally, Fury stated, “We need more _time_.”

Tony pivoted slowly on his heel, gawking at him. A cold chill washed down his spine, the message behind his words punishingly clear. Still, he had to say it: “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying,” Fury continued quietly, determinedly, “that maybe our best choice is to make more.”

Tony shook his head. And shook it again. Aloud, he negated forcefully, “No.” Then: “Fuck no.” For good measure: “ _Fuck you_.” Gathering Steve defensively to his chest, he added, “God, no. I’d rather—” But he swallowed, because he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.

There was no world he would _rather_ live in without Steve.

Breathing harshly through his mouth, he began, “We’ll—” And trailed off, because it wasn’t an option, not really, every grain of sand trickling away from them, sifting helplessly through Tony’s clenched hands. He let out a despairing noise. “Hospital,” he insisted. “ _Doctors_ ,” he enunciated rebukingly. “People who are _trained_ at fixing things. _That_ is what we need, not _Frankenstein_.”

Bruce paled, but even he seemed—less appalled than he _should_ be as he said, “It could—it could work.”

“What could work?” Clint said, bluntly, a dare as much as a question. Tony backed away from them all, still holding onto Steve, painfully aware that their barricade to the stairs wouldn’t last long, that they’d be found soon enough, that they were goners. _Get it to-fucking-gether_.

“Cryonics,” Fury said, never one to beat around the bush.

Tony audibly snarled. “Fuck you,” he repeated, still holding onto Steve, cradling him like he could keep him safe, and he could, he _could_ , not one person in that room could hope to overpower or outwit him. No one even tried. “No. We’re not going to—all we need are a couple blood transfusions and a Band-Aid, good as new.”

They looked at him like he was nuts. It was Bruce who finally vocalized reality: “Tony. Maybe he’s right.”

Yearning to put up a gauntleted hand and threaten him properly, Tony settled for a sneer behind the mask as he snapped, “I don’t wanna hear it.” And that much was completely true. “We’re blowing this popsicle stand, to _hell_ with Pierce, and—”

“Those suits,” Fury went on thoughtfully, and Tony scowled thunderously at him. “They’re completely sealed. Right?”

“They would be, if _your_ science experiments didn’t punch holes in them,” Tony told him bluntly, vibrating with impatience. “Come the fuck on. We don’t have time for this.” Throwing it back in their faces, he moved towards the door, adding bluntly, “I’m of a mind to leave you all here.”

There was crushing silence for a moment. 

And then, limping in through the door after patrolling with Natasha, tail wagging slowly, Laika came over to him. His anger deflated like a popped balloon. He realized in a sort of secondary that he could not carry both her _and_ Steve. But he had no desire to leave them all to a slow and terrible evisceration, besides. Swallowing hard, he sat down on the bed, both Iron arms wrapped around Steve, as Laika, her foreleg still in a cast, limped closer and looked up at him, clear eyes far too bright. “Hi,” he told her, amazed that of all the people he was apologizing to, it was his dog. “I’m sorry. I love you.” She sniffed at Steve’s side hopefully, then set her chin on the bed next to Tony’s knee. “I know,” he said, hating the burn of emotion in his throat as she looked up at him, trusting him completely to fix it. “I know.”

He looked up at the others, holding onto Steve tightly— _too tightly, don’t break him_ —and finally exhaled harshly. “What,” he began, and then, slowly, “ _why_?”

Fury just said, “He survived once.” A beat. “It won’t be for long.” And that made a bitter chuckle bubble out of Tony’s chest, made the most terrible thought haze at the forefront of his mind: _If we lose, he’ll never wake up_.

Inside his own suit, invisible to the others, Tony began to shiver uncontrollably, but his voice was almost steady as he said at last, “Okay.”

. o .

They were almost too late.

By the time they made their way back down to the lab, Tony couldn’t tell on his own if Steve was still breathing. Only the suit reassured him that his heart was beating thirty times a minute. He was crashing, Tony knew, and no amount of defibrillation could save him from the life-taking blood bleeding out into his chest, leaking from cuts he could not see, bleeds he could not hope to staunch.

Yearning to be back on the front line so he could clear the way quickly, Tony was forced to stand by, stand _back_ , unable to let go of Steve, not even for a moment. Clint and Natasha ran point while Bruce stayed close to his side, helping whenever he could. Fury trailed after them with Laika, her leash firmly in hand. While they moved forward efficiently and without triggering a second wave, it was still slow going—very, _very_ slow-going. 

So slow, in fact, that Tony was feeling lightheaded by the time he stood in front of the lab door, breathing shallowly in unceasing anticipation, in dire _need_ for this to work and shame that he was agreeing to it at all. _This is wrong_ , he thought, even as stood in front of the dark door, and waited, and waited, and waited for it to open. Finally, he croaked out the code, and in his helmet, J.A.R.V.I.S. answered gently, “I’m afraid I cannot remotely activate the doors without external power, sir.”

That was fine, Tony thought, seeing red as he was forced, at last, to do the unthinkable, and lay Steve on the ground. Then he grasped the hinge of the door in an Iron gauntlet, and with an almighty effort, pried it back, metal steaming and groaning and finally relenting, admitting them into the lab itself.

The lab was empty, tomblike, pharaonic, and no pleasant blue lights came on to greet him. He was punishingly aware of the body he had not burned and the suit he had killed lying in, to his night-vision visor, plain sight. _Forever isn’t very long_ , he thought, gathering Steve in his arms and stepping across the threshold. “External suit light, 15 lumens,” he instructed.

It was like a flashlight clicking on as the suit projected a gentle, benevolent light into the space. He raised the light to thirty lumens and proceeded deeper into the lair, disclaiming aloud, “I hate this.” It was a whisper.

Clint hung back for a moment, as did Bruce, but Fury followed him into the heart of darkness. Natasha held Laika’s leash and guarded the door. Finally, Clint joined them, admitting uneasily, “Not a fan, myself.”

“You’re ruining this,” Tony whispered, a jab, a desperate barb, because he couldn’t bear the thought that he was going along with it voluntarily, cradling Steve’s limp, lifeless body— _still alive, still alive, you have to **stay alive**_ —to his metal chest. “I can’t ever come back here.”

“I’m saving _him_ ,” Fury retorted, blunt but not caustic. Calmly, he asked, “Where are the suits?”

Swallowing hard, Tony said, “North wall. You can slide the panel manually. It’s the second one from the right. Mark Seven suit. Roman Numerals on the suitcase. Give me a concentrated beam, left eye, 100 lumens,” Tony instructed, and like a lighthouse swept the room, ignoring the gruesome in favor of the benign, alighting on the tall cabinets he wanted. “That one.”

Fury advanced. Clint, standing beside him, said quietly, “Stark.” He didn’t say anything more. But the way he sounded then, the desperation and despair, was something Tony knew.

He said nothing, warning Fury, “It’s heavy—grab the handle, it pulls out, just like a suitcase.” The suit obliged him. It rolled across the floor benignly. “Easy,” he muttered, even knowing that it was indestructible. “Easy.” The damaged Mark VII, 1.0, and its predecessor, the even more well-worn Mark VI, seemed to watch like Egyptian burial dressers.

Things moved quickly, then—they laid Steve on a table, Clint compassionately spreading a black storage cloth on it first so he didn’t have to touch cold metal, not that it mattered anymore. With clumsy fingers locked in their Iron casing, Tony finally instructed, “Kick the suitcase over, put it on, and then step out of it.” He didn’t care who did it, and he wasn’t entirely surprised when, as the silence drew on and Fury did not take the offering, Clint finally gave the case a firm kick and pressed the center panel, summoning the Mark VII.

Suit up time was right around ten seconds, a dismally slow record compared to his later models. Yet it felt too soon, too soon before he was saying, “Okay, J., release Mark VII, back to front,” and, just like that, with a soft sigh of shifting bridges and moving parts, the back of the suit unfolded with the care of a chauffeur opening a limousine door, and Clint stepped backwards out of it. He only wobbled slightly. In the semi-illuminated darkness, his heavily shadowed expression was hard to read. His tone said it all:

“Wow.”

“Run remote, Mark VII 2.0, Alpha, Beta, Gamma scans,” Tony instructed, waiting the excruciatingly long seconds for J.A.R.V.I.S. to oblige, needing it to be perfect, one metal hand clutching Steve’s arm fervently.

“Scanning complete,” J.A.R.V.I.S. reported. “No anomalies detected. Battery power is at 94%.”

That gave him about six days of climate-controlled suit time to play around with. _More than enough time_ , he dared to think grimly. “Thanks, J.,” he said.

Prying the metal bracelets off the interior of the Mark VII suit with the Mark XI gauntlets on was impossible, never mind with a broken hand. Thankfully, instructing Fury to do as much proved productive, and as he said, “Just put those on him,” his heart began to beat rapidly, realizing exactly what he was about to do. “Be careful.”

Fury was, but he did hint strongly, “Hurry up, Stark,” and that was enough for Tony to take a hint.

He said, “Activate homing beacon for the Mark VII, 2.0, please.” He didn’t know why he tacked on the _please_ , except that he desperately needed to.

Grateful beyond words that it was J.A.R.V.I.S. at the wheel, that he had connected the suits manually to the J.A.R.V.I.S. program so they could talk to each other even without external power to link them electronically via computer, he watched as the Mark VII walked forward and reached for the body on the table. “Wait,” he barked suddenly, afraid, terribly afraid even though it was _his_ suit, and he trusted his suits more than his own life, scrambling forward, hauling Steve to his armored chest once again desperately. “Wait,” he entreated, even though J.A.R.V.I.S. had frozen the suit instantly, making no move to come closer.

Clint said again, “Stark,” and Tony shut his eyes, bowing his head over Steve, metal forehead grazing prickly golden hair for a moment.

 _I’ve got you_ , he promised. _I’ve got you_.

“Help me,” he whispered, and somehow, someway, Clint understood, as Tony slid his right arm out from under Steve’s legs, easing them to the floor so he didn’t fall there, stepping back when he was done. Holding him up with one metal arm wrapped around his torso, his other arm bracing him around the waist gently, Tony instructed, “Okay. Hone.”

The suit came forward, and this time, it wasn’t like it was coming to kill or devour, but a benevolent meeting of creation and creator: Tony passed Steve off to it carefully, never more than it could handle, the world’s most unusual handshake that ended with two Iron Men standing off. One dead. One alive.

 _He’s not dead_.

He wasn’t, Tony affirmed, even though the secondary vitals were ghastly. “Okay,” he breathed. “Okay.” Then, gulping one last mouthful of air, he reached out, clutched the Iron shoulder, and instructed, “Initiate Mark VII vacuum seal.” There was a soft, robotic hiss, and J.A.R.V.I.S. confirmed:

“Mark VII vacuum seal confirmed.”

A hand on the shoulder was suddenly far too removed. Huddling closer, nearly hugging the still suit, Tony whispered, “Initiate cryostasis procedure X50.”

“Initiating cryostasis procedure X50,” J.A.R.V.I.S. confirmed, and he heard and saw it, the suit cooling down, the mask fogging, Steve’s vitals changing with it.

It roiled in his stomach, the guilt of it, the shame of it, the awareness that Fury and Clint were both there, both _watching_ , both knowing that he had made it in the first place.

As soon as Coulson had told him that they had found Captain America frozen in ice, he had had to know—mathematically, scientifically— _how_ he could survive. How any person could possibly be frozen solid and then revived at a later day, intact. The answer was, _They couldn’t_ , but with the super-soldier serum coursing through one’s veins, anything was possible. Among its many other charms, it was a natural antifreeze—and that was the key.

Cryonics wasn’t about _cold_ , it wasn’t even about the right preservation fluid, it was about the heart and the lifegiving blood coursing through it, and what would happen if that blood crystallized and punctured every vein in the body, leading to catastrophic damage.

It had taken dozens of models to get it right. Watching it happen in a controlled environment, the key to stopping time on a biological level, brought him no sense of satisfaction.

 _Please stop bleeding_ , he entreated desperately, holding onto the still suit. _Please. Please_.

It wasn’t quick—three minutes later and the suit was still cooling, still freezing—but it was, he dared to believe, _working_.

If they could stop the bleed, if they could stop the beating heart from _bleeding out_ , then they stood a chance.

Finally, finally, nine minutes later, J.A.R.V.I.S. announced, “Cryostasis complete.”

Tony could not pry himself off the suit for several long, numb seconds, yearning to stay there, to die there, to pretend it was all over so he did not have to face whatever came next, _alone_.

 _Don’t leave me_.

He had to let go. He had to let go.

It was impossible to let go. 

Finally, with a raggedy inhale, he stepped back, and let go anyway.

“Secondary vitals are deeply depressed,” J.A.R.V.I.S. warned, from a long way away, “but holding steady.

. o .

“Pick a number, one through ten,” Tony instructed the rest of his team. A grim smile, devoid of all emotion, touched his lips as he added, “Can’t be one, seven, or eight.”

. o .

“You know, when this all is over, I’m keeping this,” Clint teased across the open channel, the sort of grimdark humor that might have made Tony smile on a better day as the man walked ahead in his silver Mark II, tall and austere, lending an air of nobility to their enterprise and dauntlessness to their success. He sounded like an astronaut, the suit’s auditory system loudly projecting his breathing along with his speech. “It suits me.”

“Don’t be stupid, Barton,” Natasha responded, her voice as calm as if she was beside them even though she walked nearly twenty paces ahead, bedecked in the scarred Mark VI despite Tony’s warnings that it was a bit trashed. _I like an underdog_ , she had said. “You break it, you buy it.”

“That’s only what, 900 mil?” Clint retorted with mock alarm.

“Try one-point-two billion,” Tony corrected automatically, his voice crystal clear on the open line.

“ _Per_ suit?” Bruce asked heavily, his voice cutting in abruptly as he stalled next to Tony, looking at him in wonder and what he knew to be horror under the Mark III’s familiar red and gold mask. He shook his head in alarm. “My God.”

“Titanium alloy doesn’t mint itself,” Tony informed halfheartedly, numb to the banter, immune to the extraordinary circumstances that he had found himself in. _Iron Legionnaires—meet the armored Avengers_. It was a work-in-progress name—Iron Avengers just seemed deeply self-aggrandizing—but at least the concept seemed solid.

Fury alone had held back, refusing a suit. Tony had contented himself with the fact that it was only the world’s luckiest shot that would pose a great danger to him with four Iron Men in front. 

Of course, his own legs were still exposed, making excellent Achilles’ heels. He’d had to warn them about the eye-plates—goddamn needle-in-haystacks shots, but one-in-a-million shots happened, as his partially complete field-of-view testified—but he hoped that the added armor was just what they needed, a table they could push with them as they moved steadily into the darkness.

Tony reached out compulsively to grip the Mark VII’s unmoving wrist as the suit hovered to the side and slightly behind him, just for a moment, just to assure himself it was _there_. He squeezed it even though it did not respond to him, yearning to hear Steve’s contribution, a drawling, _Don’t get too comfortable_ , or maybe a rallying, _There’s nothing Pierce has that we don’t have in abundance_.

Without him to fill the void, Tony could only promise, _I’m coming for you, Alexander_.

Letting go of the unresponsive suit, Tony ordered, “All stop” and they did, even though he waltzed ahead, carrying on towards the stairwell, silent and lethal. “Barton, you cover my right flank. If you need something, ask—J. will help with navigation, aim, and ammo. Use charges as sparingly as you can. That goes for everybody—Banner, you’re guarding the Director. These suits are bulletproof and heat-resistant up to 500 degrees Kelvin—they’re safer than a space shuttle. Don’t let anybody get in a clean shot. And Romanoff?” He waited until she met his gaze, knowing that only one of his own eyes was lit up but his voice was emphatic and clear across the line as he said, as firmly as he could, “Don’t let anything happen to him.”

“What about you?” Clint asked, already sidling up to him, even giving a little burst of thrust that, wobbling though it did, brought him in line quickly. _Thanks, J._ Tony thought, heart tightening in his chest in gratitude, very aware that none of the suits would be fast-operable without his handy-dandy multi-talented sidekick.

“Me?” Tony said, stepping sideways so Natasha could trade places with him, aware of Bruce shuffling back so he could plant himself more emphatically in front of the Director, who wordlessly crouched and picked up Laika, like it was a natural consequence of their actions. _Not an every-man-for-themselves kind of guy, are you?_ he mused. Or maybe the tough old bird just had a soft spot for dogs. Either way, he owed him an awful lot of the best BLTs in town and maybe even a few favors. _Might even invite you to movie night. Assuming we survive_.

It was a delirious, almost joyful thought, even as he stepped up to the stairwell, planting a black-chrome hand against it, visible in the night-vision as crystal-clear—with the waning afternoon light, it was easier to see in vivid green, and he’d instructed J. to shift them all to appropriate views depending on the lighting and at their vocal discretion—and finally rumbled, “I’m gonna nail every last one of them to the fucking wall.”

. o .

Whatever S.H.I.E.L.D. expected with its hostile takeover of the Avengers Tower, the first phase proceeded with flying colors.

Shortly after 1100 hours, the planted sentry reported that the Hulk had been successfully neutralized, triggering the attack.

The first cloaked agents were on the ground in less than two minutes, slipping underneath the radar after spending three days in an adjacent building waiting for the signal to move in, on pain of death for disloyalty. They had no Legionnaires with them, and their primary objective was to clear the way for the main wave coming after them.

They had nine minutes before the first wave arrived—ample time for the four-person recon team to move in and mask real-time security footage with manual covers. They also secured access to the basement level and, per instructions, convened belowground, where the first real wave joined them, complete with the first three Legionnaires.

For the recon team, it was their first encounter with the Legionnaires up close and personal, and the universal feeling was one of unease and mistrust.

With no time to acquaint themselves, the embiggened group proceeded to the lowest level and the tokamak and began the lengthy and time-consuming process of manually disabling the overlapping layers of security, like cutting wires in a bomb. They were exceedingly careful not to trip any sound-offs, working at a snail’s pace, and were allotted the added grace that no security guards approached or inhibited them. On schedule, at 1139 hours, they dislocated the first main arterial cooling magnet manually. 

Instantly, security alarms that would have been activated did not sound off.

They proceeded to systematically dislocate three additional cooling magnets, also per instructions, to ensure that the system could not be easily repaired. And then, unexpectedly, one of the Legionnaires lurched forward and began clawing at the overheating chamber. Unrepelled by gunfire or orders to stand down, the Legionnaire’s claws punctured the metal chamber and toxic lithium gas flooded the space.

Had they been discovered, two agents would have been found with severed throats; a third had been dragged off, leaving a bloody trail in its wake. Six others lay, apparently unharmed but like canaries in a coal mine, stone-cold dead on the floor.

The surviving metal monsters did not know to rendezvous back in the lobby, remaining in the lowest chamber like the Minotaur of lore, but the second wave was already coming, and upon seeing the open doors and darkened lobby, they proceeded with the plan, albeit under the assumption that the first wave had been felled.

They broke into three groups—the scout team proceeded towards the summit with all haste, aware that they had snipers ready to pick off any window-jumpers who might try to escape the building; the bulky ladder team proceeded towards the stairwell in a more stately manner, shoring up for a real fight; and the skeletal underground team proceeded back towards the lair to determine what had become of the first reconnaissance team.

The Legionnaires were nearly ten times faster than a human on flat terrain, but they moved slowly on stairs, clambering laboriously. It was nearly 1200 hours exactly before they reached the first infrared bodies overhead. The human scouts began fanning out below, allowing the metal monsters to proceed, unprotected, to flush out their targets.

The monsters couldn’t die, and whatever damage they could do would be beneficial in the long run. Their objective was simple: take down the Avengers.

With the Hulk out of play and Stark and Rogers deemed the biggest threats—Barton and Romanoff were human, and without his metal skin, Stark was human, too; the Director was a nonissue, as far as the invasive force was concerned—it was all about wearing them down and pinning them down. The Legionnaires were superb at both, and not one scout, upon seeing the monsters arch up to their full imperious height with clawed hands extended and red eyes ablaze (the only thing keeping their own jugulars in their throats the dog tags they wore, metal chips that warned, _Friend_ ), believed that they were even mortal. At absolute zenith, a Legionnaire was, from the edge of its heel to its extended clawed fingertip, nearly twelve feet long, roughly the same size as a polar bear.

They’d seen Stark waltzing around the halls of S.H.I.E.L.D. in Iron Man. As impressive as he was—and he _was_ impressive, and many of them could admit, privately, that they _envied_ him, possessed a certain unquenchable _longing_ to stand ten feet tall, if only in spirit—the long, inhumanly unfurling, grasping nature of the Legionnaires, the way they hunched and then _loomed_ , was staggering.

No one wanted to be near one for long, and it was no surprise that the scouts abandoned their silver companions as soon as possible, almost but not _quite_ against orders. Pierce had wanted them to work together, but mostly, he had wanted them to use the suits. And the suits were clearly the stars of the show.

No mortal man was going to take down _Captain America_. The thought alone would have been enough to send half the team packing. But with an army of lethal clones, nobody even hesitated to storm the gates. Nobody could fight a clone and _win_. Emboldened by the idea, the scout team, marginal as it was, proceeded with great verve northward, even though not one of them would outlive the 1400 hours mark.

Meanwhile, downstairs, the situation was even worse: the reports from the basement were conflicting and alarming, with the first team leader dissolving into insanity and permanent silence in short array. Unsure what sort of grisly scene could trigger such a startling reaction from a man known to disembowel his enemies, the newly-promoted second team leader declined to investigate, choosing to seal off the area instead, abandoning seven unfortunate bastards into the Minotaur’s lair, replete with four hungry Iron Legionnaires.

With a starting force of one-thirty thinned to less than one-twenty before a single shot had been fired, the mission may have seemed cursed, and that was _before_ the silence from the scouting team even registered. Nevertheless, with fifty Legionnaires—and a fourth wave of humans at the ready, an invisible wall cordoning off the perimeter, strategically set up in nearby buildings, ready to tag and bag any escapees, it was hardly the sort of situation that left one despairing of victory. All they had to do was eliminate five humans and one superhuman. 

They had _fifty_ Legionnaires and sixty humans besides, stationed not only in the stairwell but elsewhere throughout the building, preventing an easy escape.

There was no way to lose. Victory was assured.

And then there was a deep _whump_ , like a gunshot but louder and still more muted, and the ground _shook_ , and the fifty or so humans not currently fighting the Avengers for their lives had a moment to wonder in concert, _What the fucking hell?_

Tony Stark, spiritedly arm- and leg-wrestling three Iron Legionnaires from three directions at once, knew what, and he thought, _Oh shit_.

And then, ignited by an errant burst of red fire from a directionless Legionnaire far belowground, a massive pooling bed of lithium ignited with enough force to blow out the entire basement, incinerating every human and metal beast in its path, and creating a perilous vacuum besides.

Then the whole house of cards came tumbling down, slowly at first, and then faster, boom, boom, boom.

 ** _Boom_**.


End file.
